Oh dear another chop is imminent....

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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 4:04 pm

My long suffering lad has finally sorted out a new security company to deal with my "consignment". In the past my character "ZZ" has been prone to various bits of delay and confusion but now there is an eager new player on the scene, who contacted ZZ by email a couple of days ago.

Unfortunately for the lad, the new security company is based in London, as is ZZ. Since there have been so many problems before, ZZ offered to deliver a bank draft in person (to the security company's office address which in fact is a large international investment bank). Security company replied instantly saying that's no good, they require physical cash.... sent by Moneygram or Western Union of course.

Unfortunately ZZ didn't quite understand the message and, eager to finish the deal off, quickly rushed to that address, cash in hand, ready to pay the bill and clear the final hurdle before receiving the mysterious consignment.

Oh no! Nobody at the address knew anything about a security company, so ZZ returned to a computer and sent a panicked email to the Security company (cc'd to the original scammer).

But then I started thinking, maybe I could have done better.

I set up an email address similar to the original security company and mailed ZZ from it ("Sorry I was out of the office, we have recently hired office space here and have not yet updated the building directory. Can you meet me outside the office at 5pm and sort out the details").

ZZ replied to that message, cc-ing the original scammer as well (ZZ has been instructed to do this with all messages, due to various miscommunications in the past): he's on his way to deliver several thousand in cash to the security company rep and should be there by 5pm.

I'm sure ZZ's box will fill up with panicked messages once the lad realises this has happened, but what should happen next?

One possibility is that nobody meets ZZ (again) and he's just taken two pointless trips into central London. Or ZZ could easily be robbed, whether at the "security company" or on the way there. Or ZZ actually meets with the chopper who has managed to get his act together in just a couple of hours, takes his money and gives him some faked documents.

any other ideas or suggestions? (I cannot kill off ZZ on his way to the meeting, actually ZZ has already died once, trust me it's a long story).

Baiting Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 21158

I'll be watiching to see what you do to him here firehouse. I like your setup!

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:36 pm

firehouse5 wrote:

ZZ has already died once, trust me it's a long story

ZZ is a cat. Wink

You run the risk of losing your lad if you leave them no room for manoeuvre and blow the fact they at not based at that address.

Maybe the dolla choppers changed the numbers on a door and deliberately sent you to the wrong office where you were 'rubbed'.

You could say you wondered as you walked in why your lad was sharing an office with brooms and cleaning products??? Confused

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:39 am

Yes, I did think maybe I'd worked myself into a corner. Fortunately, meeting the choppers outside the building allowed me to dodge this one (after all, the real scammers know there is nobody useful at this address).

The choppers quickly spirited ZZ away from that location, distracting him with a fancy meal (paid from the money he just handed over) and buying some more time to sort out fake documents.

In the meantime the real scammers fly into a panic.

Sent at 4:51pm by the security company.... too late as ZZ was already out the door to meet the choppers:

Quote:

Sorry we don't entertain such impromptu visit to our office because of security reasons. We have had bad and ugly encounter from different people over the years and we can't afford to loose any consignment now. You know we deal on parcels, consignments and personal effects / luggage belonging to people and they are all stored in our office / custody. Over time we have experienced people writing to us that they have claim to make in our office and when we invite them to come they will come and cat away with other peoples consignment and we will now pay for it....

Sent at 5:20pm by the primary scammer....

Quote:

I don't understand what is going on, the security company denied this email address saying it is not theirs..... Where did you get this address and who wrote to you with it? .... You must be very careful as some one is monitoring you, Mr RR is saying he is not aware you were coming and did not direct you to come. Some one misdirected you.

Sent at 5:26pm....

Quote:

Be very careful for some one is monitoring your emails. The person have your yahoo email id password. Change your password and do not write through the current computer you are using.

Sent at 5:49pm by the security company

Quote:

I am surprise to hear from Mr AA that you came to our office and our receptionist sent you back. Is it true? However, the email address Mr AA sent to us as the email address Mr RR communicated with you was not our real email address. You should stop any further communication with that very email address. Our official email address is ([email protected]). Any one who contacted you with any email id that is not this very email id is not from our office so be careful so as not to fall into the hands of fraudsters. Also do not send the money using Mr RR again.

This morning ZZ replied (please forgive the broken English)

Quote:

I do not understand. I return to XXXXXXX 5pm yesterday as direct.

There I meet Mr RR and his collague Mr MM out side their ofice, they are very profesional apologise for problem in after noon. They show my identification and I give the fund to Mr MM. Mr RR take me to Hawksmoor restaurant (British steak), while Mr MM finish prepare documents. Mr RR pay all the bill for meal, then Mr MM return with all documents, I sign and complete responses, Mr MM stamp all forms to approving in administrative ofice, they tell me shipment can come on friday.

