# Sale details sound strange to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 6, 2005, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372 "2005-01-06T11:32:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hyjyljyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/0ea827/32.png) [@hyjyljyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hyjyljyj)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/21 "2005-01-07T03:24:15Z")
> [@cedric45](#): > > Dead giveaway to me that something’s up. Another clue are those letters with excellent grammer, punctuation, etc. AR, that’s good irony, matey. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/22 "2005-01-07T05:13:42Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > Why do the people that attempt these scams **always** use poor english? Well, I don’t know how much of this is a “the chicken and the egg” thing, but back when these guys first started running straight 419 scams (“Hello, I don’t know you, but I have $25,000,000 [Twenty Five Million Dollars] that I need to get out of Nigeria…”), part of the reason it worked is that you felt SUPERIOR to these people. You were SUPPOSED to think “How could it be a scam? I’m SMARTER than these third-world people!” The “the chicken and the egg” bit I’m not sure of is whether this was by design or maybe the scammers that sent 419 emails in “Encrypted English” got better results than ones written in the Queen’s English. In any case, you’d think those phishers would at least _try_ to get it right, no? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/23 "2005-01-07T06:41:50Z")
> [@SpaceDog](#): > > It’s a scam. > > They want you to take the money, deposit the check and send him the balance. The check is fake tho’ and after a few weeks the bank will notice and cancel the credit to your account. > > Bingo, bango he has your money and you’re out the difference from the 3 grand. > > I’ll try and find you a link about it. > > SD What if you _don’t_ wire anyone any money, but decide to keep 100% for yourself and withdraw all of it the moment the bank lifts the freeze? I’m guessing that in itself is some form of fraud, but I’m at a loss to see who’d actually complain. (“Uh, yeah, my Nigerian friend and I tried to scam this sucker and it kinda fell through…”) ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/24 "2005-01-07T07:11:36Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > What if you _don’t_ wire anyone any money, but decide to keep 100% for yourself and withdraw all of it the moment the bank lifts the freeze? > > I’m guessing that in itself is some form of fraud, but I’m at a loss to see who’d actually complain. (“Uh, yeah, my Nigerian friend and I tried to scam this sucker and it kinda fell through…”) You mean cash the fake cashier’s check and keep all the money? Your bank will certainly complain when the check turns out to be bogus, I assume that they’ll stick you with the tab and pursue legal action if their moola isn’t returned immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/25 "2005-01-07T07:53:58Z")
> [@Valgard](#): > > You mean cash the fake cashier’s check and keep all the money? Your bank will certainly complain when the check turns out to be bogus, I assume that they’ll stick you with the tab and pursue legal action if their moola isn’t returned immediately. It seems to me, though, that the cash is in my account, and it got there through legal means (from the bank’s POV, at least). The people the bank has a beef with are the yahoos who forged the check and duped us both into thinking it was real. The only hitch I can see is that I broke the contract I’d made with the scammers, but given that the scammers were making the contract under fradulent pretenses I doubt they’d even try to bring action against me. ---
**Author:** ![RayMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e495f1/32.png) [@RayMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RayMan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/26 "2005-01-07T08:12:26Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > It seems to me, though, that the cash is in my account, and it got there through legal means (from the bank’s POV, at least). The people the bank has a beef with are the yahoos who forged the check and duped us both into thinking it was real. > > The only hitch I can see is that I broke the contract I’d made with the scammers, but given that the scammers were making the contract under fradulent pretenses I doubt they’d even try to bring action against me. If you knowingly deposit a fraudulent check into your account, this is fraud, and you can be prosecuted for it. But whether you knew the check was fraudulent or not, once the bank determines the deposited check is a fake, they will debit your account the appropriate amount. The original credit didn’t get there through legal means, from the bank’s point of view or anyone elses. If you deposit a check–_any_ check, fake or otherwise–that bounces, your bank will have a beef with you and only you. They will cooperate within the limits of the law with any investigation about the origins of the check, but your account will be the one debited. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/27 "2005-01-07T09:02:14Z")
> [@RayMan](#): > > If you deposit a check–_any_ check, fake or otherwise–that bounces, your bank will have a beef with you and only you. They will cooperate within the limits of the law with any investigation about the origins of the check, but your account will be the one debited. OK. That answers my question. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/28 "2005-01-07T09:17:19Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > Slight Hijack; > > Why do the people that attempt these scams **always** use poor english? > You would think if they are clever and bold enough to try to steal peoples money that they would at least attempt to make the thing sound legit by using a spell check of some sort. > Do they think that broken english makes them sound more like the average shmoe, some dumb guy that isn’t smart enough to pull off some scam? > **All** the scams and spams that end up in my inbox are always poorly written. That’s the best way for me to tell if something is legit or not, -proper english. > > I’ll get this as the subject of an E-mail; > > \*\*You’ve have ben slected to our speshel refizance terms of .4%\*\*from sleazysuzette@sphincter;com > or > **Cash in for now to have great savings by lowest rates in ever** from goatse@hotmall;com > or > **Cum start sw ingning with u s at marrydbutsingle.,com** from tyidh6kd@hotmall;com > > What are people thinking? Some of the time, this is done deliberately in an attempt to bypass simple spam filtering rules - more complex methods like Bayesian analysis will catch more, but if you’re relying on a simple keyword search, you might block anything that contains, say, the words ‘Viagra’, ‘Lesbian’, or ‘Refinance’, but if they’ve been deliberately spelled ‘Vaigra’, ‘Lezzbian’ and ‘Refinanse’, they’ll slip through the net. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372/29 "2005-01-07T20:53:04Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Some of the time, this is done deliberately in an attempt to bypass simple spam filtering rules - more complex methods like Bayesian analysis will catch more, but if you’re relying on a simple keyword search, you might block anything that contains, say, the words ‘Viagra’, ‘Lesbian’, or ‘Refinance’, but if they’ve been deliberately spelled ‘Vaigra’, ‘Lezzbian’ and ‘Refinanse’, they’ll slip through the net. Yeah, be careful. I sent a friend an email a bit back and made a joke about offers for ASIAN COED LESBIANS and LOW MORTGAGE RATES and FREE LEGAL CIALIS ONLINE. She found the email a few weeks later when she searched her filtered spam folder. :smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sale-details-sound-strange-to-you/283372.md?page=1)