Ebay Scams

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:10 pm

It never fails to amaze me how creative internet con artists have become. Not to mention how gullable the public is in general.

I've an item listed on Ebay Motors so I get an email from this guy:
Dear sixonetonoffun,

Hello, I just place a look on your item and i am intrested in immediate
purcharse of this item,but before i proceed on this transaction i will
like to ask some question as follow. 1.Do you accept a cashier check?
2.What is the final asking prize you can go at last? 3.Can will proceed
of ebay if i can add $200 plus the buy it now?(there is a reason for
that). Let me know if we can work things out and i can go ahead and raise
the check .I will be awaiting your email soonest. Regards
..................dan.

So seeing as it wasn't through ebay and was from an anonymous relay service I of course am suspiscious to say the least. I reply:
Dan,
Can you explain further just what it is you are asking of me?
Especially what prevents you from using Buy it Now?

Peter

His reply:
Hello

Thanks for your email in which you accepted the offer to sell
your car to my client .I am particularly impressed by the prompt
attention accorded the matter considering the need for us to conclude the deal
in a timely manner. I will want to restate clearly that i am an auto
agent based in Nigeria with long years of auto expirience and arrays of
clients across the west African coasts. Towards concluding the entire
deal and issuance of the cashiers check there is a slight problem which i
believe should not be a problem if i can get my the message clearly to
you. I want to let you know if you will be able to treat this
accordingly and will want you to ask questions if you are not clear with my
explanations.
In order to conclude the deal as soon as possible my client has
said he will only raise a cashiers check for the sales of the vehicle and the entire shipping charges of the item from the united states to
Africa. This means the cashiers check that will be sent to you will
include the the money for the sales of yourcar, my commission as an agent
and the shippers fees for organising a home pick up service fromyour
base down to Africa its new origin.You did not need to worry as my
shipping company will come to pick the item up from your base for shippment to
Cotonou ?Benin Republic in Africa .The reason for this shippment method
is as a result of the age difference of the item which does not make it
directly shippable into Nigeria where the item will be shipped to .
What i want to clarify is that will you be able to send the shipping
charges that i will pay to my shipping company and my commision back to
me through western union money transfer method as soon as the check is
cashed and you deduct the money for the sales of your vehicle?please your
answer on this will enable me to issue a directive to my client on the
need to raise the check and send it to you with out any further delay .
If you agree to assist in this capacity , Will you please send your
contact postal address where my client should send the check and telephone
numbers so that i will instruct my client to send the check by express
priority mail to you.In addition to this i will want you to give me a
call on this number to further show your willingness to sell the item for
my client and enable me address any questions that you might have
dan.
futher information. pls, i believe we can work things out by doing this, if you are agreed with all these kindly send your full detail of your address and your name to me, so that I can sent for my client to issue you the check. I want yout to truthworthy. pls.

stay bless.

dan

As much fun and amusing as it is to see what these guys are up to its also frightening how many people actually fall for this crap! On the Ebay forums you see tons of people who have been scammed out of $4000.00 and more! The scam is they send you a phony "Cashier's Check" and ask you to immediately send the shipping agent his cut and the money for the shipping costs. You send them a western union bank transferee they take your money and head for the hills before your bank calls and informs you that the "Cashiers Check" is a fraud!

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:21 pm

You might get a good laugh from this site, then

I found an article about this site at the Toronto Star while searching around. My brother liked it so much he is even attempting to try it. The website is 419eater dot com. It's a site about people who are trying to scam the scammers. It's funny going through some of the stories Laughing

Just thought you might get a good laugh.

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:30 pm

LMAO! yeah I see he wanted to include the phone number scam too! Like I said they are creative as can be if they can't get ya one way they'll settle for the next best one!

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:41 am

Oh man you mean I'm not going to get that millions and millions of dollars from that poor South African guy that needs my help?!? Rolling Eyes

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:14 am

All I managed to do was get his email account closed. I didn't bother with ebay they never seem to respond in a timely manner.

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 11:51 am

That's better then letting it go, you probably just saved a few people Smile

Client Joined: Apr 10, 2004 Posts: 649 Location: UK

There seems to be more scams around now than ever.

There's one circulating at the moment to AOL users in the UK, well probably not because I reported it to AOL, and they've set up a site almost identical to AOL's support pages, which must have taken them ages.

Even the links at the bottom of the page direct you to AOL links.

The main part of the page is a form to fill in all your bank details and AOL registration details.

But the email they send directing you there lets them down in one sentence, the rest is pretty convincing.

Quote:

If the information we've gotten for you..

Ooops lol

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:17 pm

Yeh they've been cloning various aol pages for a long time now they often use them to get people pass words and credit card numbers ect...

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:21 pm

I always post them up on my forum, because my members aren't very computer/internet wise, and they could easily be taken in by them.

I'd not seen the AOL one before tho, it was very good. lol

I usually get the Nigerian ones where they have millions in an account and want your bank details so they can get the money out of the country rofl

I wonder if they (the Nigerians) ever get them from the US or UK

The UK's not known for wealth though so it probably wouldnt work lol

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:31 pm

One thing with the aol ones it usually starts with an email thats forged to appear as an official aol email. The trick they use is to create a really long email address so only the aol part shows.
instakiss@aolcom.............members@tripod.com
Something like that. Which of course has a link to an official appearing aol website hosted on some free server like tripod usually. Asking the person to enter their credit info or password to confirm their identity.

The trick they use is to actually download the aol pages doctor them up with the new submission form and away they go! Its kind of a vicious circle. If they get your password they use it to spam thousands more aoler's if they hit pay dirt and get your credit card they clean it out asap.

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:59 pm

yea someone I know had their email used to spam other people.

I think they have a problem spelling mine and I change my password almost every day so thats a relief.

I dont like AOL as it seems easy for people to hack into, even if you do run a firewall. And AOL tell people not to use a firewall as there's one bundled with AOL. huh? I've never seen it lol

Once we get an always on connection here where I live I wont be using them anymore, it's only because AOL are the only ISP available in the UK that are truely unlimited time. All the other sneaky toads limit you to 250 hours a month in the small print and if you go over that you're stuck or else charged at high rates per minute.

Even now we're getting Broadband in the UK, some suppliers are limiting people to either the amount of time you can use it or the amount of files you can upload/download per month.

I'm afraid it's a big racket over here to make money out of people. So AOL are about the best really as far as value for money goes.