I Sold My Boat! Sight Unseen!

[clausont]

Ya, right!

This is an email I received this morning.

"Let me know the lowest price you are willingly to accept,i will be making payment to you nextweek through my company check in California , you can deposit it till it clears before coming down for the shipping,Or i can make a wire transfer directly to your bank account and when it reflects in your account i can ask my shipper to come down, please i want you to write out the amount and every other details neccessary for me .
Regards"
It is from a person who calls them self only "Gu Gu"



Sounds too good to be true! Well, of course it is. You know the saying - "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" This is a common scam that most of you are probably aware of.
Just in case you are not, here is a link with information on these and similar scams. The "Company Check" offered here is probably stolen and washed.
Consumer Advisory 2007-1

It may at first be tempting to see if this is a true offer, but common sense says, "Stay away from it!" In loud letters.



Always keep yourself educated on the latest scams that are to be found everywhere on the internet. They change every day and there are always new ones coming up.

[Maren]

Originally Posted by clausont

Ya, right!

This is an email I received this morning ... It is from a person who calls them self only "Gu Gu"

Always keep yourself educated on the latest scams that are to be found everywhere on the internet. They change every day and there are always new ones coming up.

Good advice. I realize this isn't a nigerian scam, but it is a scam. You can always play with them since they are trying to do so with you. See www.ebolamonkyman.com for some of the more creative ideas.

Two quotes from their site. First the disclaimer:

We at ebolamonkeyman.com are not racist nor do we have any associations with racist people of any sex or persuasion. We love our fellow human beings, although not in any illegal ways. We love black; white; straight; gay (not in that way of course and not that there is anything wrong with that); women who love monkeys; octoroons; midgets; bloods; crips; religious freaks; fat; skinny; sick; twisted; and those who laugh at inappropriate times. We even love small furry animals, but not in any illegal ways... blah, blah, blah... Relax, it's all in good fun!

Second the two rules:

1. Never believe anything these idiots say.
2. Never feel sorry for them. They have caused a lot of suffering for many people.

[hellosailor]

calsuont, by all means play with them. Tell them you must act quickly, ask them to Fedex or courier the check. Then tell them you haven't received it, send a replacement again. Once you've had your fun, turn it over to the postal inspectors or the local authorities and see if you can help get them prosecuted.

And congratulations on the sale. [g]

[Ex-Calif]

This looks like the excess payment scam.

Part II is when he sends you a check for greater than the amount and asks you to pay his delivery skipper from the total proceeds.

Why is it that all these scam guys have such terrible English?

[Chiroeurope]

Get them to send you the information to a post office box and notify the authorities about what is going down. You might be surprised at how much help you will get in putting a crook behind bars out deported from the US (or what ever country is involved.

Have helped get a few in trouble here in the UK, though here it required me mentioning that i had sent a copy of the scam letter to a number of scandal rags to show that many of these scams where coming from within the UK.

Some times the fourth column is good, sometimes they are scum. It all depends on how you use them.

Michael

[TaoJones]

Originally Posted by Chiroeurope

<snip>

Some times the fourth column is good, sometimes they are scum. It all depends on how you use them.

Michael

Fourth column?

Fourth estate, perhaps.

Fourth Estate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TaoJones

[Hud3]

Fifth column could apply in some instances, don't you think?

"A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal."

[ssullivan]

I got one of these every week or while selling the Gulfstar. I did like hellosailor says...

I wasted as much of their time as possible, hoping it would slow them down.

[driven]

I know this thread is old, but for future reference, here's a great site that talks about how to play back at the scammers:

http://www.419eater.com/

[multihullsailor6]

I received one of these "genuine" offers for my boat, stating that "they would immediately plan the shipping of my boat in a container"... - well as happened, this boat of mine was a 9.2m x 5m catamaran. Quite some container and containership they would have needed! Without further addo I told them "to get lost".

[SabreKai]

I listed Espina for sale in August of last year, and by the first week of September had a broker emailing me on behalf of an older client who liked classic boats. So after sending photos and a copy of the old survey, the guy came back with an offer to purchase. He mailed me a cashiers check drawn on some credit union in Missouri. It was made out for twice the amount, and there was nothing else in the envelope and no return address either. Mailed from Cotinue in Benin, which is right beside Nigeria.

Anyway I was to disburse funds to his shipper and mechanic when they showed up to ship the boat to England. Then I got an email asking me to forward $5000USD by western union to the shipper and mechanic in England as they needed the funds to buy tickets. Meanwhile I did a google search for the credit union. ZIP. So I took the check to my bank, advised them that it was probably fraudulent and told them to see what happened.

5 days later, they called to say it was bouncing on its way back to Benin like a rubber ball.

So I tried to play the guy for a bit, told him the check was burnt up in a serious crash on the highway one nite on its way to the clearing house. I never did hear back from him.

Since then I've had about 150 emails about my boat. 135 were from scammers. I now run a filter on my email with keywords boat-payment-urgent-reply and hotmail.com, Gmail.com and a couple of others as these are pretty much standard format emails. I've even had identical emails from 7 different sources.

I was sending emails to abuse@xxxx with the entire emails and all headers with a note to delete for fraudulent usage but they come back in a day. As long as they can get a web based email address they will just keep on going. Right now I have some guy with a polish last name emailing me from a non-existant company in Scotland, and hes even called me at home twice. Sent me photos of him and his or someone elses family.

Him I havent heard from in a bit, but I'm keeping all the data and will forward it to the German Postal service as they run the internet in Germany and deal harshly with that sort of stuff.


Sabre

[captmick39]

Look forward 2 their first.
My bank doesn't charge for returned items.
That balance will look good for a couple days.

"I go with option 1, send me the check,
Have a nice day & when it clears I'll hand over the keys & title to a local broker for Your delivery instructions".

That'd be my reply.

[Floppel]

Originally Posted by clausont

"[...]Or i can make a wire transfer directly to your bank account and when it reflects in your account i can ask my shipper to come down[...]

Now I'm curious, how does the scam work with wiring the money? I wonder what would have happened if the OP insisted on a wire transfer.

[SabreKai]

Good question, but I suspect that in that case they would try to take money out of your account in some way, rather than put money into it. If I was inclined to play the game some more and wanted to do it that way, I'd give them the account info for an account I have that has about $1.25 in it. Then see what happens. Either that or you won't hear from them again.

Sabre.

[perchance]

I have a great idea. Ask the buyer to fax you the cheque and you will fax him the boat.