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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 06 Oct 2008 Posts: 7

Right, I'm an Amazon seller and I've just had my first scammer. He's interested in an Acer Ferrari laptop I am offering.

Quote:

hello ,

i am intrested in the purchase of this item and i will be making payment right away through amazon.I will like to know the present condition of it and if you can get a pic of it enclosed in your response so i can make payment right away.

Waiting to read back from you

I replied:

Quote:

Hi there, thank you for your message. I'm afraid we can't take a picture as the laptop itself as it is still boxed and factory sealed which is how it will be supplied to the buyer, with the seals still intact.

Best wishes,

Adam

His response:

Quote:

Dear Adam,

I have seen the sealed package and I know it would be supplied as it's factory sealed.
I will go ahead and make payment in few through Amazon. Kindly confirm to me when you receive the payment confirmation and the shipment could be processed by you.

Regards,

Murphy.

That was yesterday afternoon. The poor guy must have spent all night working hard on his Amazon payment confirmation which I just received now. Pity his English and Maths aren't up to scratch.

Quote:

Dear adam@________.co.uk

Your Amazon.co.uk Marketplace sale has been confirmed. We\'ve deposited your earnings from the sale of this item into our Payments account, but it\'s yet to be transfered into your amazon account.This includes a postage credit of #100.00. If you haven\'t already provided us with your bank account information, please do so at your earliest convenience; we cannot transfer funds to you until you provide your bank account details.
Please dispatch item immediately.

1 of Notebook Acer Ferrari _____________________[Electronics]

You have agreed to dispatch no later than two working days after the buyer\'s purchase 06.10.2008. In the unfortunate case that you cannot provide the item that you have sold, you should issue a full refund through your Payments

Mod edit - your Amazon link deleted - SP

Your buyer\'s delivery address is below (please use your buyers delivery address as the return address for security reasons and enclose the packing slip for your buyer\'s reference as the return address):
Note: You\"ll have to ship item and email us the tracking reference number of the shipment for the release of funds to be authorised to a your current account. Also item will be ended up once this is done. Get back to us on:cus-o4-ser :([email protected]).

Here are the details of your completed Amazon Marketplace sale:

Order #: Mod edit - your Amazon ID # deleted - SP
Listings: 1
Total Item Count: 1
Listing 1: Notebook Acer Ferrari ___________________[Electronics]

Listing ID: Mod edit - your Amazon listing ID deleted - SP
SKU:
Quantity: 1
Buyer\'s Price: #999.00

Postage & Handling: #100.00
Total Amount: (#1099.00)

----------
Less Amazon.co.uk Marketplace Fees: (#5.00) Less VAT on Amazon.co.uk Marketplace: (#5.00) Total Due Seller: #1080.00

For general questions about Amazon.co.uk Marketplace, you will find more information
here: http://www.amazon.co..uk/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/3149141/
Amazon.co.uk Marketplace -- Amazon Services Europe S.a.r.l.Sell Your Stuff http://www.amazon.co.uk/marketplace

etc, etc.

Mr Babatunde Tijani
41 Progress College Road
Abule Egba
Lagos
23401
Nigeria

etc, etc.

This came at the same time as the following email:

Quote:

Hello,
I just want to inform you i have just made payment to Amazon right about now and the money has been deducted from my account.Do get back to me once the item has been posted.

Thanks

So, what do I do next? I don't really want to report it to Amazon as they won't do anything. This guy has obviously put a lot of work into this so it's only fair that I make more work for him. Therefore I'd appreciate any tips on how I should respond.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:35 am

There are several reliable courier agencies such as Made'Up Couriers and Parcel Direct. Search for them on this forum and you'll find the one that works for you.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:48 am

I'm afraid that as a genuine amazon seller, it's not appropriate or safe to bait using your real life details. We only bait using fake details, fake emails, fake everything. Safety is important because lads have contacts in many places, and at the end of the day they are criminals. It's never a good idea to wind up criminals when they know who you are.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:53 am

Customs sent you this huge form for the recipient to fill out, hand written, scanned and sent back to you.

Are you doing this from a baiter email account? If he's got your real life info it's probably best to drop him, and send him an email from a baiter addy.

Welcome to Eater Very Happy

Edit: beaten by Mugatu Smile

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:56 am

Hi, welcome to Eater.

If he's got your real life details, drop him like a hot rock, it's never safe to bait a lad who knows where you live. Reading a few of our sig lines will make it clear why.

