Yet another reason
To only accept cash, or use an escrow service like PayPal.
Just five Nigerian criminal gangs are behind a widespread type of fraud targeting sellers on Craigslist. The Lads from Lagos are going to considerable lengths of investing time and money in order to make their scams more plausible, according to a study by George Mason University researchers Damon McCoy and Jackie Jones. The …
Why don't banks simply not clear cheques until they are 100% sure they are real ?
Perhaps to protect their margins and save on the cost of employing somebody to actually check the cheques instead of just relying on customers to report fraud then refund them.
I got an email from Mark Carney this week, he's the Governor of the Bank of England in case you didn't know.
Apparently there's TWENTY MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS waiting for me to collect. So, in a couple of weeks I really don't think I'll be bothered if someone rips me off for the odd laptop.
Maybe scam baiting should become an officially backed activity to put off these fraudsters for good.
You're about to get scammed. A legitimate buyer will try to talk you DOWN, not up!
Timely tidbit:
Just got an email "from" one of my friends, who's been robbed in Dubai of everything but his passport. His plane leaves in <8 hrs, but the hotel mgr won't let him leave and would I please send him $2500? Funny thing is that the IP of the computer that "he" used to send the email resolves to Nigeria...
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My dog sitter sent me an email saying that she was stranded in a bus station in Amsterdam, Holland. All pretty good as half an hour earlier she'd sent me a text message saying my mutt had been for a good run round.
Several hours later we'd got her GMail account back under her control!
If you put something up for sale on a site, refuse to accept anything other than cash, and don't ship it anywhere until *AFTER* they've paid for both the item(s) AND the shipping. Anything else is just begging for trouble.
If they want to pay via cheque, smile & tell them to go to their bank, withdraw the funds, & come back with cash, otherwise bugger off. They want to use PayPal, Bitcoin, or anything else, smile & tell them that Cash is the only way they'll be leaving with the goods. Because anything besides cash in hand is a boning waiting for a victim.
As for the Banks & cheque processing, if they tell you it takes days to do it, tell them they're full of shite. The same tech that allows the Register Clerk at the grocery store to slide your cheque through the reader & auto-debit your account for the funds *immediately* applies ten-fold to Financial Institutions. That routing number across the bottom includes your account number, and a simple swipe through the reader turns it into the same thing as a Debit Card transaction. The machine sends the routing number, purchase amount, & merchant ID to the institution that issued the cheque. If said institution doesn't exist, the routing number, or account number are wrong, it gets flagged as invalid - No Sale. If the numbers resolve, the institution then checks that the Purchase Amount is actually available in the indicated account. If insufficient funds, then No Sale (or they allow it, but charge the account owner NSF fees) & No Sale. If the funds are there, they are automaticly & immediately deducted from the account & electronicly transferred to the Merchant ID listed in the transaction. All of this happens in under sixty seconds on a congested day, and Financial Institutions have the added benefit of digitally scanning the cheque & sending it along with the transaction data, thus allowing the issuing institution to tell at a glance if it even is one of their instruments. ("Umm... we're the Northern Bank of Belgium, not the NorDern Bnak of Belgeeum.")
That cheque can be processed in less time than it takes to ask the counter clerk about the weather, and they can have the cash in your hand or let you know it's invalid, in seconds. The *ONLY* reason to force it to take days is to physicly mail it to a clearing house that simply does the same job aforementioned, at a snail's pace, in order to give the bank a few days of earning interest on the funds without having to pay YOU for having done so.
So refuse anything other than cash, and don't ship it anywhere until they've sent the cash for both the purchase AND the shipping. It can't get any fekking easier.
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It can take weeks before the bank decides to take back the money.
Work from home scams in Canada have had people cash cheques and wire the money to the scammer (less 20% for your time).
If it's a fake company cheque with all the correct account info it can take the company a week or two to object to the charge and the bank to come after you for the money.
Any mention of this money-moving company should send alarm bells ringing. Is there any scam that doesn't use Western Union or the competition Moneygram? The government should enact legislation that forces anyone using them to be asked 'are you being scammed?' and to give details of typical scams before anyone can continue with a transfer.
It's sad that our overly trusting British nature is abused through the internet which brings (primarily) Nigerian scammers to our front door. I can spot these scams a mile off, but there are vulnerable and naive people who don't know better.
I'm not aware that we're famous for this. I think that all western countries are targeted, it is just easier for Nigerians to target the USA/UK/Aus because of the language (they speak English in Nigeria).
I know the US army veteran stories are used on unsuspecting Chinese and have some success.
The "cheque" is higher than the purchase price and intended marks are asked to send the difference - minus their expenses for shipping the kit - via Western Union.
Ah, that old chestnut. Do you remember the days before the intertubes? It existed then, too.
Meanwhile, at least one such scammer could be taught a lesson he'll never forget - put this laptop up for sale, and only accept a buyer who is obviously trying this scam.
> Victims may well not know that the "buyer" of the kit is actually located in Nigeria...
Is that the same as:
Victims may not know that the "buyer" of the kit is actually located in Nigeria.. ?
Only I don't see the need to use bad grammar when there is no imperative.
It's not as though you are Nigerian. Or are you?
You've all seen these too. "Your email box is full, please go to such-and-such site and re-enter your handle and password" being a stripped down version.
The solution is obvious: always, always respond but fill in false information. If the scammers get thousands of replies full of nonsense, they will be hard pressed to figure out which ones are legitimate. Maybe!
They spam us, we reverse-spam them.