need advice from the pros, please

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Master Baiter Joined: 20 Jul 2007 Posts: 100

I did a stupid, stupid thing. I applied for an online job offer, that turned into a "scam419" thing, which i only now know exists, having read up on it after the fact. I also learnt about you guys, too--that's why i'm writing. After immediate and extreme bad vibes, i replied that i don't want the job, which of course is nonexistent. They still UPSed me a paper with email instructions to do that 'fund transfer' thing. Haven't opened the packaged; haven't acknowledged any further emails--just sitting and stewing in my stupidity. Should i be concerned? Do they come to your house? Can someone steal/scam your identity with your adfdress and phone number and, yes, my age (no birthdates) Is there something i can do to prevent it? Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for listening, hanging my head in shame amongst the pros

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:16 am

Sybille,

Sit down, take a deep breath.

You did the right thing by checking it out. You will be fine.

Simply stop talking to them. You aren't the first one to ignore them. No they won't come find you. No they won't do anything to you.

Don't loose any sleep over this, just don't respond to them any further.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:20 am

You've given yourself a shock, but there's no need to beat yourself up about it. You're not on a Lad hitlist, spam list - yes.

Do Lads come round to your house ? - quite simply - No. It's best not to give out that information, but many victims do, and it is highly unlikely they'll do anything with it except send you more spam scam mails.

Why not open the packet and see what's inside. Take the cheques to your bank to ask their opinion and guidance, and follow their advice. I'm sure they will help to restore your self esteem, which seems to be all that you have damaged. Too many people never 'wise up' and suffer.

If your name, address and telephone number were enough to steal your identity then phone books would be illegal. You're no fool, they didn't get you, and now you can set up a new and safe gmail account and make them 'pay'. Making the Lad suffer wil help you get over it.

They sent you their fake cheques - you aren't paying them anything, so you won. Just use fake details in future from a g-mail account and you'll win every time, and be a scam baiter.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:25 am

What BA said. Don't panic, just ignore them completely. They will keep on for awhile, then give it up.

As for the package, either take it to your local postal inspector (best bet) or police station. If you don't wish to do that, open it and burn the cheques, or keep them as a reminder of your close call.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:34 am

If you keep them, be sure to deface them by writing across them with "VOID" or "FAKE".

You did well because you recognized the scam before the money started hemorrhaging from your bank account

Master Baiter Joined: 20 Jul 2007 Posts: 100

Thank you so much for your replies!!! You guys are great. Your right! i do have alot of spam mails coming in now. But I will sleep better tonight, and will keep up with this forum. Thanks again. Good night

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:41 am

Sleep tight. You'll be fine.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:49 am

sybille--welcome aboard--

Turn that frown into a smile-- Wink

and look at it this way--you are saying that your lad has actually spent money to fast-mail something to you.

The good thing is that you cost him money on that.

The bad-but-fixable thing is that he obviously knows where you can be reached. So immediately tell him you moved, and refuse to accept any unsolicited packages from overseas from anyone sent to you. --You DO NOT want any lad to know where you can actually be met in person.

As Gomer ^ said, it's not likely, but the Mafia expression on a whacking goes "why take the chance?"..

No bad by you that can't be worked-out, so don't sweat it.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 6:22 am

^^^ what they said.

Don't beat yourself up about this You were absolutely right to trust your intuition and realise this was a scam before it was too late. Next time you get an offer you can't refuse, or a deal that seems too good to be true then apply the same instincts, especially after you've read around here and learned more about these scams and how they work, and you will be fine.

The package contains fake cheques, money orders, travellers cheques, etc. A bank will confirm they are fake but you can take our word for it. Either deface and keep them as a souvenir of your close call with a scammer, or take them to the post office or the police and file a report.

Meanwhile, ignore anything and everything the scammer sends you. When he realises you are not going to cooperate he will give up and move on to someone else unfortunately.

By the way, does the name "Donald Anderson" mean anything to you?

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 6:55 am

Hi Gnasher^

I'm kinda 'iffy' on the issue of bringing actual forged docs to the cops. I liken it to finding a bag of cocaine in the street and doing the right thing by bringing it in to the 'authorities'.

..Only in SOME cases the tables turn and the Samaritan is arrested for 'possession' of drugs/ forged docs. You got it on ya, that's good enough for some LEOs. Tell your story to The Judge. Just don't do this in Mexico. You're history, never heard from ever again.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:23 am

Jervis Tetch wrote:

So immediately tell him you moved...You DO NOT want any lad to know where you can actually be met in person. As Gomer ^ said, it's not likely, but the Mafia expression on a whacking goes "why take the chance?"..

