Is this a scammer???Advice needed
 

I have a car listed for sale on a free website. I get this email within 12 hours of posting my ad. I'm not selling the Cobra but the family sedan. This is just one of those things that sounds to good to be true so I thought I would bounce this off some of you experts and see what your thoughts are. I don't want to be duped.

Thanks,
John

I noted a strange discrepency with the I's, both lower case and upper case but also 1's are used.

Message below;


Thanks for the reply, i am a sailor, i am at sea right now so l wont be able to check the item but l need more details about the item and also l will be more happy if you can send me some pictures of it because am buying this for my son as a surprise gift so am willing to offer you the amount you required. I can only pay through PayPal at the moment as i don't have access to my bank account online(i don't have internet banking with it), but i have it attached to my PayPal account, and this is why i insisted on using PayPal to pay,all i will need is your PayPal email address to make the payments, and if you don't have a PayPal account yet, you can set one up at www.paypal.com it cant take you less than 3mins to do that, i will be expecting your PayPal email so l can pay. I have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been sorted. l will be waiting for your reply asap

For sure, it would seem... I would ignore, and do not reply.

Beware of fake cashiers checks also. You will not find out they are fake until about 30 days after you deposited it in your account. The bank will not even know if it's fake.

http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/category/6/

John,

Looks like a scripted response. See how he calls it you "item" not a "car".

Also, See if you can get all of his information. If he is a sailor then he has an ID number and he can give you the squadron information that he is attached to. You could then contact the Navy and find out if he is legit or not.

If he is in the Navy and trying to run a scam, he will be in BIG trouble. If he gets reported he will not be in the Navy long.

PM sent

Fake responses have a style of their own
 

When they respond to your ad, they don't refer to it in particular
saying something like "I am interested in what you have for sale..."
that way they can use the same letter for many more advertisers.

And by the way to make you feel really dumb, you may at this first stage
be talking to a robot. The robots fire the first responses and then if they get an answer, maybe one or two levels up a real human being begans "working you" to get some money out of you or to get information like your bank account number, SS number etc. Once they have permission to send money to your account, they can fake a letter to the bank allowing them to extract money from it and you are toast.

I find that many of these scammers are in Nigeria or some place that had a former British influence so they occasionally tip off their origin by using a word that Americans don't use anymore like "whilst" or "lorry" for truck, etc.

Thanks for the replies. You all just confirmed what my gut was telling me. I will leave this one alone.

John

When I post on some of those "free" sites I don't allow emails only posting a phone # so if the party is interested and is "real" I can talk to them. just my 02 worth.

It's the year 2010. Anytime someone you don't know wants to give you money, it's a scam. Got it?

i have found that if you request payment through Western Union....they stop contacting you..

I have one bank account linked to my paypal only. Any time I get money into my Paypal account I transfer it to my bank account, and then transfer from that bank account to my primary bank account. It might be a PITA because of the few days it takes to get money transferred, but it is worth the extra security.

And yes - this looks like a scam. There are a couple of ways one like this usually goes:
1. He sends you money and someone picks up the 'item'. Then he reverses the charges and claims fraud. You get investigated by Paypal, and are out the money AND the car. There is also the possibility that he would try to pay you extra and you would then give that extra cash to the agent, now you are out the car as well as the extra cash.
Or, (more likely)
2. You open a valid paypal account using a real link. You then send him the email address linked to that account for payment. He then sends you a spoofed email saying that you have received funds in your paypal account when the pickup agent shows up. The guy takes your car, and you have nothing but a fake email with a bunch of pretend money.

I'd call your local police and see if they want to catch the agent. But ONLY do that if you really feel confortable with how the scams work (and be aware that there may be other scams and methods that can catch you out.)

Steve