He told me he was in England.

This is a copy of the e-mail I received which immediately sounded like a scam, I sent Dave Borden a copy and he confirmed my suspicions. And now seeing that it's a cut and past from the e-mail he sent Bill S.

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Malby
To: cobracsx@aol.com
Sent: Thu, May 20, 2010 12:49 pm
Subject: Re: FFR-2224 For Sale $47,500

Don
Thanks for getting back to me. I will offer you $45,000 for it and i will like to inform you that i will be having our local transporters to come to your location for a test drive process on the car and moreover I will have to make a down payment to you so as to make you reserve the car for me for not getting it sold to other interested buyer's till the test drive and the sale will be done as it would take time to get all of that done
I will make a down payment of $4000 and also I will include the test drive fees which will cost for $3000 and mind you I want the payment made out to you by check and also as soon as the funds of $7000 have been cleared into your account I will like you to have the car ready for the test drive process and also you will make the remaining funds of $3000 payable to the transporters to cover for the inspection/test drive fees and all other expenses during inspection
I will be looking forward for proceedings to you and also get back to me with the full names, mailing address and phone number the check can be made payable to you
I will be looking forward to hear from you
Regards
Robert

So why does Robert need so many Cobras?:LOL:

Is this scam spam actually illegal, in a formal sense, or does money have to change hands for it to become illegal, fraud I guess would the crime? Theft of goods and services? Federal crime as it involves the internet? How are these things generally handled by "who ever" those authorities might be?

Robert Malby Scam
 

I got an offer on my B&B from Robert Malby and checked on him here. Glad I did so I didn't waste time with him. I recently received another offer today from someone named Thamm@apple.com, does anyone know if its the same guy? Seems a little suspicious!

You should be suspicious of any buyer, until the funds are are in your safely in your hand and there's no possible way the buyer can reverse the transaction.

Here's a great thread with some tips regarding wire transfers.

http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/show...=wire+transfer

He emailed me about my car but I've been slow to respond since he says he's in England and has offered to buy several cars??:eek:

He may be "legit" but I seriously DOUBT IT!!!:cool:

Guys I am in the UK and called the telephone No. he provided for you , he is not local to these grey and damp islands , I asked him about buying cobras and he of course denied all knowledge of it

my advice is to stay well clear

Just responded to that one this morning on Roger's old FFR.


Bill S.

As Ernie pointed out, I believe that until there is a "transfer" of some type of funds that the crime isn't committed yet. As everyone that has posted points out, the offers are usually nebulous with little details about WHAT they are interested in. Several years ago we had a '57 Coupe deville for sale, beautiful car, and it was listed on our website and a couple of other sales locations. We received a similar "offer" and decided to watch it play out. The party sent a "certified bank check" and my wife, who has more dealings with legal tender than I, was suspicious of how the check felt. We had no intentions of surrendering anything until the money was in the bank. When she took it to the bank she mentioned the details of the transaction and her concerns regarding the "integrity" of the paper. She was assured that it was indeed a "real" check, but we weren't sure. We didn't need to access the funds so we let it ride...for about a week when the bank called an lo and behold it was a forgery...hmmm. Fortunately the fact that it's authenticity was questioned by my wife when deposited kept us from being considered as the forgers. It was turned over to the proper authorities and we haven't heard a thing about it. It is unlikely that there are agreements in place to be able to apprehend the culprits and bring them to some accountability.
Within a few days, before the bank had realized their ignorance, we were receiving requests for amounts to help the poor fellows' mother who needed some emergency surgery and he needed the "shipping fees" returned. I replied to a few requests stating that nothing was going anywhere until the check had cleared( we actually requested a Western Union money order, so he was off on the wrong foot immediately). He then began making threats and I invited him to come by and we could discuss it......that was the last I heard. Too bad , I had just purchased a new handgun and was hoping to see how it worked.
So I guess the caveat I am adding is even when the bank thinks it's real, until it is money, it isn't.