Yes very unlikely. So unlikely it has never happened before or ever will. Let�s not scare sybille anymore the she already was.

Sybille, no one will come around looking for you. These people use the Internet to remain anonymous. Once out in the open they become vulnerable. That is the last thing they want. They just would take that risk for a piece of paper worth nothing.

Just do as SlayerFaith ,B.A. And Gomer has told you. You will be fine.

If you want something on the record then take it to the police. The cops will just take the checks from you and take an incident or crime report.

Edit:You are a real victim reporting a real crime. You won�t be arrested for reporting a crime.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 8:20 am

Jervis Tetch wrote:

The bad-but-fixable thing is that he obviously knows where you can be reached. So immediately tell him you moved, and refuse to accept any unsolicited packages from overseas from anyone sent to you. --You DO NOT want any lad to know where you can actually be met in person.

Nope. Don't even do that.
Just totally ignore the scammer and he'll get the message that Sybille isn't going to give him any money and he'll move onto a more likely victim.
Telling him you've moved means resuming contact again and that's not what is advised in this case. If he phones you, a simple "Don't call me again, please" and then hang up is all you need.
You are totally safe Sybille. No lad is going to track you down because he has your home address. I'm in no way trying to belittle you, but you're simply not worth the hassle to them. They know that their time would be far better spent trying to scam someone else to make money rather than trying to do you any harm.

The one precaution that I would take is to dump the email address that the scammer has contacted you through and to open a fresh one as your present email address will probably be targeted with more scams. If you feel that you can't do that, go to www.scamwarners.com and read up about all of the different types of scam so that you'll know what to expect hitting your inbox. There's a forum there that you can sign up to and it's probably a better place for your questions as it deals exclusively with victims and potential victims whereas this site tends to deal with baiting and tormenting scammers.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 8:23 am

@ Sybille - As mentioned you will receive a few more emails from this scammer asking you to respond. If you prefer, simply block their emails and they will go straight to your junk mail/trash.

If you're particularly concerned about something they write PM a mod here (the one's whose names appear in this colour).

You may see an increase in the volume of spam/scam mails coming into that account now, if you ever have any doubts about an email you can also post it here and ask if it is legit or, again, PM a mod.

Hope that helps a little.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:30 am

It might be worth mentioning here that if anyone does take their fake checks to the authorities it is very useful to them to take any packaging and envelopes that the fake arrived in.

You might become a statistic, but in the US the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are interested in people using their services to commit fraud.

I know of many people who have reported fakes, and so long as it's done before banking ,attempting to bank it, gaining, or attempting to gain value then there should be no recourse.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:25 pm

Plenty of people here will be glad to act as decoys if you like. Just give us his email address, and we'll give him more likely victims than he can poke a stick at. Wink

Don't worry. Ignore the creep, like they ^^^ said.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:29 pm

Slightlyoutofit wrote:

... go to www.scamwarners.com and read up about all of the different types of scam so that you'll know what to expect hitting your inbox. There's a forum there that you can sign up to and it's probably a better place for your questions as it deals exclusively with victims and potential victims whereas this site tends to deal with baiting and tormenting scammers.

If you go there, post your experience. It might be helpful for others to read about.

Near misses are always scary, but also educational.

Master Baiter Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 139

Jervis Tetch wrote:

I'm kinda 'iffy' on the issue of bringing actual forged docs to the cops. I liken it to finding a bag of cocaine in the street and doing the right thing by bringing it in to the 'authorities'.

It's really no big deal. You're just informing the police (or the bank if you prefer) of suspected fraudulent activity. They might take a quick look at you to make sure you haven't bought any printing supplies and banknote paper recently, but likely as not they will accept your story at face value and pass the info on to the feds, who will set about the task of informing the banks and account holders that their account information has been hijacked, as well as trying to trace the documents and activity for those accounts.

Moderator Joined: 10 Jan 2007 Posts: 14513

@ Sybille Nothing to be ashamed or worried about at all. Exact opposite actually, you had enough sense and integrity to realize something is not right. And don't worry, lads won't come to your house over this one.

Unfortunately some people actually go through with it and lose tens of thousands of dollars and face legal action. My friend has three cases now involving these things. One guy is out about $12,000 from using his bank account to cash them. Another guy passed some off at a local check cashing outlet and admitted he knew they looked fake. My friend is probably going to file a felony charge against him. The third citizen took them to the sherrifs office packaging and all, and there is a solid lead in the case that may lead to finding an associate located in another state who they use to make and DHL the checks.

