Nigerian scams continuing...

[85MH325]

I know you've probably all heard about the various Nigerian scams that have gone on, and I remember a thread about them a while back, but I thought I'd reiterate two that I've had recently...

I personally got an email a couple of months ago from someone purporting to be the attorney of some dead person who's estate was unable to locate any next of kin. There were several million dollars in the estate, and this honorable attorney only needed several thousand dollars to 'close' the estate. Of course, the 'attorney' would have shared half of this fortune with me if only I'd sent him the money he needed to close it out, blah blah blah.

The other one is more common and probably concerns the membership of these Forums. I'm working a case on this right now. You advertise a vehicle for sale on the internet, and the scammer emails and is willing to pay full price, and will send a cashier's check. The check arrives and in this case is for $16,000 for a $900 pickup truck. He explains that he lives off-shore (usually Europe) and that his "people" will be by to pick the item (trailer, pickup, car, or whatever) soon. He explains that because of an accounting mixup, your check includes extra money that was actually intended to pay someone else, but to expedite payment on your item, he sent it anyway... and would you mind just sending the extra back in a cashier's check.

Of course, the $16,000 cashier's check is counterfeit, and if you sent back $15,100 in a real one, your checking account would be dinged for the $15,100 for real against the phoney $16k check.

Believe it or not, this scam is STILL going strong, and there have been many folks duped for thousands of their hard-earned and saved dollars with this.

Just a caution that if you plan to sell, do a little background investigating on your buyer and make sure both they and their financial instruments are legitimate. The vast majority of folks who buy things are still honest, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

Roger

[john hd]

roger

thanks for the heads up!

on a similar note i recieved a e mail from someone requesting my citibank card number and pin # for "verification".

needless to say i did not respond, except for the e mail to the FBI!

they are slick and use an official looking link in the email to get you to respond.

i'd like it better if they ended up in some small town jail in iowa!

resist this b***h!

john

[HP9K]

We have had a couple of features on the local news here in the Atlanta area about a similar scam. With today's printers, it appears that folks can make some pretty convincing cashier's checks.

What typically happens is you offer a car, boat or RV for sale and some nice folks come by to check it out. They look it over, may go away and call back a couple of days later, they test drive it and finally make an offer. You accept and they agree to come by with a cashier's check for payment. You get the check, sign over the title and off they go. A couple of days later you get a call from you bank telling you the check you deposited is no good - it's a fake.

This happened to my boss' neighbor - she sold a fairly new Acura to this "nice couple" that came back three times to test drive the car that they were buying for their college bound daughter. Each time they arrived in a late model Mercedes. When the check bounced because it was fake, she called the police and they were able to track the culprits down. Here's where it gets interesting - the culprits claimed that they had paid for the car with cash and the woman selling the car had created this bogus check on her own and was obviously trying to rip them off. It was the two of them against her, and they have the properly signed title and a bill of sale. Last I heard it was winding through the courts and the woman was still out an Acura.

According to the media reports I saw, the best way to protect yourself is to either deal in cash, or ask where the person banks and meet them at the bank and watch the teller prepare the cashier's check yourself.

[wahoonc]

CASH! or wire transfer to my bank from your bank and when it is verified I will release the title. Only problem with CASH$ is if the transaction is over $10K you have a s**t load of paper work to fill out explaining to the Feds what you were doing with that much Cash.

Aaron

[85MH325]

Even cash deals can go bad. Counterfeiters are pretty good these days.

You can always accept the check and give a bill of sale, but don't transfer the title until the check clears. The bill of sale can be conditional on the check clearing.

You can also give a receipt/bill of sale and hold both the merchandise and the title until the check clears.

The bottom line is to do your homework. Investigate your buyer until you're satisfied. As I said before, fortunately the vast majority of buyers are honest folks like us; but if you don't feel right about the deal, don't make it!

