Please help my husband with this scammer?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Dec 2009 Posts: 2

A few weeks ago, my husband received this email. He is a contractor/jack of all trades and thought it was a legitimate business transaction. Something seemed off to me, and I kept telling him that it was a scam. One of the main things that is off is that "Mark Holland" is supposedly in Florida, the credit cards he gave us are from Texas, and my husband was supposed to send payment for the shipping (through western union) to Ghana, and the water heaters were supposed to be shipped to Hungary. My husband wasn't going to ship anything until the credit card payment went through, so at the time he was pretty sure he would be covered, financially speaking.

So, here's the original email he got:

Quote:

Good day,
I would like to order some Water heaters and below is the specifications needed on the Heaters :

50 Gallon 240 volt,Single phase,4.5 kilowatts Electric water heater without installations.
Qty : 7 Units

Do let me know the price per Water heater and payment you accept so that we can proceed with this order ASAP.Thanks and do include your contact information and also the payment you accept.

Regards.

--
Mark Holland

After emailing back and forth for awhile, my husband was ready with the quote and was given a credit card to charge the water heaters to. He was then supposed to pay the shipping company (which only accepts Western Union) and ship the water heaters to Hungary. He ran the card but it was rejected. My husband (with me the whole time saying THIS IS A SCAM!) asked for a copy of the credit card and picture ID. We heard nothing from the scammer for six days after that. Then he wrote: "Sorry it was a problem coming from my credit card company and that have been solved so can i email you with a new credit card information to run the charges on."
We ignored this email, and the several phone calls we've gotten from him.

Today we got two emails in quick succession that read:

Quote:

Hello this Is Mr James brown and I Will Like to Know Weather you Carry Water
Heater In Stock and Do you Have=A0 60 gallon 240 volt,single phase,54
kilowatts Electric water heater Let me know the price without
installing Best Regard..

MR James ......

The second email was exactly the same but with a different name and from a different email address. My husband now needs no more convincing that this is a scam, but he doesn't know what the point of the scam is. We think it's simply credit card fraud, but we're kind of naive in this scamming world.

So, what do you guys think? What's the point in this scam?

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:12 am

Hi CoolerGirl,

As you suspected this is 100% pure scam. The point? The scammer gets clean, untraceable cash out of your husband when he sends...

Quote:

...payment for the shipping (through western union) to Ghana...

The scammer is not interested in the goods and the credit cards are compromised, likely phished. If hubby has gone through with it, you would both likely end up losing a great deal of money and possibly the heating units as well. There's also a liklihood that the CC company would come looking for the money. They'll be looking for your husband, not the scammer in Ghana.

Now that the scammer(s) know that your husband is receptive to these kind of scams, they'll continue to send them. Names will change but the story will remain the same. If it's too good to be true, it usually is.

Edit: Oh yes I almost forgot, the scammers might also try to cancel the purchase and demand a refund vis western union as well. That would be more untraceable cash for them.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 09 Dec 2009 Posts: 2

Thanks for your reply, I've passed it on to my husband.

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