Spot gave great advice, the police can use everything and anything you have to help in an investigation, especially the package it came in. I know of two fairly large on-going investigations in the US with these, and detectives find the envelope to be of great assistance. If you are worried about turning them in to police or nervous, PM me and I would be glad to explain what you should be asked if the officer follows standard protocol.

I realize the whole thing can be intimidating, but you have NOTHING to worry about.

BTW Welcome to Eater

Master Baiter Joined: 20 Jul 2007 Posts: 100

Hi again
Thanks again to all who replied to and emailed me about my concerns and gave me advice. Your words of support/encouragement help to alleviate some of my concerns. What an enlightening day; spent it getting to know the forum, and reading tips and techniques. I am truly intrigued and am sorry for deleting some of the spam sent me. First, to Gnasher: "No, Donald Anderson doesn't mean anything to me" Second, my package came from Miami, not oversees; altho, the email instructions asked me to foward the funds to Ghana, splitting it between two different people. The Lads i've been reading about all have Foreign names; my Lads have North American names. Anyway, i'm going to take everyones advice and ignore them--the job offer was emailed me again; maybe because i didn't respond to their "URGENT ATT NEEDED FOR TANSFER FUNDS" I would like to start reading some of the spam that i do have but am worried to open it--someone told me that they know when you've opened their mail. Is that true?

Master Baiter Joined: 20 Jul 2007 Posts: 100

to thedevguy67
how do you PM?

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:25 pm

sybille.
It doesn't matter if your lads have North American names. They never sign their real names and think that by choosing a Western name they look more authentic to their victims.
As for opening their mail? Feel free. Again, it doesn't matter or make any difference. They mass-mail their crap and even if they're running readnotify or some other email notifier (very doubtful) it's highly unlikely that they would target you just because you happened to open one of their spams. Just don't download or open any attachments that they might send you as you never know what nasties they might contain.

Again, I would direct you to scamwarners.com (link at the top of this page).
It's a much more relevant site to deal with what you have come across than theEater.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 12:15 am

sybille wrote:

how do you PM?

look below the members avatar and to the right a little, you will see
a PM button their, click on it and and it will open a pm window, add
subject and text and click summit. devguy will receive it.

and welcome to eater

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:03 am

Ghost^^^--re: lads visiting you:

QUOTE: Yes very unlikely. So unlikely it has never happened before or ever will. UNQ.

I can only surmise that you have not seen the ABC/20-20 and Dateline NBC undercover ops wherein lad 'bag-men' indeed showed up in the US and UK, respectively.

You say 'let's not scare sybille'...Amen on that. But I add IMHO that newb baiters need to know what they are possibly up against. With no sugar-coating on it.

If one aspires to scambaiting as a true, noble, and worthy calling in life--and it is---one must also be prepared in the early days to somewhat agonize over lad verbal attacks. It gets to you at first, but then is like water off a ducks' back.. Sybille has nothing to worry about, but there are precedents. No 'scare' tactic on my part, just a helpful hint.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:11 am

@spotthepot Thank you about the fake check advice. Any emails, the address where the checks/money orders came from (and how they were delivered), name and address on the checks (which is usually different than the senders name and address), and the WU or MG destination is a big plus. I go a step further and use rubber gloves to preserve the finger prints. The FBI loves me for that! Wink

For example, you might get an email from the UK, Canada, Hong Kong; anywhere. Then they have checks sent to you from any State in the US or Province in Canada. The checks usually have a different persons name and address than the senders name and address (sometimes they are blank). Then the Oga at the original email address tells you to send the funds to somewhere else in the world (usually outside of North America and mostly to West Africa) via Western Union or Money Gram. It can be complicated because even though the mugu's aren't organized as a whole, they are very organized within their own tight knit cells. JUST SHOOT ME NOW! :yikes:

{I'm done} Razz

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:43 am

SumYungGai^

Sounds good to me--in altruistic theory, and an ideal world.

Now if you find a package of heroin in the street in Malaysia, China, Singapore, Thailand, et. al. and bring it in to the 'authorities' as a good citizen just doing your civic duty--write me from prison/death-row and let me know how things are working out on that. Mexico has no death penalty, so you will do 20yrs at least. You'd be lucky there. LOL.

Innocent until proven guilty is NOT a w-w concept...Bringing cops evidence of a crime can often find you behind bars too. Especially if they believe major cash can be extorted from your beloved family. Try entering Nairaland w/o an official visa, which you were told you would not need..You're in serious trouble just on that.

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