20 July 2010

Online classifieds and strange behaviour

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I have a car for sale on allclassifieds.com.au.

When I first posted the ad, and each time I make a change to it, I get a contact from someone (well, apparently five different people) and who claim to be: a) a ship’s engineer, b) working on an oil rig (2), c) out of the country due to employment (2).

Each agree to my asking price without seeing the car, each insist payment be made via PayPal, and each will send an agent to pick up the car.

What is this about?

ps At the risk of having 500 such contacts, I won’t identify the ad.

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Maybe you should send them a drawing of a spider as a refund?

In less than 1 week I’ve received 4 responses from these scammers – viz Mandy Jones (2 about the same ad), Serena Hilton (Could be Paris’ Sister) and daflewjack01@aol.com (whoever that is)

These cagey grubs must think that we’ve all had lobotomies and are totally brain dead

They obviously don’t even read the ads properly as I’ve been repeatedly asked the price and whether I’d accept $AUD to which I promptly requested $US instead.

In my latest reply I responded;
“As you have admitted that your PayPal account is attached to your Bank account, would you also please explain to me why you cannot pay by direct electronic transfer to a bank account instead of PayPal.

Your friends Mike Shepherd, Serena Hilton and Mandy Jones are also interested and like you they all want to Pay by PayPal – strange isn’t it. I guess this will be the last email from you”

I love the Aussie larrikin humour and suggestions preceding my post – keep it up

forwardranga12:19 pm 21 Jul 10

Allclassifieds offer some advice at:
http://www.allclassifieds.com.au/ac/ac0053?ss=ACT

pptvb said :

Why not create, say……, 5 fictitious ads for cars, colostomy bags, or whatever, and put the above email addresses as the contacts?
Should be a laugh.

I really love the idea of the scammer getting these emails from another scammer.

Genie said :

The friend decided to be a smart arse and replied saying “thats awesome however the price of the car is now $500,000.

Got a reply almost instantly saying that it wasn’t a problem and that as soon as he set up his paypal the money would be transferred.

Well, if they paid $500k, you could afford to post the car registered mail to their oilrig, and paypal couldn’t complain about not following the small print…

My mate told me about this yesterday… She put 3 ads on for herself, her partner and friend. All different contacts and they all got the exact same email.

The friend decided to be a smart arse and replied saying “thats awesome however the price of the car is now $500,000.”

Got a reply almost instantly saying that it wasn’t a problem and that as soon as he set up his paypal the money would be transferred.

I dont understand how people fall for these scams. But I like pptvb suggestion of setting up fake ads using those emails…

YapYapYap said :

Thanks for the feedback.

I received contacts from the following:

jonesmandy42@y7mail.com

bostyvelossy01@aol.com

bettyjones009@gmail.com

danielcampbell07@hotmail.com

pete.john1001@gmail.com

Why not create, say……, 5 fictitious ads for cars, colostomy bags, or whatever, and put the above email addresses as the contacts?
Should be a laugh.

I like to respond that I too am on an oil rig etc, and funny enough I too have no access to the Internet so would they mind if my agent meets your agent over lunch? Usually gets a bite!!

if it sounds too good to be true,it quite often is…we have a bike for sale on allclassies,the latest one wanted to pay 2000 more than the asking price,which is 1500 more than brand new??.we have had dozens of these scams come thru in the last couple of months,i just delete them straight up now.
you can try the ANITFRAUD INTERNATIONAL forum website for more info if not sure!

Marcus Bent hehe

Beserk Keyboard Warrior6:41 pm 20 Jul 10

A fool and his cash are easily parted. It’s hard to have a lot of sympathy for anyone dumb enough to fall for this rubbish.

Bosworth said :

Why can’t I:
receive the paypal deposit, transfer it in to my bank account, withdraw the cash from an ATM, and only then give the car to the purchaser(or not) ?

Because you will still be required to surrender the money to the authority when they trace the transaction from a hacked paypal account to yours and come knocking on your door. Or, paypal will send a debt collector after you because you have breached their Terms & Conditions by not posting the car to the buyer through registered post.

Of course, you do not have to worry about a thing if you took the extra effort to do dumpster diving to steal some identity, opened a bank account with it, link that to a paypal account you’ve hacked, and do all transactions through prepaid 3G internet account or from an internet cafe.

Monster of the Deep4:17 pm 20 Jul 10

ps0104 said :

that he is in the UK and needs my address so that his agent can come to look at the car and arrange shipping.

When selling couches on AllClassifieds I got an email like this. The general consensus at my place was that by asking for our address they were trying to scout us out for robbery 😮

AllClassifieds does have something written somewhere about being careful about dodgy emails, but they’re very vague about it and I think they should really elaborate more so people understand what they mean before they get these emails, not after.

M0les said :

#10 Aurelius – That’s the crux of one cheque scam I know of: Overpay, request refund of difference and then cancel the cheque before it clears: “Yoink!”

Send the refund by cheque. 🙂

#10 Aurelius – That’s the crux of one cheque scam I know of: Overpay, request refund of difference and then cancel the cheque before it clears: “Yoink!”

Inappropriate1:43 pm 20 Jul 10

Bosworth said :

Why can’t I:

receive the paypal deposit, transfer it in to my bank account, withdraw the cash from an ATM, and only then give the car to the purchaser(or not) ?

