Breaking The curse

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Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 7:28 pm

So just how will you tackle the rampant fraud and apparantly inate desire of a largish number of Nigerians and assorted West Africans to scam?

Situation :-

A "genuine" seller advertises electronic gizmos normally retailing at $150 for sale and gets a bid for 10 @ $250, $100 more than the retail price and $150 more than he expected to get!. The buyer offers to send his mate round with an overvalued check and asks for the goods and the "overpayment" in cash in order for his mate to ship/deliver the electronic gizmos to him somewhere the other other side of Nigeria.

The seller accepts the offer takes the check gives the guy the change (a couple of hundred dollars) the guy takes the goods and drives off into the sunset avoiding being killed on the Sagbama highway. Smile

Sometime later the check bounces ....

What can you do?

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 56

Thanks for this,

"I assure you it is 100% risk free" Smile

But jokes apart, this is the main reason I stuck by because of the continuous hammers I got on my head... I have gained a lot this past few hrs just from this post alone.

For sensitive information like payment info, that will be dealt with by a partner bank to a company in my network. they offered already to provide the infrastructure for this as a separate re-branded service, I was hoping to get an international one like moneybookers involved as well for International payments but they are not yet ready to handle the Nigerian headache.

They said that they will soon be ready to go there with a solution, but right now they can't guarantee anything.

The application at Nigerianauctionbuzz.com is wordpress blog, maybe there�s a glitch cause I got the password ok on yahoo as well

Thanks again

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 56

I see it in this way.

1: Thanks to sites like this, which I am for sure going to link to and promote heavily, I will try to prevent this from happening in the first place by creating an awareness campaign. I plan to setup information on the site like quick tips in key places alerting buyers and sellers of possible ways they can identify scammed. I also plan to send out occasional newsletters to buyers and seller just for this purpose� Something with a title that attracts the recipient to read the mail �AUCTION ALERT � Someone is trying to scam you� And inside I can add short tips on how this can happen.

2: I�ve also setup the system to work with the mobile phone and email so that it is a little more harder for people to register again once banned, rather than just an email address. Also setting up good reward systems to encourage honest trade. Constant monitoring is also the key here. If I see suspicious behavior I will try to intervene early before any damage happens.

3: Eventually if the user ignores all the signs and goes ahead to fall for this scam or any other scam, then it becomes tricky, I do have some backing so far in Nigeria, but how good that is left to be debated as this is the main issue I am working on. Apart from the law who may not be as helpful as expected, I also want to as soon as possible work on some kind of support group just like how this forum operates to help on the buyers side inspect good before they are delivered, and on the sellers side encourage them to seek advice before selling to anyone by posting it for open discussion. All this and other things I have cooked up will take some time to do though, but will have to start somewhere and gradually make things better each time

Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:25 pm

So what you are saying is that all your buyers and sellers must stick to the rules you apply or they can't trade on your website?

Rolling Eyes

After all they ignore eBay rules and both sellers and buyers get scammed and no one seems able to do anything about it. You certainly wont get any help from the Nigerian law.

Then the vlads move in ....

EDIT : Do we want scammers tramping all over this website? It might help you but I doubt it would help us. We bait the bastards we aren't here to help them or tell them what we do to avoid being scammed .... or how to get round it!

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 56

The key is in the awareness campaign and how effective it is. Ebay posts this information ready for buyers and sellers, but it is not in my opinion so effective, for example if you go to an auction, there should be a notice that alerts buyers and sellers even before they buy or sell. If we can create awareness, reward honest trade, I think we will minimize cases and even drive the scammers away, and if they find new ways to beat the system, a constant monitoring will help balance things.

The problem about catching scammers is not only in Nigeria, there was this guy called Jay Tokarz who scammed a lot of web providers, and what makes him unique is that he lives in the state, he doesn�t hide and you could reach him almost anytime if you wanted to.

