F*kn scammers, how stupid do they think we are?

[mike-s]

As shown elsewhere on here i put my car up for sale on drive.com.au, within 4 hours of it being posted i've already received my first bit of scam-mail, it was a bit dubious from the start, but i kept at it just to see where it went.

At this point the car had only been listed for a grand total of 5 hours...

Enquiry for: TOYOTA COROLLA
Contact this buyer
Email: *@gmail.com
Phone:
Preferred contact:
Via email, Daytime or evening
Date sent: 11 Oct 10 8:24PM
Sent to: mike-s
From: John
Message: Is your lovely item still avail for sales..?

I replied back at 11:30, just before heading to bed.

On 10/11/10, mike-s wrote:

Yes, I only listed the car today.

Cheers,

Michael

I checked my email today just before heading to work and found the following

On Tue Oct 12 2:05 , John sent:

Thanks for your swift response... Can you please email me the present condition with the price ?

Due to nature of my job i will not be able to come for inspection,am a very busy type as i work long hours everyday,i have gone through your advertisement and i am satisfied with it.

As for the payment..i will be paying you via the fastest and secure way to pay online(PayPal).

I have a private courier agent that will come for the pick up after the payment have been made ... So no shipping included..

You can now send me your PayPal email so i can pay in right away and also include your address in your reply.If you don't have a paypal account, you can easily set up one...log on to http://www.paypal.com.au. and sign up. its very easy.I await your reply asap."

John.

I had been dubious from the first query, and the fact i received this in the middle of the night wasn't doing the guys credibility a whole heap of good. So i sent today:

On 10/11/10, mike-s wrote:

Hi John,
Externally the condition of the car is fairly good given the fact that the car IS 11 and a half years old.
*snip me plugging the positive qualities about my car as this isn't my advert for it*

If you wish to contact me via phone i am available pretty much any time of the day as i work shifts myself and my sleeping pattern is
pretty all over the place anyway. And lastly, no I don't have a pay-pal account (I have one, but there's no way I'm letting this guy know it), and I am hesitant to get one. i prefer payment via other
means like direct deposit, cash (which your courier can hand over if this is the means chosen) or a bank cheque (if the latter i would
require the funds to be cleared before handing over the keys).

Sorry if this makes things a little difficult for you, but I prefer to err on the side of caution with these things.

Michael.

Well obviously none of these options suit him, he didn't even seem to flinch in trying to plug me using paypal.

From: John
To: mike-s
Sent: Tue Oct 12 9:39
Subject: Fwd: Re: your enquiry about the toyota corolla


Thanks for your mnail, My private courier agent will come for the pick up and sign all necessary documents on my behalf after the payment have been made, as they will also be coming with all the information needed, my details and transferring the name of ownership to me will be done by the pick up agent so you don't have to worry about that...

I would have loved to talk to you on phone but i am a petroleum engineer I work mainly offshore, our phone is down on the rig right now due to bad weather, we can only communicate with our base for now.

Here is my few Information below:

My Name *omitted* John

Lic No#: *omitted*

My street address is *omitted* tas 7304

I insisted on PayPal because i don't have access to my bank account online as i don't have internet banking, but i can pay from my PayPal account, as i have my bank a/c attached to it... You can get the setup registration http://www.paypal.com.au and email me your PayPal email account.. for example my own PayPal email account is *@gmail.com. You email me yours asap.. Thanks !!

John

He has paypal access, works on an oil rig, and doesn't have access to internet banking?

Anyhow, with the details provided, i looked up the name, only some guy in the US that makes flash games. I then looked up the name and the suburb and alternatively the address, nothing as expected. I looked and found it on realestate.com.au. I called the real estate office, explained the situation and my skepticism and was told that the name i gave them didn't match the name of the person it was sold to (i was just after a yes/no, not a name or anything else) however the property was sold a few weeks ago and shouldn't still be on the property website. Funny enough the lovely lady i spoke to said it used to be her Grandparents property and is now being rented out through another real estate company, which she gave me the number for.