Now I receive strange E-Mail from your self and security company, how can be fake? Mr RR and Mr MM are profesional men, wear businss suit and show me identification card and document. Mr MM even speak few words of Chinese to me. They can not get this from watch my E-Mail, I think some one from security company does not tell you every thing. They are complete profesional for all our meeting.

I do not know what hapen with you but I think some part this mess is you fault.

So a major league chop by whoever is watching ZZ's account, someone with enough resources to arrange a proper London meet at short notice. This is the second time ZZ has been chopped, but the first one was only a few hundred and happened a few years ago in very different circumstances.

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:22 pm

Moved to Publish Your Work at OP's request -- bo

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:24 pm

Let the good times roll.

My original scammer replied

Quote:

I do not really understand what you are saying, do you really mean you saw somebody and gave him money just like that? Did you not see all the emails I wrote to you and even the ones that the security company forwarded to you? Did I not copy the email address of the security company to you? So now that you gave some people who caim to be Mr RR and his colleague the money what happened, what did they do?

I replied in great detail, especially about the nice dinner and wine and cigars they treated me to, and how professionally they behaved.

And I also received this from a Barclays Bank email address (well, sort of - appears sent from Barclays but with a reply-to from good old london.com):

Quote:

Can you forward the documents they gave you to me immediately? But I warned you earlier and more over, I did not force you to immediately pay the money to the security company that same yesterday, besides the Security company knows that about impersonators and that is why they ask you to pay the money via western union money transfer or money gram as the case may be. However, I contacted the security company this morning and they suspected the operation manager although no one knows what happened but for now he is under suspect and may not attend to any of their official work until the investigation is over....

At the very least I expect to see the operation manager's head on a platter, I will settle for nothing less. Anyway, as soon as I get my copy of the documents back (via FedEx) I will happily share them. Uh oh, I think there will be a problem and the choppers won't send them to me after all.

I am now receiving hourly messages with the subject line "Very very urgent" or similar. And here I am out five grand that I can hardly afford to lose.....

Not quite a Newb Joined: 10 Jul 2012 Posts: 62

Do we have a dolla chop .gif?

Master Baiter Joined: 20 Nov 2009 Posts: 114

Very nice work, getting your lad to think he's lost his mark to some other scammer.

However, he seems to think that his scam was intercepted and compromised at ZZ's end. This is wrong thinking that needs to be corrected - your lad needs to start worrying that someone close to him, working with someone in London, is behind this subterfuge.

The thought of a paranoid lad trying to figure out which of his acquaintances is stealing his action just warms the heart.

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 10:14 am

Well this one is a little more tricky than I've let on, and the lad is reasonable in believing that ZZ's account is compromised:

Back in 2008 the lad got some strange messages from ZZ's account, turns out it was a Korean(?) script kiddie "K" who was in ZZ's box and wanted in on the action, in exchange for helping to provide inside information about ZZ to help close the deal. The lads were suspicious but turned very eager once K had the opportunity to brag to them a bit more, in fact K was passed on to a seriously scary guyman working in france, but who wanted him to work strictly in credit card fraud. At the time I couldn't think of a way out so K's house was raided and he went on the run, eventually going to jail.

But now K is back, just sent the original scammer a "remember me?" email with a few taunts about how it's nice to work with real professionals.

At the same time, ZZ is sitting around waiting for the nonexistent FedEx delivery and by the end of today, will write the original scammer from a new email address, finally realising that something serious has happened.

This whole gambit was setup because I was not sure the scammer was still convinced ZZ is really a possible victim, and I hope it's once again established that he still believes in the reality of the consignment and is eager (if too eager!) to conclude the deal. And also that he's flat out of cash, even sold his phone (but not his shoe) to raise the £5k.

I am a little bit stuck though, I've done too good a job of indicating that ZZ's email is thoroughly compromised and I don't use the phone for baiting. The scammers haven't risen to my bait, not replying to the fake security company address nor to K's taunting message (he did offer them 20% of his 20% earned from this chop, but this was meant to be an insult rather than a real offer). But really this lad is like chewing gum on my shoe and it would almost be a relief to be done with him.

There are a few other possibilities.... the lad has definitely fallen out with some of his previous accomplices, as I discovered a couple of years ago when I sent out a blanket email cc'd to every address that had previously been involved in the deal and got a couple of replies suggesting that I discontinue my conversations with certain other emails listed. (I really wasted that opportunity at the time, threw a few too many insults around). So I may try that angle again, see if anyone is listening to those accounts any more.

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