He conned one of my programmers who worked for him for 3 months without getting a single dime, he had a way of making you do the work without paying. I added him on my yahoo and even talked to him �All he said was, if that guy did his work he will pay�, then I showed him his name on the Internet featuring several complaints, he said �That he spoke to that guy who posted his name and told him, �while you are busy trying to bring me down, I will be busy making millions�  I was shocked at the boldness. He then obviously tried to engage my services saying I should make a site for him and he will give me an excellent marketing tool, that makes html links using keywords, then he showed me his sites and how they operate.. I don�t think that Jay Tokarz is his real name though, but if it is he is extremely bold �

To cut a long story short� This guy is an American, and he lasted for a long time, no one could get him, despite several complaints, (I don�t even think he is caught yet ) you can do a search on google, his is very popular... I didn�t hear from him again, maybe he got fed up with me (If you want his ID maybe he will answer you guys:))

So the point is that, no matter the country, it is hard to get hold of an anonymous scammer, so I will try my best to make sure everyone is alerted and remains alerted.

Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:58 pm

Marvin wrote:

So what you are saying is that all your buyers and sellers must stick to the rules you apply or they can't trade on your website?

Rolling Eyes

Isn't that how sites usually work? The owner gets to decide how it runs? Laughing

na, I applaud your stated aims, although I think you will have a huge task ahead of you to provide a safe trading environment, as this thread has undoubtedly shown you.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 56

Yes, unfortunately the task is hard and the road seems dark... Smile

but I can see the light ahead Smile

hope won't break many limbs getting there

Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 10:11 pm

Quote:

for example if you go to an auction, there should be a notice that alerts buyers and sellers even before they buy or sell.

agreed. I think that sites with fraud problems should make the awarness program a lot more "in your face" and unavoidable. It sickens me that so many people still fall for the fake check scam on craigslist, when the problem could be so easily solved with a popup message telling people not to accept checks that are....bla bla bla.

I really like what you are trying to do.

In regards to what YeahWhatever said about having somebody here be an admin on the site; I actually don't think that is a bad idea. How much more credibility can you have then to have an anti-fraud site backing you up. However, as Marvin implied, this particular site would not be the best choice, since we are focused mainly on scambaiting. Maybe somebody here could set you up with an admin at scampatrol.org, and you guys could work out a deal somehow. That could be helpful to get you started off at least.

But if you think we are being ruff on you.... I can't imagine the torture that scam patrol would put you through. But it just might be worth it in order for you to get that reccomendation.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 56

I'm open to this actually

Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:05 am

Well thats good. If you are lucky, one of our members who have relations with scampatrol will offer to help you out. Otherwise, you may need to ask around some more.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 56

That will be great

I'm travelling in the morning so may not reply to posts till the weeknd. Once I get on again we can see how to take things forward from there.

Thanks

Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:59 pm

The guy wants us to challenge him and make him think about the problems we are aware of and he isn't so well versed in so that he can reduce the potential to scam on his website. I don't intend to come across as rude and i'm not trying to put the guy down, I'm simply putting the challenges in front of him.

I applaud his stand and I'm sure the vast majority of honest law abiding West Africans will do so to.

At the same time if he is going to post warnings that say for more information visit 419eater.com that gives the lads a direct path to us right where we don't want them!

Scampatrol.org or one of the other fraud alert sites would be far more suited for a redirection as KS has said.

Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 7:20 pm

Posting to as many sites as possible is a good idea. Including www.419eater.com

This site has a wealth of information regarding scams and is a great site to link to.

Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:53 pm

Lotta .... how can us mere guys concentrate on what you've written when you've got that avatar? Smile

Notice - If you're being scammed visit www.419eater.com but if you're a scammer please don't go there!

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:43 am

Sorry about the distraction Very Happy

Its a lot simpler than that Wink

Post a notice about the various scams in general and.........
If you wish to learn more about these scams please visit the following sites:

www.419eater.com
www.scampatrol.org
etc
etc
etc