Roger

[Pick]

I have gotten a ton of those Nigerian scam emails. After reading a story about how a guy lead a bunch of these crooks on a wild goose chase for nothing, just for fun, I thought I would try it myself.

I have sent several replies back to the sending email address and never got a second email.

I read an article a while back that if you reply to the vast majority of spam emails you get, you will never get a reply.

You couldn't get that 3 extra inches if you wanted it.

[biggerbadbrad]

So don’t give it up until you either have the money in your hands or at least some sort of recourse if things go wrong. I’ll never forget the time when my dad sold one of his cars. At that time, a man’s word and a handshake was all that was needed. But my father never trusted anyone so he decided to confirm the person’s place of residence and keep an extra set of keys, just in case. Sure enough the man’s check bounced so my dad got a ride from a friend to retrieve his former car. He found the car and simply drove it home. Well, you can imagine how happy he was when he later opened the trunk and discovered 4 brand new Michelins. Even the cash receipt for the tires was in the glove compartment. Anyway, the car was reported stolen and the police eventually figured out what my dad had done and so paid him a visit. But, whenever the ownership of an item is questionable, the police have their hands tied and the person in “possession” of the item(s) (my dad) is almost always allowed to hold the item(s) until the courts decide otherwise. Perhaps this fellow really wasn’t out to con anyone though because he eventually did pay cash for the car. But my dad raised the price by $500. After all, the car now came with 4 brand new tires.

bbb

[Cat]

Roger,

Yeppers...that scam has been floating around, especially at holiday time, for about 3 years.

I sell and buy things on the internet---most through eBay....& I use 'PAY PAL". Refunds for defective items, are a little slow, but since the seller wants to use Pay Pal again, they have to refund your money. The only prob...is having to pay the shipping again,,,but that's just the 'name of that tune'.

Motto: Never send or give anyone money you don't know...and even then, I'd be skeptical. (I trust some I don't know more than some I do.

[Sneakinup]

I have an antique roll top desk for sale with a web page to promote it. This weekend I got the "letter" telling me that this gentleman has a client that wants the desk and will be sending me a check for $4000 more than I am asking for the desk. All I need to do is send him the difference.

I responded..."Nice try scum. CASH ONLY!"

Well, it made me feel good.

[smily]

I had the exact same solicitation but the guy said he was in london with some name from middle east.

Crack heads!

Who do these people think they are dealing with?

I too forwarded to local authority who in turn take it to the feds.

These folks will burn in Hell!!!!!!!!!
Smily

[53flyingcloud]

smiley & all
Here's a link to a website that has all the info on these scams, as well as other scumbag dealings..
Hoaxbusters

Might want to bookmark it...


ciao
btw, the picture shows where I send all of those emails...lmao

[drboyd]

www.scamorama.com

You'll love it, but set aside some time to go through the site. Be careful about reading with your mouth full - some are so funny you'll be spraying coffee out your nose at the monitor!

-Don

[Rog0525]

How lucky can a guy get? I'm packing my bags!
Here's the message:

"From : Lotto Manager . South African
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In view of this, your U.S ($2,100,000.00 (Two Million, One Hundred United States Dollars) would be released to you by the bank immediately he commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds as soon as you contact us.

All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web-site through computer draw system and extracted from over (100,000,00) companies and individual emails address. The lottery programe took place to promote south africa (2010 world cup award).

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[Stefrobrts]

I know this is an old thread, but I'm dealing with what I think is a scam being worked on a friend right now. My aunt died three years ago, and I handled her estate. It took over a year to work everything out, settle everything, and close it. In that time I pretty well got to know everything that she had going on. She had three life insurance policys, one paid out to her best friend in town, one paid out to her best friend in Oklahoma, who she grew up with, and one paid out to me.

Well, here it is three years later, and Betty in Oklahoma starts getting letters that my aunt had another insurance policy, and it's paying out to her. Of course, they need her information to send the check. She refuses to give them any and calls us. I told her I think I would know if there was any other insurance policys, and I've never had one that just up and wanted to send a check, they always need a death certificate as proof and lots of paperwork filled out before they would cut a check. We looked the insurance company up online and couldn't find any mention of them, which seems suspicious.

