Phishing Scheme?? How often do you get hit when selling through classified?

[Sean]

I filed a complaint with the FBI. Hopefully this guy will move on to the next site by tomorrow and leave us alone...

[leeturner]

Regarding Western Union payments, Ebay UK and Ireland and now banned these payment methods for selling due to advice from the police anti fraud section.

[eddie gunks]

sounds very funny! just a few questions? why do teh scammers use bidpay? i am not sure i understand why your name and address tips you off to them being a scammer. i read about the guy who shipped the stuff fed ex, and scammed the scammer. i guess my question is how do you make sure and secure the payment with bidpay? i mean if bidpay says you have the money is this not in fact true? how should i protect myself? if the pay companies say i have the money, i should have the money, right? i have made several online purchases, but i have only sold 1 or 2 items.
thanks fo teh laughs
eddie

[photomc]

Could be wrong, and if so my apologies...but these seem a bit out of place, almost like someone trying to find out why there scam failed?

sounds very funny! just a few questions? why do teh scammers use bidpay? i am not sure i understand why your name and address tips you off to them being a scammer. i read about the guy who shipped the stuff fed ex, and scammed the scammer. i guess my question is how do you make sure and secure the payment with bidpay? i mean if bidpay says you have the money is this not in fact true? how should i protect myself? if the pay companies say i have the money, i should have the money, right? i have made several online purchases, but i have only sold 1 or 2 items.
thanks fo teh laughs
eddie

[Dan Fromm]

sounds very funny! just a few questions? why do teh scammers use bidpay? i am not sure i understand why your name and address tips you off to them being a scammer. i read about the guy who shipped the stuff fed ex, and scammed the scammer. i guess my question is how do you make sure and secure the payment with bidpay? i mean if bidpay says you have the money is this not in fact true? how should i protect myself? if the pay companies say i have the money, i should have the money, right? i have made several online purchases, but i have only sold 1 or 2 items.
thanks fo teh laughs
eddie

Eddie, BidPay sends the seller two e-mails as well as mailing a money order. BidPay needs name and mailing address to mail the money order, e-mail address to send the news that there is a money order. The first e-mail says, in essence, that the buyer has paid and that Western Union hasn't actually received the money. The second says, in essence, that Western Union has the cash in hand and that it is safe to ship. Given the ease of faking e-mails, ...

[Pastiche]

[COLOR=DarkRed]. . . x, y, z ....[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DarkOrange]I Second That.[/COLOR]

[Alex Hawley]

I had an e-mail from Andy Moore this morning. Deleted it without reading. Then I saw this thread. What a coincidence.

[MattCarey]

Could be wrong, and if so my apologies...but these seem a bit out of place, almost like someone trying to find out why there scam failed?

I have jumped down the throats of people who I thought were spammers in the past, so I have tried to back off some (even though I was correct).

Given that this guy only has one other post--asking about how to sort classifieds by seller:
http://www.apug.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22649

I'd be careful for a bit with offers on the classifieds--another round may be in the offing.

Sorry, Eddie, but since one of the tip-offs that this was a scam was the fact that people received offers for each item on the classifieds, asking how to sort the classifieds by seller would make me suspicious that you were trying to avoid this mistake in the future.

Matt

p.s. I hope you stick around, post a lot of useful information and good images and prove my suspicions wrong.

[Paul Sorensen]

I got Andy's messages too. I just thought he was a jerk who didn't read the ad. Never occurred to me that he was a scammer. What ticked me off was that he was asking for current condition and updated photos, the photos are a week old and the stuff has just been sitting here waiting to be sold in the last week. I have already posted my stuff on eBay so I just sent him a reply to that effect. I was actually very glad that was the case since I was getting a really creepy feeling about the guy. Such an anglo name yet his english was severely lacking. I guess I don't expect a scammer from eastern europe to have the name Andy Moore.

Sean, were you able to get an IP address for law enforcement? Since he sent the emails through our system, we can't do a heck of a lot of email tracing.

[John Bartley]

Just a thought here ... this guy turned out to be a scammer as far as we know, but one of the nice things about Western Union is that when you collect from them, you collect cash, greenbacks, folding coin of the realm ...etc. If you really wanted to know whether or not a scam was taking place, all you need to do is send him your name and address and email address, all of which aren't exactly private anyway. With that little bit of info, if he is legit, you will receive an email stating that you have CASH waiting for you at your local WU office. A simple phone call confirms this and then you know for sure. Once you have cash in hand, send the goods. Otherwise, no cash - no goods. Why a scammer would use WU ?? I have no idea as all it takes is a bit of patience to prove or disprove what they are.

cheers