Internet Fraud

[Kingman]

I have a bunch of snakes for sale on a reptile site. Some high dollar stuff asking several thousand dollars for them. I get a guy that wants to buy them, then he gives me this one.

Hello Robert King,i have seen the price and its ok by me then i

have instructed my client in{usa} to issue the cashiers cheque to

you.meanwhlie i also instructed him to include $5500 on the payment

so you should expect a cashiers cheque of $8000 the excess is for my

shipper that will be coming for pick up.the funds will be used for

the shipping of the { Boa } along side 3 other CARS i placed order for in

care of my shipper.i'll imploy you to wire the balance via western

union money transfer to my shipper as soon as you RECEIVE the

cheque.My SHIPPER will come for pick up on a specicified date that

will be convenient for you.i hope i can count on you for my balance I

ALSO WANT THIS TO BASE ON TRUST CAN

I TRUST YOU?...

P.S i will like you to give me ur contact info..also as soon as u get

the cheque,cashing store will given to you for by me for the fast

cashing of the cheque.Hope this is understandable by you.

Name in full.

Adresss. .

City...

State...

Country..

phone#..

Zipcode..

pls get all this done for me so that i can fax it down to my client

that will send u the cheque..

RAY

At least I did not pull the add.

[lynn jones]

you're smart to avoid that crap. check this out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3909233.stm

i guess some people aren't so smart.

lynn

[davidwiz]

King,

The email you got is quite common. You deposit the cashiers check (usually sent to you via FedEx by someone purporting to be in the US) into your bank account and wire the "extra" $$$ to some address in Nigeria. No one shows up to pick up what you are selling, and a week or so later your bank notifies you that not only is the cashiers check a forgery, but you now have to make good on all that money that you wried to Nigeria and reimburse the bank.

Some city councilman at a local town near here fell for the scam, and the local newspaper hammered him pretty good, and then the guy was whining that he didn't have $8k to pay back the bank.

Here is one newspaper article on it, this time involving horses. Here is the Internet Scam Alert page, which lists most 'net scams, including this one.

Edited July 22, 2004 by davidwiz