I had something very similiar at work. A person from Nigeria sent in an order for technical books (almost $6,000 worth!) to be shipped to Nigeria and paid for with a check. I put the check in the bank and waited about 3 weeks for it to clear, before even considering mailing the books.
I called our bank then to see if the check had cleared, and they said it did!
Still I waited, being the suspicious type.
5 more weeks pass, and finally, the check bounces.
Well, in my case I have nothing to ship. If he pays and in three months time those “models” show up then so be it. I don’t think he’ll be flying two women all the way from Nigeria to scam me out of a thousand bucks.
Anyways, I am now very cautious. It is still possible that he’s a naturalised American citizen, but I am operating under the assumption that he is a scammer.
Yeah, but he’ll probably try something like you telling him it’s going to cost $2000.
He sends you a check for $5000. Then the girls don’t show up. Then he says “I sorry, models get bird flu, not able to go make trip, please keep $2000 for you troubles, send me remaining $3000, I thank you.”
It costs more money in service charges than you’ll want to pay for this kind of transaction, but if you take your check to the counter and say, “I’d like to deposit this item for collection,” then your bank won’t actually stick the money into your account until the instrument has really “cleared” at the far end.
As an aside, if you want to see people with some REEEAL experience in these scams, go to www.bankersonline.com —> Forums —> Ask a Banker Forum.
The security types on there have seen every one of these scams 20 times.
Aw shucks, folks, since several posters had already identified the scam, I just wanted to see what the next chapter in the story would be if Mighty_Girl chose to string the guy along a little more.
I apologize for posting anything that made even the slightest suggestion that Mr. Duncan might be legitimate and anyone should go along with him.
Aw shucks, folks, since several posters had already identified the scam, I just wanted to see what the next chapter in the story would be if Mighty_Girl chose to string the guy along a little more.
I apologize for posting anything that made even the slightest suggestion that Mr. Duncan might be legitimate and anyone should go along with him.
What are you basing this on? The best practice is to keep a mindset of being a truly despicable person and start feeling hurt and wronged - you’ll figure out a way to put somebody in a world of hurt (if you’ve got the talent of course).
You’re dreaming. By the time the mark feels “hurt and wronged” the con is long gone
w/ the loot.
Confidence people have no conscience and they have all the angles figured.
Out conning the con may look good in fiction, where the author controls the outcome,
but IRL it’s so rare as to be nonexistent.
And there are more screwball schemes every day. There’s one I’ve been watching about some sort of eBay reshipping muddle where the sap lists an item, gets paid for the item by the bidder via PayPal, notifies the company, who drop-ships the item after the sap pays the company with somethng called e-gold which is non-refundable, unlike PayPal. (Smelling anything funny yet?) It gets better: e-gold is run out of an island in the Carribean.
Once the sap sends e-gold payment to the shipper, that money is irreversibly gone. He may as well tape $20 bills to a postcard and mail it. If the shipper doesn’t ship, or ships junk, the bidder is upset and will probably be so to the point of initiating a buyer protection refund via PayPal, which means the sap has to pay back the bidder, but can’t get anything out of the shipper.
Just going to point out that if an “American” ever offers to pay for something with a ‘cheque’, you might want to be suspicious. All red-blooded right thinking people from God’s own U.S. of A. use checks of course.
Not that this was the only linguistic clew in his entertainingly broken e-mail, of course.
Well, I will then have to have my chi realigned, I guess.
He has yet to break the law (it sounds like a duck, but that is not enough for an accusation). Plus I doubt the FBI has jurisdiction here (now, the CIA, maybe, is another matter…)
Well, I just got another person who wants to make a reservation paying with a wire transfer. This is the second person within a week that says that he can’t pay with a credit card and that makes me weary.
The last inquiry seems to come from a legitimate customer insofar as his English looks like what I would expect from a native American. He also asked a bit about locations in town. I told him I don’t take cheques or transfers. Regardless of how legitimate the customer sounds I don’t think I will ever take them.
