warning: if an offer is too good to believe...

[loublou]

A quick warning to anyone selling anything.
I was selling an old bike engine and had a really unbelievable offer for it.
They offer you the best price, want to send you more money than the value, usually for 'shipping'. You get a cheque, place it in you bank and they then ask you to forward on the extra money.
The cheque's a fraud, and if you've sent any money you've lost it.
I didn't send any money but it is very easy to get drawn in as you may really want to sell the item you have, as I did, and the offer was so good.
DON'T GET INVOLVED
I spent an afternoon down the cop shop as they thought I was part of the scam and had my flat searched as they were looking for the cheque writing machine!
I've heard of lots of stories of people losing lots of money.
And if you think your bank will help, think again. Not many people know that a bank has the right to claim back money up to SIX MONTHS after a cheque has cleared in your account if it turns out to be fraudulent. So don't trust the 3 working days clearance.
In my experience the scam was connected with Nigeria and the met police call it 'WAFFle' West African forward fee. This is because there are so many of these type of scams originating from there.
I no longer trust any email or contact from there nor anyone using Yahoo email address.
As they say, if it is too good to believe, it is!

 

[AdamW]

Nigeria seems to be the centre of the international scamming industry at the moment, especially due to those 419 scams (the "I'm the son of a deposed dictator and want to give you loadsa money, honest" scams).

 

[loublou]

These are the big scams .....

Nigeria seems to be the centre of the international scamming industry at the moment, especially due to those 419 scams (the "I'm the son of a deposed dictator and want to give you loadsa money, honest" scams).

However the one I was drawn into is your everyday sort of sale, nothing big but they target anyone selling stuff over the internet and work on the greed of the vendor, that they will do and believe anything to get a sale, and even if it is a smallish amount of cash to us, it is a considerable sum for them.

My engine was targeted as it was on the BMW club website for sale. They seemed genuine enough and even set up a 'shipper' to back them up. However they do make mistakes, watch for any description errors, mine mentioned my 'Piano' in an email and that was the first doubt I had.
There is lots of info about this, but very little help after the event. Best not get involved in anything that's too good to be true.

 

[petewood]

Has anyone else ever communicated with a 419 scammer for a laugh? I once got one to send me some money!

 

[swelec]

If you ever get bored of DIY

spend a few hours browsing this website

http://www.419eater.com/forum/

there are some remarkable threads on there - a warning to all to be aware

 

[breezer]

its like most things in life, they rely on peoples greed. you get what you pay for in this world (most of the time)

 

[loublou]

oh yes ....

Has anyone else ever communicated with a 419 scammer for a laugh? I once got one to send me some money!

sounds good to me though the bill may think otherwise!

 

[swelec]

Has anyone else ever communicated with a 419 scammer for a laugh? I once got one to send me some money!

I don't want to sound like a party pooper but if you consider this, please read up on this before you start

It can get ugly if you don't know the pitfalls

Don't do it "for a laugh"


Having said that there are some extremely funny threads on there - especially the hermaphrodite one

 

[securespark]

Here's a funny one. I keep getting e-mails from strange individuals called Sadden P Tartery, Flinched P Trumped and (oddest of all!) Compatible T Succulence. Now there's just one thing bothering me (apart from the fact that I'm dying to know what their middle names are!!!!) and that is: What do these people want?

I know they're not genuine, because they send the e-mail to abbottsimon@****************, and I don't use that nomenclature.

Their mails usually contain just one character or sometimes a graphic gone t*ts-up. One thing's for sure - I won't reply, and hopefully they'll think the account is inactive and go away. But I get the nasty feeling that they are sending out e-mails, hoping for a "you what?" kind of reply, then bombarding the unfortunate individual with scams.

Be wary, folks.

 

[pipme]

A worthy benefit with BTYahoo! mail -- comes with BB @ £26.99 for 2Mb but 15GB limit per month, may not be cheapest, but this is brilliant :-

AddressGuard.
If you're ever worried about giving out your email address on a web site, AddressGuard is for you. Instead of leaving your address open to spam, you can use a disposable email address, while still accessing all your mail in one place.
You can create up to 500 disposable addresses with BT Yahoo! Mail. Use these when you want to give an email address to a site that you suspect might share or sell it. Create several if you shop at different places and want to have a different email address for each store, mailing list, etc. You can view messages sent to each of your disposable addresses in your Inbox or a folder that you designate.
Each disposable address has two parts: a base name and a keyword.
Base name
The base name is the same for all your disposable addresses but it's different from your BT Yahoo! ID. By using this profile, you can keep spammers from guessing your Yahoo! ID and your primary email address.
Keyword
The keyword identifies what you are using the disposable address for. You can use the name of the company to which you are providing the disposable email address, or another word that you will remember.
All disposable email addresses will take the form [email protected]. Remember that the disposable address is a yahoo.co.uk email address. This disguises your btinternet.com address.

Example:
Your BT Yahoo! Email address: [email protected]
Your base name: dairyman88 (so spammers cannot figure out your real email address)
Keyword: Widget Designs (based on the store to which you want to give the address)
Your Disposable Email Address: [email protected]
If Widget Designs shares or sells this disposable email address and it begins receiving spam, you can simply shut down [email protected] without affecting your primary BT Yahoo! Mail address or any of your other disposable addresses.

Simple but effective ...
P

 

[kendor]

What Scam? I've replied to one and made a load of money out of it!
If you are interested in making some, then drop me a line and a cover fee of £100 to.......

 

[loublou]

what scam? you ask.

What Scam? I've replied to one and made a load of money out of it!
If you are interested in making some, then drop me a line and a cover fee of £100 to.......

the one that landed me in the nick for afternoon! You may laugh, and I do occasionally but it's a serious thing as we all sell things on occasions and all really wish that that offer was for real and that we can trust the bank to help us out by providing the service we expect.

However, they may not and you may end up with a stroll round a grimy police cell or worse still a criminal record or, and this is the rub, losing your money.

It makes great TV but not so good real life!

 

[ferdinanddebargos]

What Scam? I've replied to one and made a load of money out of it!
If you are interested in making some, then drop me a line and a cover fee of £100 to.......

Cheque's in the post. How much do I stand to make(lose)? :wink:

 

[kendor]

What Scam? I've replied to one and made a load of money out of it!
If you are interested in making some, then drop me a line and a cover fee of £100 to.......

Cheque's in the post. How much do I stand to make(lose)? :wink:

by next week you'll be a millionaire! btw cashing a cheque will incur a handling charge so please forward another £50 to cover

 

[pipme]

We are all victims of a massive scam anyway ...... the perp being HM Govn ..pouring our dosh down the drain day in day out !