New scam....I think

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 10 Sep 2010 Posts: 2

Has anyone encountered this money order scam?

If not beware...

I replied to an Ad in the local paper for a landscaping job. After contacting the posting party by email, I got a reply telling me that the position had been filled but "family friend" needed some help doing book-keeping.

After emailing the "family friend" I got a reply from a guy saying he was running a quilting business from the UK and he needed someone to receive payments from company clients and then send the payments via WU to him. Evidently it was too much of a hassle for him to pick up the payments himself. He said he would need my name and address, have payments sent to me which I would cash at my local bank, I would keep 10% and wire the rest an address provided by him.

I will admit that I fell for this. I gave up my name and address. Two days later I received two money orders via UPS for $977 each made out to me, along with instructions of where to send the remaining funds. My first tip off was that the recipient was in Malaysia, and the second was that on my way out the door I got a call from a strange number, country: Nigeria. I decided not to deposit the orders at my bank, and instead took them to a local check cashing service because these people don't miss anything, and if anything was sketchy about the orders they would def figure it out.

Of course the money orders were fake. I'm pretty new to scams. Evidently what happens is people deposit the orders in their own bank accounts and then directly wire the money out (the scammer told me to be sure the transaction was done right away because "important business" was pending on arrival). When the money order comes back fraudulent, the account holder is responsible for the money. People can get into deep shit for this. I almost fell for it. I felt pretty fucking stupid no lie.

Again I am new to these 419ers, and I may be way behind everyone else, but if you haven't encountered this one yet watch out.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 6:13 pm

Welcome to eater, geezus. What you describe is a check scam but this time with money orders. As you correctly surmised, the idea is to get you to send them real money while you get stuck holding the bag with a worthless check or, in your case, a worthless money order. It is interesting that this started with an ad in a local paper. Check scams are fairly common but I'm not sure how common that is.

There are folks here that specialize in baiting this type of scammer and pulling fake checks out of circulation. Glad you didn't get burned.

Since the lads have your personal details, cease all correspondence with them.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 6:32 pm

Quote:

I felt pretty fucking stupid no lie.

Please do not feel like that unfortunately there are too many that do fall for it, that's why we do what we do... Laughing

Welcome to Eater, read the stickies, and bait safe, as advised drop all contact with those people

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 19 Aug 2010 Posts: 17

Also have a visit to the sister site scamwarners.com They have some support for people who have been bitten by scams.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:22 pm

Welcome Geezus!

We have seen this before (you'll see more cases over at scamwarners) and we are seeing more and more appearing in local papers.

The reason we are seeing in increase in these ads in local papers is simple. Once upon a time you had to call the paper or stop by the office to place an ad-obviously the scammers couldn't visit the office, and calling uses phone credits (plus the accent adds difficulty). However, more and more of these papers now have websites and allow classifieds to be placed online. That means they are easy access for scammers--and small local papers are less likely to research or question an ad.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:46 pm

Interesting information, Dorothy. With so many people out of work these days, the fact scammers are utilizing the web to publish ads like this makes perfect sense - in a perverted kind of way. I just hate the way these parasites are able to exploit people when they are at their most vulnerable. Evil or Very Mad

As Vampiremerchant said, please don't feel bad, geezus. It would never have occurred to me that scammers are placing ads in local papers for normal jobs like the one you applied for and then running a check scam on the applicants. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:48 pm

I used to bait these guys all the time as a specialty but haven't since I let my box go about 2 years ago now as I didnt work on that part of town anymore and was hard to make the trek out that way.

But also many of the check senders are vics as well sending out on their own dime.

Very rarely did I ever get one from Africa or outside of the US/Canada.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 10 Sep 2010 Posts: 2

I appreciate the advice you all! I should have seen it coming. Thank christ I caught it tho. Anyone have any advice on how I can bait these guys. Obviously I got some learning to do so for now I'll leave it up to the 419eater pros. I will admit I would get a lot of satisfaction pulling off a bait like the ones I read here in the archives. classic. Laughing

thanks again.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 10:48 pm

^^
No reason you can't do it too! Very Happy

Just don't try to bait the scammer who has your real life details. Set up a fake persona, a new free email account, grab a lad from the surplus forum and start having fun.

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2010 2:32 pm

geezus419 wrote:

Anyone have any advice on how I can bait these guys.

I am running a cheque scam bait now.
See my site (link below) and read through bait 24 for ideas.

There is another cheque scam bait too on there.