THIS GUY tried to scam me - western union scam

Dvader

Dvader

Well-known member
I've been trying to sell my JVC production monitor and this guy emails me and is interested. He wants to pay by money order and have me western union the shipping costs overnight to some shipping company. I agree and wait for the money order.

It arrived this morning and when I opened the UPS letter, instead of a money order for $330 there are 3 money orders for $915 each.

I emailed the guy asking why he would ever send me this much instead of the agreed price, he replied with this:

Hello,
Thanks for getting back. I understand what you mean really. You know what, I was not around when the payment sent out, so I had to get it directly to you.
All you have to do right now is, please do get your $330.00 out of it,plus take an extra $50 for the mistake, and get the rest set to the representative whom will be dealing with the pickup. You would be sending it via wastern union right now. I guess you know we have been on this transaction for the while, and you know its a little long. The monitor should be picked up by next tommorrow if you get the money sent out right away.
Get $2365.00 sent to:
Ridnour Richard
111 S Second St
Keokuk, IA 52632.
He would be taking care of the pikup. I hope to get the information at which you would be sending the payment via western union, and all charges on me. I await the information right away.Thank.


This guy can't even spell!

The scam is that this guy sends FAKE money orders out with excess money hoping that someone will cash them at their bank, and send him the extra money. Later your bank will discover they money orders are fake and will charge YOU all the money.

This was pretty easy to see, considering he sent $2500 extra, that something wasn't right. However, I also just recently sold my DVX, if someone had decided to send me $1700 in fake money orders, I might have fallen victim. Beware of fake money orders and cashier checks, make sure you wait for them to clear even if your bank has already given you the cash.
 
The EXACT same scam was offered to my son (in college) for a drum set he was selling on eBay. He sensed something was wrong (good for him!) and called me to see what I thought. Same scam as Kubrick71 - even including the bad spelling. I think that's part of the scam - to try and convince someone that they are dealing with an uneducated person who might be more suseptible to being ripped off - when, in fact, they are setting us up for the rip off. Great point about waiting for Money Orders and Cashier's Cheques to clear. I talked to the bank about this (as a result of this offer to my son and wondering how to handle it). The guy at the bank said that NOTHING is fool proof or totally secure. And if something goes wrong (i.e. funds aren't collectible on a Money Order or check - even months later), the bank would reverse those funds from your account. I asked the guy (at Wells Fargo) how he would handle it. He said, "Cash only." Even wiring money into your account is risky, since the bad guys now have your account #. He also suggested opening up an account just for that one transaction. Then, once the funds are deposited, closing the account out. Pretty scary! Thank you, Kubrick71, for reminding us all to be very careful!!
 
this scam is offered to everyone selling anything ever, its basically spam, no big deal really.
 
if anyone here feels uncomfortable you can always send the cashiers check or money order to me. i'll deposit it into my bank account and send you the cash back.:evil:
 
It's sad that these days if I try to sell something online, I often get more inquiries from scammers than legitimate buyers.
 
Considering that the majority if Ebay scams are done through Western Union I'm surprised the company doesn't try to deal with it. if I owned a company whose services were being exploited to that degree by scam artists I would do something.

I believe there's even a page on Ebay that warns people NOT to use Western Union because it is so prone to being exploited. For me it's PayPal all the way.

mor10
 
More importantly, this guy is giving the lovely town of Keokuk, IA a bad name. My wife is from a farm outside the city and I, frankly, won't stand for this. Also, if anyone wants to open a TGI Fridays or Applebee's there with me let me know -- the place is dying for tchotchke-rific dining.

Also, I can't remember the last time I did a transaction that wasn't through Paypal.
 
FilmMakerr said:
How can WE spot a fake m/o?

can you post up pics of the fake?
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it's can be hard to spot a fake because so many businesses and banks offer them and they all look different. postal money orders have features such as a watermark and a security strip.

if it is issued from a bank, you can take it to the bank it was issued from. they'll be able to verify if it is real or fake. if you take it to your bank, you can get them to scan it with their micr reader. most fakes won't scan.
 
ugafan said:
if you take it to your bank, you can get them to scan it with their micr reader. most fakes won't scan.
Click to expand...

Actually, they do scan. That's the problem. Most of the scams I've seen in the last couple of years are actually drawn on real accounts from real banks (they just don't own the account). They won't have the bank's real phone number on the check (if there's a phone number at all), but if you go to this site,
http://www.gregthatcher.com/Financial/Default.aspx
you can enter the routing number and get a legit phone number for the bank it's drawn on so that you can verify funds. Most of the time they'll tell you that the account has been recently closed for fraudulent activity.
 
Grug said:
That was the best 45 minutes I've wasted on the internet in a long time. Long time...
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yes that was a good one.

anyways, these scams specifically are what i was addressing, they are so blatent that its just mail i ignore. Im looking at one at this very moment actually.
 
example recieved 5 seconds ago:

"Hello Shawn,

Good day, thanks for the mail and its content is well noted,so in regards to your mail I wil like to make you an offer of $2952 for the shipping and handling cost to Western Africa, Nigeria. i am buying it for my daughther who is in school there and i hope she will like it very much, also let me know if this item is well presentable as a birthday gift and if you are ok with my offer,kindly get back to me with your full names and address so that payment can be sent through AlertPay Postal Money Order and i can assure you that payment will be sent as soon as i hear from you. Hope to read from you soon.

Regards"

hrmm. think its a scam?
 
Cynic821 said:
hrmm. think its a scam?
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you're too cynical. just last week i sold over $14,000 in equipment to a guy in nigeria and he was very prompt about sending me a check. i'm actually about to leave for the bank to go cash it..
 
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