Scammer question

[Airviking 0]

So, I'm dealing with a scammer, and I'm wondering what he is up to.

History:
I offered to help a friend sell a canopy, because he doesn't have a Dropzone.com account, PayPal account etc.

I posted the canopy over a month ago, and this slippery guy (Dive213) surfaced and it was quickly obvious that he was a scammer. (DZ.com pegged him as well.)

He resurfaced a couple of days ago after almost a month, letting me know that he Fedexd a bank check to the seller. I notified him that the canopy is long gone.

He asked if I have anything else to sell him instead, so I offered him my 25 year old Security X210 reserve, mainly as a joke.

He took me up on it, and wants my friend to cash the check and mail me the funds.

I say "no way!" My friend has nothing to sell, so he is out of the picture. But the scammer is so bent on having that check cashed.

So, what is he up to? This can't all be about $300 or some old gear. Is there a way of rigging a check such that, once it's deposited, he has access to the account?

I believe you have my stapler.

[sfzombie 3]

i've had a similar thing happen to me. they count on you to deposit it to your account, and then send them some of the money back (at least they did with me). in my case, it was two postal money orders, and it turned out that they wer both fake. if he's not asking you to return some money, there may be a way of gettin your account info from his bank where the check came from. have your friend take it to some leo and have it checked out.

http://kitswv.com

[Airviking 0]

The guy's got so much time and effort put into this that can't be only about the selling price. The only way he could get cash out of it is if he issued a bogus bank check, and then returned the goods for a refund before the bank came after my friend for the money back.

The only thing I can figure is that the check is rigged somehow.

Regardless, you can be sure that the check will not be cashed. I told the scammer that unless he says where to return the check to, it will sit in my friend's drawer and be forgotten.

I believe you have my stapler.

[airtwardo 7]

Could just be a 'bad' check, his plan is to sell whatever he gets from you for whatever he can elsewhere. It's just paper to him so no matter what he gets from the resale of your item he's ahead of the game.

Do that a few hundred times a month, and it can be quite lucrative...then again if he's using the US postal service and gets caught, not so much.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[nbblood 0]

The check will be for much more than what the agreed price will be. They will give you some crap excuse about they didn't know what shipping would be and they need to ship other stuff and they're having their shipper pick this up, blah, blah, blah, whatever they can tell you to bait you.

They don't give a crap about whatever you're selling. They want you to wire you the difference of the amount of the check and the selling price via Western Union. That's what they're after, that cold, hard cash that comes Western Union. Every thing else is just a ploy to get you to send that. If you do send them gear it probably just ends up in the trash somewhere. They just want the cash.

If you deposit the check it would likely have your account on the back for endorsement, but it's a fraudulent check. How's he going to get it back? It's not like it's an overdrawn check on a legit account. He's not providing a return address where he can actually be found.

No, he's simply after the cash from Western Union, nothing else. They're very easy to spot. Don't even reply to them when you get the notice through classifieds that they've contacted you. They don't have your email until you reply. Just don't do it. Forward the email to abuse@dropzone.com and let them ban them. They do a terrific job of keeping up with the scammers as they surface. The classifieds are not anywhere near as bad as they could be without that service.

Look for users that just created an account, use an address outside the U.S. (UK has been popular lately, Africa is a clear tipoff), user has probably never logged in, has no posts on the forums, and usually always asks what your "final price" is. They probably won't refer to your item specifically, rather refer to it as "the item" or they may copy and paste exactly the header of your listing. They won't ask you questions that you would expect somebody knowledgeable of the gear to know. They may say they want it for son/daughter, etc.,etc.

Bottom line is they're easy to spot. Just don't respond. Report them to get them out of here. When in doubt, report. If it's a legit user, he/she will respond to dz.com and clear the scam report. That has NEVER happened to one I've reported (at least that I know of).

Blues,
Nathan

If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

[Airviking 0]

I agree, he obiously doesn't know gear, or give a crap what he is buying. I don't know how much the check was made out for. And I'm not even going to bother to ask my friend. I've hassled him enough over this.
It just seems like, if someone is going to sit and figure this stuff out, send e-mails, make phone calls etc, it seems to me that the hourly returns couldn't be that much more than an honest job.

Makes me hate people...

I believe you have my stapler.

[popsjumper 2]

Cease all communications with him.
He's apparently playing you like a yo-yo.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[mdrejhon 8]

This is scam-the-scammer hall of fame:
The P-P-P-Powerbook Prank
Old, but a funny goldie.

[sinjin 0]

i diagree with ceasing communication. i would call local law enforcement, and let them take it. they wont be able to handle it,but they put should give u to someone that can. go after this chump. they should set up a sting and grab him when he goes to pick up the $$$. bastards.

dont let life pass you by

[likestojump 3]

nbblood nailed it.

These scammers are never in the USA. Predominantly UK and African countries have been the epicenters of their activity.

Contacting local law enforcement will just result in your and theirs wasted time. Talking to the scammers will result in wasted time as well. (unless of course you want to have a bunch of fake checks made out to funny fake names).

Talking to them, and figuring way to fuck 'em is like feeding the trolls. These people are large conglomerates who answer large bulks of email. That's why they always use generic terms as "sir" instead of your name, or "item" instead of the actual item name.

