Hi all,
As some of you may know, my GF's 318Ci is for sale (back in the classifieds for a more realistic £8k, in autotrader too). Anyway, I received an email thus:
"Hello,
I am really interested in buying the above mentioned car for( £9,000) from you and i will want you to get back to me asap to let me know if its still available.
I will appreciate if you can give me a call ASAP to disscuss the sale. 07024******.
I wait to ear from you.
Donald"
On calling the number, it rang as if in a foreign county (odd ringing tone, not UK)- very poor signal, managed to understand very little. Odd, as it looks like a UK mobile number?!
I was suspicious about this, given the message above- simply doesn't smell right to me, wanting to buy the car for the asking price, poor grammar (wrong use of 'will', 'ear from you'?) etc. I know about the people that offer to buy the car for more than it's worth to launder money, and then fleece you- is this a new form? Will I get a million pound phone bill??!
Any advice welcome!!
Cheers,
Alex.
--
Dr Alex Mears
MG BGT 1971
If you are in a hole stop digging...unless
you are a miner.
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I would assume that its a scam. What is the email address and where was the email sent from ?
If you look at the mail headers you will see a list of things like
Received: from perdition2.onetel.net.uk ([212.67.120.105]) (envelope-sender ) by pre-smtp01-02.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 10 Mar 2006 10:50:48 -0000
find the earliest (the bottom one) go to www.dnsstuff.com and look up the ip address the thing in []. What do you think holand ? Israel? Africa?
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I don't think 070 is a UK mobile prefix, I think they are 077 and 078. There is some scam where they send you extra money, to pay on to a 3rd party for some debt in UK. You hand over the car and the cheque or bank draft is then stopped. Despite the sum appearing in your bank account it is in fact 'pending clearance' and is not available to you for several more days. Beware!
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Tenner says they're in Nigeria.
www.419eater.com
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Sounds like the classic scam approach.
Don't ring them again - if they are really interested they will call you back and you can make a judgement..
Accept nothing other than cash. If they suggest Western Union , forget it, it is definately a scam.
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in the UK all mobile numbers start with 07 - however all the alleged scammer needs to do then is have the mobile forward the call elsewhere....
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in the UK all mobile numbers start with 07 ....
Yes, but the third number in the sequence won't be a zero. It will be either 7, 8 , or 9.
070 numbers are personalised.
www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/numbers_admi...s
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and if I read
www.ukphoneinfo.com/section/tci/locator.shtml
aright, 07024 numbers are issued through a company called 'Magrathea Telecommunications Limited'
one for the Douglas Adams fans
Go on, get out of the car...
www.mikes-walks.co.uk
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The two IP addresses are located in the UK & San Francisco. I suspect very strongly a West-African scam (what I heard sounded like a potentially West-African accent).
I did reply to the mail, asking if he wanted to see the car. I guess that the response will tell!
Cheers for your input, guys.
Alex.
--
Dr Alex Mears
MG BGT 1971
If you are in a hole stop digging...unless
you are a miner.
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Follow the tips on 419eater and try and bait him...good for a laugh if nothing else. ;o)
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Yer
Its Friday, we could all do with a laff, string him along.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Def a 419er - 070 can be "personal mumbers" which forward calls to a customer-defined number.
I had one so keen for the cash I was to give him (sent a dodgy draft for £4,500 for a £400 banger) that I even had him call for me at the front desk of a London nick, as I said I was a civvy working on their aircon plant!
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I've had a response- definitely a scam. He's 'on a business trip to Dubai', so can't pick the car up (or even see it), so will send me a banker's draft! I replied to say that I was wary of scams, and would only accept cash, and he's come back that as he'd in Dubai, his way is the only one that will work (he is "a GOD fearing person and cant joke or waist people's time").
I'm tempted to string him along, but it is my home email account, so I don't want to go too far! Will keep y'all posted..
Cheers,
Alex.
--
Dr Alex Mears
MG BGT 1971
If you are in a hole stop digging...unless
you are a miner.
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I strung one along for a long time, as you can see above. He eventually worked out I'd sussed him, and quickly gave up. They operate from internet cafes, so time=money, and so they quickly move onto the next idiot.
Interestingly the draft I rec'd was posted in Romford, and they have runners who fetch the cash - Mr Big always stays hidden. Plod wasn't interested, despite my elaborate set-up.
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I don't quite follow this. If he's in Dubai, why would anyone buy your car without seeing it first? Also, if he sends you a draft, why would anyone hand over the car keys before the draft has cleared?
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The problem is that the draft doesn't clear, but it takes 28 days for the issuing bank to advise that it's a dud. The recipient's bank credits their account, and then debits it when they get the advice from the other bank.
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There are whole web sites (some of them very funny) devoted to scammer baiting.
Personal numbers are much more expensive to call than mobile numbers and look very similar.
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Follow the tips on 419eater and try and bait him...good for a laugh if nothing else. ;o)
Here's a spoof web page I created to wind-up 419 scammers.
www.geocities.com/cottager4me/
Unfortunately I didn't get any photos back though!
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Very very common scam, I'm sure it is a UK mobile, if you were able to get through without a country prefix, however they will be 'roaming' abroad, as someone else points out probably Nigeria. They will offer to buy your car for the asking price and will want to send you a money transfer order for way over this price in order to get the car shipped abroad.
You will then hand the car over to the shipper etc, and afterwards find out that the money order has not been cleared by your bank, ie car/money lost.
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So if a draft is possibly unreliable since it takes 28 days to know if it's genuine, what is the best method of getting paid, apart from cash which is not practical for large amounts?
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>what is the best method of getting paid, apart from cash which is not practical for large amounts?
A telegraphic transfer, properly known as CHAPS - costs about £20, usually takes 2 hours. Cleared funds on arrival and unrecoverable by the sending bank, as they have to take the money from the sender's account first, so the sender has to have cash/overdraft agreement in place.
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