So this week she gets a check from them for $2k and it has a space on it for her to fill out her address and SS#. She put her address on it (because they already had it or they wouldn't have been able to mail it to her) and doesn't put down her SS# and gives it to the bank, who says it looks legit to them. I would have made a few more calls before I did that, but that's just me. I don't know if they can get account info off a check if it goes through, but I have a feeling it won't get that far.

So we advised her to keep an eye on her accounts and not spend that money until she's sure it's cleared and not a fake check, at least a few weeks. I'm just certain this is a scam of some sort. No body just sends you money without there being more paperwork involved. It ticks me off to see someone scamming an old lady, and using my aunt's memory to do it!

[eubank]

Yeah, I get those every day in my mailbox. (My email addresses are very widely known from my work at the university and in the web business.) What's more interesting is that we've recently received some similar ones in our business email here at the RV park from folks in Africa wanting to "rent accommodations" from us. Bizarre.

Lynn

[Rog0525]

Steph, I am sorry for your misfortune but it sounds like time for family to chip in on the cost of a good probate lawyer. Isn't it sad that there are people who would take advantage of us even after we're gone?

[Stefrobrts]

Oh, it's not the estate, that was all finished and closed out with the help of lawyers two years ago. I think these guys just got her name off of some public records saying she got an insurance payout from my aunt's insurance, and they're using that little bit of publicly available information to try and scam her out of her SS# and account numbers. The scammers are getting smarter, and they're using public records to fool people by showing up with information that makes them sound legit. We've advised her to call the police and talk to them about these guys, but she's an adult and does what she wants. The scammers know that people will take more chances with the lure of money held in front of them. I think it's infuriating!

[Pschoerrn]

Originally Posted by Rog0525

How lucky can a guy get? I'm packing my bags!
Here's the message:

"From : Lotto Manager . South African
2010 World cup lottery online 2006
Lottery Headquarters: 210-211 Universal Building
Parkhaust, Balfour Unit 1440
Johannesburg, South Africa
Batch: ( 18/006/1094/LIPDA/SL.)


CONGRATULATIONS FOR YOUR WINNING:

We happily announce to you the draw of South African...
...to claim a total sum of US$2,100,000.00 (Two million, One Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) in cash credited to file Number (KPC/9030108308/03). This is from a total cash prize of US ($200,000,000.00)shared among the first 200 Hundred and lucky winners in this category world-wide. Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our lottery booklet representative office in South Africa as indicate in the play coupon.

Hey Rog,

congrats!!! We won in the same lottery, but 10 times and now we are heading to our new home here. Hope to welcome you on a neighbouring island. How about an Airsteam Park here??

Bjoern

[Rog0525]

Originally Posted by Pschoerrn

Hey Rog,
congrats!!! We won in the same lottery, but 10 times and now we are heading to our new home here. Hope to welcome you on a neighbouring island. How about an Airsteam Park here??
Bjoern

yes absolutely. I'll meet you on the beach, you will recognize me by the dunb look on my face and my pale Michigan skin.

[codybear]

Talk about scams!..my mom got her bank statement a couple of months ago..turns out this ring of criminals somehow got a hold of her checking account routing number, used a computer to make fake checks, pasting the routing number on it, then used her bank's name and address on the check, and put their own account name and address..apparently this woman wrote several checks worth about #500 (but wisely wrote checks in small amounts here and there, thus allowing them to be cashed by the beauty salon shop)..my mom showed me a photocopy of the statement the bank sent..interestingly, the bank's logo was not copied and pasted...she closed the account, but not before several more checks went through the following month..good thing the bank covers the amout!..apparently there are these rings of thieves in different cities..serves as a lesson to diligently check your monthly statements..she hasn't or probably will never try online banking, although that's not 100 % foolproof..