This isn't new, don't piss against the wind :)

[skydiver30960 0]

I had a coworker (a nurse I was doing clinical time with, actually) who got suckered into something similar. She decided she wanted to buy some kind of weird feral cat that some jokester was selling from Australia. So first off, what the hell is she thinking that she can get away buying what apparently is some kind of wild animal from another continent?

THEN, I find out why she's really nervous: she spends the entire shift click-click-clicking away on the computer while I do her job for her (cuz that's what clinical time is about, doncha know) and towards the end of the shift I find out that she's already paid for this cat and now the seller is nowhere to be found.

I asked her how she paid and she said "Western Union."

I was speechless. How I restrained myself from the facepalm is something I will forever wonder. Really a bright nurse and nice lady, but apparently there are enough fish that get caught on the scammer's hooks.




Elvisio "just had to get that off my chest" Rodriguez

[nbblood 0]

Quote

nbblood nailed it.

These scammers are never in the USA. Predominantly UK and African countries have been the epicenters of their activity.

Contacting local law enforcement will just result in your and theirs wasted time. Talking to the scammers will result in wasted time as well. (unless of course you want to have a bunch of fake checks made out to funny fake names).

Talking to them, and figuring way to fuck 'em is like feeding the trolls. These people are large conglomerates who answer large bulks of email. That's why they always use generic terms as "sir" instead of your name, or "item" instead of the actual item name.

This isn't new, don't piss against the wind :)

Exactly!

Blues,
Nathan

If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

[Airviking 0]

Quote

Cease all communications with him.
He's apparently playing you like a yo-yo.

No, I'm not really being played. I just posted here for opinions about what the scam really is.

But as I am writing this, I got a call from my friend who says that he indeed received a check for $1,800 (to cover $390 of goods and shipping) so it's obvious what the scam is.

But I'm thinking of stringing the guy along by telling him that the check has been cashed, and ask him what I should do with all the extra funds. I'm thinking at the very least, I can waste some of his time, running to the Western Union office a few times.

Any risk?

I believe you have my stapler.

[Meso 38]

I'd like to take the opportunity in this thread to remind people to check the scammers database forum prior to ANY deal in the classifieds.

We list every reported scam and disable the user as well, but some times by the time the user is disabled (12-24 hours from report typically) he has managed to message several users, and people are already in talks with them via e-mail, which would be not be affected when the user is disabled, naturally.

Please check this forum before selling an item to a user: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?forum=44;

If you see the buyer listed in that forum, they are a scammer and you should cut all contact with them immediately.

And just a reminder that if you get a suspicious ad response, just contact us and we'll review it and perform the actions needed if it appears to be a scam.

[Southern_Man 0]

Quote

Quote

Cease all communications with him.
He's apparently playing you like a yo-yo.

No, I'm not really being played. I just posted here for opinions about what the scam really is.

But as I am writing this, I got a call from my friend who says that he indeed received a check for $1,800 (to cover $390 of goods and shipping) so it's obvious what the scam is.

But I'm thinking of stringing the guy along by telling him that the check has been cashed, and ask him what I should do with all the extra funds. I'm thinking at the very least, I can waste some of his time, running to the Western Union office a few times.

Any risk?

There are some great sites on the internet for this:

http://www.419eater.com/index.php

Not that I (or they) necessarily recommend it. Nor have I nor would I ever engage in such a thing.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[Airviking 0]

Yeah, I was stringing along one of the African bastards a few years ago. It was a lot of fun. I was going to see if I could get any money out of him, deposit on a hotel room etc, but things got busy for me, and I ran out of time to play.

I believe you have my stapler.

[nbblood 0]

If you want to have some fun stringing somebody along, go ahead and knock yourself out. Probably not hurting a thing and you'll get some amusement out of it.

But.....please do forward the scammer information to abuse@dropzone.com so the user can be blocked. I don't want to have to deal with him and I know there are others that sell quite a bit of gear that just as soon would not have to deal with them if it's possible to get rid of them. As Meso said they email tons of ads, not just yours. So please do us a favor and report it.

Go ahead and have your fun, but I kindly request you help DZ.com keep the ads as free from the scammers as possible. Again, they do a great job of it, but they can't do anything about someone that isn't reported. Thanks!

Blues,
Nathan

If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

[Airviking 0]

I hear ya...Dropzone.com was notified about "Dive213" a month ago.

I also notified the FBI just now, by way of their website. And so did my friend who received the bad check.

Even more fun than stringing this this A-hole along, would be to catch him.

I believe you have my stapler.

[nbblood 0]

Yes, that would be great satisfaction! Unfortunately the problem is so huge, i.e., there's so many scammers out there all over the world and the scale is so small that the FBI probably isn't spending a whole lot of effort and resources in addressing the problem. Maybe a 20/20 or Dateline or some other investigative news show would bring some more attention to the problem and lead to greater effort.

But, I wish they could get some of these guys. Of course they would just move on to some other kind of scam....or just keep doing it anyway. These people just suck as you have mentioned.

Anyway, best of luck. Hope they get the slimeball!

Blues,
Nathan

If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.