Talkmagic.co.uk

Anonymous · Preferred Member Joined: 20 Apr 2003 Posts: 262

It is important that you know...

If you place an ad, you might receive an email from someone (usually from out of the country) who claims to be interested in the item(s) you are trying to sell. They will offer to send you a money order or cashier’s check for more money than the item you are trying to sell. They will tell you it is money owed tothem and will suggest you send them a money order for the balance after you take out the amount owed to you for the goods plus shipping and a few quid for your troubles.

BEWARE! This is a scam!

The original check they will send you will not be good and by the time it clears and you find out, you may have already sent them the "change" in a money order. Do not fall for this scam! Remember! If the offer sounds too good - it probably is!

Or worse yet (Thanks for this Seige)…

The cheque arrives, and IS bankable. The goods are sent to a Post Office, where the 'Criminal' would collect it.

You wait with baited breath for the cheque to clear, which it does. At this point you innocently ship the goods. HOWEVER... later in the week, you will get a nasty letter from the bank saying the funds have be RE-CLAIMED because the cheque was fraudulent. Apparently, they ARE allowed to do this (due to some international money laundering loophole)

Please use common sense when trying to sell your item! Don't fall for this scam! And don't ever, ever make a deal with someone who wants you to send them "change" or the "difference" in a money order. If it sounds too good to be true - it is!

Blade Master · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:00 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the tip! Rolling Eyes

ace of kev · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:06 pm Post subject:

Thanks.

Who has it happened to?

katrielalex · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:38 pm Post subject:

Another new avatar - the fount of creativity will ne'er cease!

That got that out of my system for a month or so...

Kati

ace of kev · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:24 pm Post subject:

DW · Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:12 pm Post subject:

Yeah, BEWARE!!! I recentley put an add for a guitar i wanted to sell on a couple of sites. Quite soon after i recieved this e-mail and soon after that i recieved another e-mail from a another person along the same lines as this. I'm guessing it was the same person on both occassions. After a few challenging questions from me they both dissapeared. They wouldn't tell me their address or phone number, and i asked 3 times! Just thought you would find it of interest. (notice the bad english).

"Thanks for the mail , the price is okay by me and i am
ready to from you immediately, i am ok with £680,for
the (Rickenbacker 620) and i wantou to delete the ad
from the website, i have a reputable shipper that will
take care of shipping from your end i want to let
you know i have a client in the state that is oweing
me a sum of £5500,i will instruct him to issue you a
certified cashier's cheque on my behalf and as soon
as cheque arrives, you hold out your amount and send
the difference to my shipper for the pick up in your
place, i hope i can trust you for my balance and also
you will be contacting my shipper with all neccesary
formation needed for pickup in your place i.e the
actual weight and exact mension of the (Rickenbacker
620) if this terms are okay by you, do get back to me
with the following details which payment be made out
to you like this
Home Address...
Full Name on cheque...
State...Zipcode...
Country...
Telephone Number... Mobilephone number...
Fax Number... Do get back to me asap with this
details for payment to be made out to you mmediately
Waiting to hearing from you. thanks"

£5500 cheque for a £680 guitar! Pretty dodgy sounding eh?

Dan Very Happy

Mandrake · . Joined: 20 Apr 2003 Posts: 19000 Location: UK (62:AH)

It's easy to see why some folks would fall for this and the crims only need to find one or two mugs every so often to be on easy street. I'd like to think that Magicians would be naturally sceptical 'cos we know a bit about trickery but I suppose even we'd fall for some scams. What a world we live in!

leighton · Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject:

Cyrus · New User Joined: 24 Apr 2007 Posts: 4 Location: AH

It's nice that you reported us about this scam.I really appreciate taht you warned us about it.Now I'm a little bit smarter too now.

magicforfun · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 11:45 am Post subject:

That's the classic 419 scam. There are people that work (for fun) as scambaiters. They play along with the mugu (the scammer) and even try to scam him back. There are several webs on this but you can have a look here: http://www.thescambaiter.com/ There are some moral issues in all this thing and it's up to you to decide what you think about scambaiting.

TheAlkhemist07 · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:38 am Post subject:

Was this sort of thing not describe on The real hustle by Paul wilson just recently?

Magical_Trevor · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 11:14 pm Post subject:

This happened to my girlfrind recently on eBay

She was selling a sony Mobile phone and the buyer clicked 'but-it-now' for £125 and she got an email from 'paypal' saying 'the buyer has sent you a pre-approved payment of £125, you then send the postage number to an email address in the 'paypal' email. THEN you post the item and when the itemis delivered, they clear the money.

Its been tried to me a few times so we knew not to send the item and report it - I would have posted something about it on TM, but never even thought people would try it with magic tricks... its a crazy world we live in

Dan Smile

Hade · Preferred Member Joined: 22 Aug 2006 Posts: 154

There's a lot of it on eBay.
1 Good rule to follow: NEVER SHIP TO NIGERIA. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I've put strict anti-fraud measures into Wizmo to avoid the wide range of scams out there, it certainly pays to be educated on the latest scams.

seige · Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 4:58 pm Post subject:

More advice from Mr Seige...

Another scam lately is the 'items lost in the post' scam.

COUNTLESS people are claiming lost items at the minute... it's costing me a fortune. So much so, I am now paying extra (out of NUMS profits) to have larger items/parcels SIGNED for at the other end.

Yes... I'm cynical... but it's definately happening out there... the motive is that by claiming your item is lost/didn't arrive to the sender, the sender is forced to either re-ship or refund.

(of course, the customer is always right)

Now... a less-than-honest person would be more than happy to receive their item, claim they HAVE NOT, and receive a second item or indeed a cash refund for 'items not received'.

I bring this up because a client of ours (who owns a local courier company) said that they call it the 'Catalogue's scam', where people claim to mail-order catalogues that they've never received things when in reality they have.

I hate to think that NUMS customers would be that dishonest, and I am sure that Royal Mail's admitted backlog of parcels due to recent strikes were to blame... but either way, I am sick and tired of being 'the honest, fair and accomodating trader who puts the customer first'.

Lawrence · Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:07 pm Post subject:

I know all about that mr Seige, i have to process a lot of those claims, if you use Parcel Force I can track them all and see if they have been delievered or not. If you send a lot you could get a contract with PF and claiming for lates/delays/loss/damage is easy as pi!

i had to deal with a few people today who'd sold something over eBay then the recipient had claimed they'd never recieved the item and asked for a refund. My advice, ring parcel force FIRST; you get some muppets who pay out straight away then file a claim with us, dear dear.

but on that note, i now see how stupidly easy it is to actually scam postal services! it's mad! i could earn loads if i was a criminal!