You have already made him waste a lot of time, so it wasn't a wasted opportunity. You'll just have to tell him the dog ate your laptop or something.

You could always try and hook the lad again from a safe email, if you can think of something convincing that doesn't lead back to your amazon sale.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:03 pm

But when they dont know who you are feel free to annoy the crap out of them, if you get real lucky you may even get a death threat, they always brighten my day Laughing

As Mugatu suggested, if it is your real info then leave him alone, tell him you sold the item already and apologise for the inconvenience.

About a week later, using a new email address with no personal details send him an email with the details of your item that you are selling on amazon, it doesn't matter what you are selling, it doesn't even need to be a real thing but it must not be anything you actually are selling.

Your email should be as if directed as a rsponse to them contacting you, chances are you can be right where you are now in annoying him except he will not know who it is.

There are plenty of stickies about to learn safe baiting and that needs to be your first goal.

Edit, I hate it when everybody else beats you to it while your typing Laughing

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 06 Oct 2008 Posts: 7

Mugatu wrote:

I'm afraid that as a genuine amazon seller, it's not appropriate or safe to bait using your real life details. We only bait using fake details, fake emails, fake everything. Safety is important because lads have contacts in many places, and at the end of the day they are criminals. It's never a good idea to wind up criminals when they know who you are.

Yes, this did cross my mind and then I read the welcome PM when I signed up here (after posting this thread). It does seem a pity, but I guess you're right. I mean, at the very least he could spam my email address I suppose. How very frustrating!

Excuse my ignorance, but out of interest has anyone ever contacted Nigerian authorities with one of these scams? If every scammer provides his name and address (the address has to be real at least or else what's the point of them doing it) during the course of a scam then it wouldn't take too much work to round up a few of them. I know corruption is rife there however so I guess the Nigerian police just aren't interested as they're too busy getting on with their own corruption?

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:08 pm

You have partly answered your own question, the authorities will do little to prevent this from occuring and especially the Nigerian authorities.

There is a good chance that he will get back to you and say he no longer wants it but would like a refund, he will likely tell you that you can keep a few hundred for your inconvenience but yoiu can send the rest to him viw Western Union.

The other thing is that it is unlikely you do have his real name and address, those details could be anybodies

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 06 Oct 2008 Posts: 7

I'll let this one go. On the plus side, I did also place a few adverts on gumtree last week which got a few emails asking if I'd send to Nigeria and none of those adverts or points of contact contain my real details so I might get to work on one or two of those in the meantime!

Thanks for the advice to all who responded!

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:03 pm

banjaxt wrote:

(the address has to be real at least or else what's the point of them doing it)

Small ad scammers often use the address of someone else they are scamming (mules) .... these people will have been tricked into believing that they will be receiving goods that they need to repackage and send on elsewhere, or sell them and send the money by Western Onion to the scammer ...minus their ten percent.

When the law comes knocking, its the "Mule" that carries the can, and not the scammer.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 06 Oct 2008 Posts: 7

I hadn't considered that. Very good point.

I had another exchange with one through gumtree today, for a mobile phone this time, not using my real email address to respond this time:

Him:

Quote:

I am interested in buying your item urgently..is it still available for
sale..i live in London...your urgent reply will be appreciated
thanks

Me:

Quote:

Yes, it is still available and will be sold to the first person who comes to
collect it and pays cash.

Him:

Quote:

Hello Adam,
thanks for your reply well i am willing to pay £275 including £35 which is a total of £310,am using the item to surprise a friend on her birth day in London but i have been a victim of sending money via money gram and western union which which i later not get the item payed for,i am not saying you are one of them i am just trying to be on the safer side and will be making the £310 payment through paypal as soon as you are ready please do send me your Paypal payment request so i can quickly send the money.I am 100% guarantee with it and it is a very secured mode and traceable payment i hope to read from you as soon as possible!!!
Thanks and have the best day ever,
Wilson Richard

Me:

Quote:

I am not an idiot.

I run an online business and I know that Paypal is NOT a secure way of selling items which is why I stated in the listing that I WILL ONLY SELL IT TO A BUYER WHO COMES TO COLLECT AND PAYS CASH.. Paypal accounts can be compromised and in those instances I would lose all the money or have it charged back by the credit card connected with the account.

So, I suggest you get yourself a real job and stop trying to con people.

I can even tell from your name that you are a Nigerian scammer and not a genuine buyer. No one is called Wilson Richard.