I called that number up and they confirmed that someone by that name in fact has in fact rented it out , and only recently too. However she didn't know and couldn't tell me anything about the guys occupation as she wasn't the property manager (i said i didn't care about the company he worked for and was simply after a yes/no on if he did what the email claimed he did). She said she'd let me know if the details matched, and given that 6 hours later on, I haven't heard back, i am only going to confirm two things i already knew.

1) Don't give your details to these bastards, they'll take you for a ride, and
2) they'll use your info to try and credibly scam some other poor sap.

The lady whom i spoke to at the second real estate said her son was selling his car and had gotten the same wording in two emails from two supposed different people whom only gave a first name, no surname, which also doesn't surprise me either. She also told me to ignore the email, which i said i was going to, but curiosity got the better of me and i wanted to see just how shifty they were getting. One last thing i didn't know was that they often buy cars on the mainland and import them down to Tassie, which lended a slight bit of credibility to the guys story. This little tidbit may be known by some others here, but i had no idea this happened.

So yes, it was a bit annoying, but more than anything else i satisfied my curiosity. Am i going to bother contacting him back? nope, not at all

[Reedy]

I bet you he was from nigeria with a unicycle for one leg ?? I think this one gets around.....

[P4nza]

What caught my attention about all this is...which aussie is going to write to someone in good grammar and good english??????

[mike-s]

Yeah i know, the one thing that surprised me most was the recycling of contact details of previous suckers, erm, correspondents.

[mike-s]

What caught my attention about all this is...which aussie is going to write to someone in good grammar and good english??????

If i worked on an oil platform and wanted to buy a vehicle, i would make damn freaking sure either I or a trusted friend/relative would be able to make the purchase on my behalf. and at the very least have internet banking and be able to try and come to the party in some way shape or form.



Oh and if i was working on a platform, i'd want to buy a car a SHITLOAD nicer than a 10+ year old carolla with over 100 thousand on the clock.

[ttc]

When I advertised my zed I had similar.
Told him I wouldn't consider it selling it to him unless he organised for it to be thouroughly checked out by a local bike shop which I was happy to take it to for him
got rid of him quick smart

[waynemorgan]

Was the email through the site you advertised on or direct to your personal email? (I'm guessing personal).

Check the message headers - you should be able to locate an IP address after the last "Received from" statement - trace that IP address with www.whatismyip.com - it will bring up an ISP and it's country of origin.

I've had a "lady" contact me supposedly from Melbourne....traced her IP back - initially it came from United Arab Emerates but her later emails are coming from Nigeria suspect it to be a Honeypot scam

[mike-s]

Well that wasn't much help, curse you gmail and your web interface.

[photomike666]

What caught my attention about all this is...which aussie is going to write to someone in good grammar and good english??????

If i worked on an oil platform and wanted to buy a vehicle, i would make damn freaking sure either I or a trusted friend/relative would be able to make the purchase on my behalf. and at the very least have internet banking and be able to try and come to the party in some way shape or form.



Oh and if i was working on a platform, i'd want to buy a car a SHITLOAD nicer than a 10+ year old carolla with over 100 thousand on the clock.

Not to mention if he worked on an oil platform they tend to work 3-4 weeks straight, then have a couple of weeks off - plenty of time to buy a car.

[hoffy]

Remember 49% of the worlds population is below average and some of these people will most likely fall for it..

[waynemorgan]

Well that wasn't much help, curse you gmail and your web interface.

Actually you can thru gmail

Open the email in gmail
at the top right of the email is the Reply button with a drop down arrow next to it - click the drop down arrow and chose "Show Original" - this will reveal the message header - with the IP address

Remember 49% of the worlds population is below average and some of these people will most likely fall for it..

had never thought it it like that!

[Nelso]

When Leanne sold the Ford Ranger she had SMS scams start minutes after the add was placed. Same sort of story with the same grammatical errors.