You never receive the PayPal desposit: they send you a dodgy email to trick you into thinking you did.

My in-laws were contacted by a similar “out of country” scammer while in the process of selling their campervan. They were asked by the scammer to DEPOSIT money before the sale could occur … I’m not sure of the exact excuse given as to why they needed to do this. Needless to say, they didn’t go through with the transaction.

Be very careful!

Bosworth said :

Why can’t I:

receive the paypal deposit, transfer it in to my bank account, withdraw the cash from an ATM, and only then give the car to the purchaser(or not) ?

That is exactly what you would have to do to be safe, but these people are pretty good at not letting you get hold of their money. 419 eater has some awesome stories of baiting these guys though, getting them to spend ages doing ridiculous stunts to try and earn their trust…

yes you can, however it won’t happen. Try it but at the same time ask for a scan of their drivers license, bet they don’t send it

Why can’t I:

receive the paypal deposit, transfer it in to my bank account, withdraw the cash from an ATM, and only then give the car to the purchaser(or not) ?

weaponx said :

Its a Nigerian scam,

Simply they send a dodgey cheque to you that bounces and you send them the money not knowing the cheque is going to bounce, usually works on the greedy and ignorant.

Heaps of this stuff has been going on with carsales, ebay etc.

Just bait them and waste as much time of theirs as possible, i did it for like a month, got a forged cheque on my wall and everything lol.

Sounds like you’d like http://419eater.com/

It is a scambaiting site.

One should always be cautious using Paypal or similar online payment systems because, until the money is in your bank account (not your Paypal account) the funds can be revoked by the purchaser saying you did not send the required goods. So you end up without the goods, and without the payment.
This scam though seems to revolve around the payment of funds to some third party for whatever reason (usually to aid with the release of funds that will be used to complete the primary purchase).
Having seen my brother in law almost caught in this type of scam, I noticed that the offer of payment was higher than the price sought ($2000 for a $1800 car). This is to give the seller incentive to go along with the deal, because they think that they’ll lose a buyer who’ll pay above the sticker for the car.
Avoid it like the plague.

AllClassifieds being targeted by shysters and con artists

This has been covered before.
I have explained in that thread why Paypal is key to the current revision fo the scam.

To the OP:
USe\abuse the power of RiotACT to save other people from falling for scams.
Post the text of your message\s below, so that it becomes a highly-ranked Google hit, so other’s are less likely to be picked up on it.

You get some good ones from using AllClassifieds:

“Hello,

How are you,hope you are doing well,am chika a lovely girl,and i drop at your profile http://www.allclassifieds.com.au and i love what i saw there,i beleive we can get aquainted,so if it interests you,pls reach me back here okay for further communications okay.i stop here awaiting your respond.
Regards,
Miss chika
please Contact me in my mail box so that i will send my picture to you and for further communication”

What you should do when you get an e-mail you think is suspicious is find a weird phrase from it and chuck it in google. For example, in this e-mail “I drop at your profile” shows the exact same e-mail 🙂

weaponx said :

Just bait them and waste as much time of theirs as possible, i did it for like a month, got a forged cheque on my wall and everything lol.

I agree with WeaponX. Bait them, have fun with them, get their hopes up, play them, waste their time. They deserve it.

I had one who wanted to give me millions of dollars and wanted to meet me in Paris, London or Rome to discuss details. He got all insulted when I asked him to pay my airfare. Damn, I want a forged cheque for my wall now.

It is a scam.
Has happened to me & other I know on several occasions.

My friend was selling his supercharged v8 for $90,000+, and one of these people emailed my friend saying he wanted to buy this car for his son’s 15th birthday present so his son had a car to learn to drive in.
LOL

You always know it is a scam when they say they will only pay by Paypal and they will have a pick up agent pick up the car.

They actually had a warning notice on allclassifieds about it – they must have taken it down.

Its a Nigerian scam,

Simply they send a dodgey cheque to you that bounces and you send them the money not knowing the cheque is going to bounce, usually works on the greedy and ignorant.

Heaps of this stuff has been going on with carsales, ebay etc.

Just bait them and waste as much time of theirs as possible, i did it for like a month, got a forged cheque on my wall and everything lol.

I have had a similar experience just a week ago.

I received a text message from one ‘Marcus Bent’ asking me to email him. Alarm bells were already ringing but I sent an email anyway. Marcus replies and tells me, surprise surprise, that he is in the UK and needs my address so that his agent can come to look at the car and arrange shipping. The best part was that he asked me to send me a link to the ad because he had ‘misplaced it’- ie he had probably mass texted 500 people hoping one would be gullable enough.

So just for fun, I sent another email, this time asking how I know this isnt a scam and received a reply saying that ‘I wouldnt risk my image and reputation on something like that’. When I sent another email asking what exactly his reputation is, that was the last I heard from him.

I think the Nigerian Prince needs a car 😛

Scammers… I had them contact me for my car too. I think one was buying the car for his son as a surprise present.
They also try to ‘sell’ cars. A really good car for quite cheap, and you can only contact them by email. Once you contact them, they state they are out of the country, but you can make a deposit via PayPal.

I think people who have accepted the scam went on ACA or TodayTonight.

Stay clear is all I suggest.

Inappropriate11:40 am 20 Jul 10

Paypal/Money Laundering scammers.

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