Several days ago I mentioned to this group that I had a Weber valve grinding machine for sale. Later I listed it in Craigslist. Today I got the following e-mail: Hello , Thanks for your mail, I really do appreciate it,Well Everything sounds well and I guess that the {Weber valve grinding machine } is in excellent condition and I am okay with the price $300 and I will be willing to offer you $350 for it. So, I would want you to keep all other buyer's off and also delete the advert from the website. Concerning payment my client will issue you a USPS Money Order, since I don't have the funds in your currency. For convenient and easy transaction, I have a liable shipping agent who'd be responsible for the Pick up as soon as you receive payment for the {Weber valve grinding machine } .I will therefore need the following information of yours to forward my client before he sends the Money Order. NAME IN FULL........ ADDRESS IN FULL.... CITY... STATE... COUNTRY.......... ZIPCODE....... CELL/OFFICE/HOME PHONE NUMBER. I await your urgent response. Thanks! Logan Thomas..
This has the smell of a scam, what do you guys think? Engineman
Did you send him an email previous to this? What is he talking about?
Irregular capitalization, grammar, and punctuation suggests that English is not the native language of the writer. Nearly all such scams originate overseas, with a disproportionate number coming from Nigeria. Check the headers on his email and see where it came from. I'll bet it's Nigeria, or, if not there, Romania. Any takers?
Q: Why is the name of the machine enclosed in { } ? A: The writer is filling in blanks in a form.
Why is he offering you more than your asking price?
He doesn't want you to actually sell it, because then he can't scam you.
"My client"?
If he doesn't have "funds in your currency" -- which is evidently United States dollars, since you're posting from an AOL account, and your IP address appears to put you in Huntington Beach CA -- how is he buying a United States Postal Service money order? In my experience, it is not possible to buy those with any currency other than U.S. dollars.
The vagueness of the term "your currency" is also indicative of a form letter, and is particularly suspect when "your currency" happens to be the most widely accepted and most widely available currency on the planet.
Awkard syntax again indicative of a non-native speaker and therefore probable overseas communication -- and therefore probable scam.
Reference to third parties in the transaction is another indicator of a probable scam.
Irregular capitalization, non-native speaker, etc.
Fill-in-the-blank again...
Irregular grammar and capitalization, non-native speaker, etc.
So far, he hasn't asked for anything that he couldn't get from Google or a local phone directory.
If you want to have some fun with him, give him your name, address, etc. You will receive a money order in the mail, probably for A LOT more than the $300 asking price, or the $350 he's already "offered". This will be accompanied by a request to deduct your selling price plus a small fee, and wire-transfer the remainder to somewhere else.
DO NOT attempt to cash or deposit it. It WILL BE counterfeit. If it's a USPS money order, notify the postal inspector in the nearest city; otherwise, turn it in to your local police.
And under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you even think about wiring any funds anywhere.
For more information (and some entertaining reading), visit the Internet Scams page at BustedUpCowGirl.com
Ok... I'm a rube, I guess. I don't see anything in there that you couldn't get from a phone book, and the guy is offering a "bonus" to hold the tool, and take it off the market. I've done that before.
In addition, he's offering to pay you in advance of pickup, which gives you the chance to make sure the money order is valid.
So, what's the scam -- so long as you don't give him other vital information like an SSN? You'd supply the same info to an ebay buyer...
Ijust got another one. This one is even more suspicious than the firet. Engineman
Hello, I just place a look on your ITEM and i am interested in immediate purchase of this ITEM ,but before i proceed on this transaction i will like to ask somequestionas follow 1.Do you accept a(Money Order/CASHIER'S CHECK) as a mode of payment.2.What is the final asking prize you can go at last?.3.,Will you let our shipping company to come to your house for the pick up of the ITEM? cos we don't want you to worry yourself about the shipping of the ITEM .4.You are to send your NAME,ADDRESS,TEL # to mail out the payment today.
5.Will you be able to send the excess fund back to the shipping company same day you recieve and cash the MONEY ORDER/CASHIER'S CHECK for the arrangement of the ITEM for them to pick it up from your house down to my client I WILL LIKE YOU TO GET BACK TO ME WITH ANY OTHER PICS OF THIS ITEM OK..REGARDS
The scam, in all probability, is that the payment will be for FAR more than the asking price -- accompanied by a request to wire-transfer the excess somewhere. The money order turns out to be bogus.
"your ITEM" -- these idiots can't even fill in a form properly.
This one makes it quite explicit that they're going to want you to wire money somewhere. The fact that they want it the same day is a red flag the size of Montana: they want to be long gone before you find out the money order or cashier's check they sent is a fake.
Its a scam. So have some fun at his expense Id reply and say your terms of business are CASH only. Youve at least 10 other interested buyers. youve told them all the 1st one to send cash by courier in a sealed envelope gets it. And the buyer collects . As simple as that. that will shut him up. I get lots of scam letters from nigeria. i always reply as follow
YOU HAVE BEEN AUTOMATICALLY IDENTIFIED BY MY SOFTWARE AS A 419 SCAMMER
Payment may be made with a counterfeit check of sorts, so you end up giving away the machine. You find out days later, when the check is returned. You'll take the loss------not the bank.
Of course, the check they send will be bogus. A gentleman whom I believe we both know has amused himself by playing along for a ways and has quite a collection of rather large checks, his favorite being one drawn on a bank in "Chigaco..."
Perhaps. But more likely, it will take the form I described (requesting a wire-transfer refund of an overpayment) -- the scammers don't want the machine, they want money.
That's certainly true, regardless of which form the fraud takes.
If it's a postal money order, all it takes is a trip to the P.O., with a simple statement, "I think this might be bogus, because...... Will you check it out, please, and if it's valid, I'd like to cash it."
Let's hope so, anyway -- it doesn't work like that when you present a cashier's check at a bank. USPS money orders are a little harder to counterfeit than cashier's checks, and I'll bet that the scammers won't actually try. More likely, they'll send some other type of money order.
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:10:53 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" quickly quoth:
Note the keywords "client" and "money order" along with the strange sentence structure. Now go read the fun at (oh, what the hell's her name?) Ah, here it is:
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:12:38 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" quickly quoth:
If someone does actually show up with a money order, it's after banking hours on a weekend and his license plate is missing. Note the gloves on the guy's hands, too. Dead giveaway.
-- Adults are obsolete children. --Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel, 1904-1991)
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