Well, gosh, this is reassuring… - the same old copied and pasted email, mostly, different only in this part of the preamble:
The passport scan he sent me looks like [this](http://www.atomicshrimp.com/stuff/passport jj.jpg) - which is either a pretty good forgery, or a stolen genuine UK passport.
Not really sure why he thinks sending me a scan of his purported passport will help though. I have replied:
Given that the postal address has become a bit of a focus, I sent this reply:
I’m pretty sure he’s going to be falling over himself to stop me doing that - because, of course, he’s not in 22 Triton Square, Regent’s Place, London - he’s in some internet cafe in the Ivory Coast. In fact, I’m pretty sure there isn’t even any such address as 22 Triton Square anyway, but certainly he’s not going to want me posting the transfer receipt off to London - especially when I tell him I didn’t keep a copy.
Hehe… well, that rattled his cage. I just got this:
What a shame I’m out doing the Western Union thing right now, and I’m going straight to the post office to send it, before I’ll get back to read the above…
-Reply, to the effect “oops, I sent it by priority airmail before I saw your instruction not to - sorry about that - also, sorry, but I didn’t keep a copy - anyway, please let me know when it arrives”
-He’s then got to make some excuse for not being able to receive it. I’ll tell him that I’ll go to Western Union and see if I can get a duplicate of the document.
-This bit might backfire, but I’ll tell him that it will cost me $10 to get a duplicate of the transfer document and, because of some arcane WU rule, the $10 must be paid by the intended recipient - please could he therefore send me $10 by Western Union…
Now, I’ve never received a Western Union payment before - assuming he falls for this, can I cash one that is payable to Crandall Spondular, or will I have to show ID and stuff?
You might tell him that you keep sending $2500 money orders to the same place, but nothing happens. Let him think that you’re just shovelling money out the door, but that someone else is getting it. Might drive him crazy.
[QUOTE=Maastricht]
Couldn’t 22 Triton Square be a dingy pension that moonlights as the London adress of such scammers?
[/QUOTE]
No, I’m pretty sure it just doesn’t exist - if it does, it’ll be some office or expensive boutique.
I think you absolutely need to tell him that he must have received the money, because your account has been debited for the $2500. A nice scan of a document showing this would not be amiss.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Now, I’ve never received a Western Union payment before - assuming he falls for this, can I cash one that is payable to Crandall Spondular, or will I have to show ID and stuff?
[/QUOTE]
A friend of mine got money sent Western Union to him once, and his ID was expired so he couldn’t use it. What they made him do was have the sender cancel the original payment, and send a new one requesting he answer a secret question or something like that.
[QUOTE=Kat]
A friend of mine got money sent Western Union to him once, and his ID was expired so he couldn’t use it. What they made him do was have the sender cancel the original payment, and send a new one requesting he answer a secret question or something like that.
[/QUOTE]
I thought the recipient of a Western Union payment could just walk into a Western Union office and upon satisfying some set of criteria, walk out with the transferred money - do you actually have to have an account with them in order to cash a money order?