Him:

Quote:

thanks for judging.....get some manners if you lost somes

Me:

Quote:

See, you can't even speak English properly.

It's: Thanks for judging. Get some manners if you lost some.

Even then this isn't good English.

You should have just written:

Thanks for judging. You ought to get some manners.

or:

Thanks for judging. You're very very rude.

Have a truly excellent day!

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:02 pm

^^ Just be careful that you aren't making him into a more skilled scammer. Wink

We try to de-educate scammers where we can, to make them even worse.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:26 pm

for ideas on de-educating a lad try the golden derrieres thread or the 'thinks im a guyman' thread both of which have some great examples.
there will also be lots of info in the sticky threads about this sort of thing to help you make them worse instead of better scammers.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 06 Oct 2008 Posts: 7

Just reading through them now. There should be a course in the art of baiting! There's plenty of genius on here.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:35 pm

well I think there is an 'eater u' course and you can grab yourself a mentor to help you as well as getting help here.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:49 pm

^^^ It's called Eater University, and it's right here

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:03 am

Welcome, fasten your seatbelt and get some pro plus ready, you'll be lost in the genius that is the hive mind of Eater - so many small discoveries and lessons learned culminating in this incredible resource!

For your original lad, perhaps just point out you will be posting the item once you have the cleared funds in your account as this is a non-UK sale, if he wishes to fuck off in the meantime, he's welcome to do so.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 05 Oct 2008 Posts: 15

banjaxt,

Even that isn't particularly good English. Saying "Thanks for judging" makes it sound like he's thanking you for serving as a judge. At least in my part of the world people would be far more likely to say "Thanks for being judgmental"

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 06 Oct 2008 Posts: 7

~ manbiteslion,

Yeah, I did exchange a couple more emails with my original scammer, then his email account was deleted. Someone else had obviously reported him.

I've set a couple of traps (adverts for mobile phones and laptops) to bring in some more scammers, not using any of my real details this time.

I'm also setting up a fake delivery company website (if anyone wants to have a look send me a message and I'll send you a link, I don't want it being searchable on google so I'm not mentioning it by name on here) as well, so that future scammers who send me fake Paypal payment emails will get a confirmation that their item has been despatched. They'll be able to log in using the tracking facility and see their parcel ever so slowly making its way to Nigeria, and each time it looks like it's almost there, it'll suddenly get accidentally misdirected to Australia or some other far away place so they'll be waiting for months for an item that'll never arrive.

If anyone else wants to use my fake delivery company in one of their baits let me know. Wink

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 10:09 pm

Have a heap of fun with your new companies! You may also like to check out parc3ldir3ct, another baiter shipping company Smile

Glad you're baiting safely, if you can't wait for your first bite, head over to the surplus forum and pick up something you fancy Smile

Not quite a Newb Joined: 30 Aug 2008 Posts: 54

Quote:

No one is called Wilson Richard.

Always a good clue to a scam, along with saying "the item" instead of what it actually is, since they're using form letters. I"ve seen them call livestock like a horse an "item".

I think they go through the British telephone book to find names to use, but forget to reverse them and end up with names like "Dr. Volker Paul", "Mr. MacCollins William", and my favorite so far "Mr. Brown Peter"! Laughing

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 2:26 am

G'day banjaxt, and welcome to eaters.

A small point, I see with your 2nd subject your using the same name as the first subject, [adam] and possibly the same e-mail address.

When your working on a new bait, it's a lot safer to set up a different character name and more importantly a new e-mail address.
Keep each bait completely separate, for all you know both these baits could well be to the same person.

So new bait equals a new character [ male or female] new name, new e-mail address, new photobucket account, etc, etc, and the result is a SAFE BAIT, and hopefully a lot of entertainment.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 06 Oct 2008 Posts: 7

weareborg wrote:

G'day banjaxt, and welcome to eaters.

A small point, I see with your 2nd subject your using the same name as the first subject, [adam] and possibly the same e-mail address.

When your working on a new bait, it's a lot safer to set up a different character name and more importantly a new e-mail address.
Keep each bait completely separate, for all you know both these baits could well be to the same person.

So new bait equals a new character [ male or female] new name, new e-mail address, new photobucket account, etc, etc, and the result is a SAFE BAIT, and hopefully a lot of entertainment.

Yeah, both of those came through real advertisements I've placed for my company. Following advice on here I've dropped those and am baiting using completely fake names (courtesy of Charles Dickens) and email addresses.

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