'Ligit' or Spam?

[fastrack]

With the recent thread requesting information on where to advertise, I thought this might be something to keep in mind. I have used a few of the listing services available on the internet. I have learned to be cautious to reply to some inquiries that we have received. Several are obviously using some type of 'fill in the blanks form' because they don't even make sense when reading. Here is an excerpt the most recent one I have received.....

".... Am really Interested in the Purchase..of the {:GMR Apollo Silver

Lace-} Once again..Am sure is Still available for sale? If is still

available.. Kindly email me and let me know the selling cost for it..Once

again, I have made all arrangement with the associate of mine, inregards to

the shipment..The shipment will be in the means of Picking Up in your place

after you have the payment. I mean it will be pick up by my shipping co..

Once the payment has cleared My means of payment will beby USD Certified

Check Or Money Order which will surely clear fine... {100% Valid} for the

payment.."

What is most unique about this one is they included their name, address, and phone number. This person is supposedly from UK. I was already to delete when I noticed the phone number was also included.

What do you think....Worth an international phone call or not?

 

[Jess P]

Sounds fishy to me. Usually when they put the name in parenthesis and refer to it as "it", it is a scam.

 

[kaykay]

definately a scam

 

[Horsefeathers]

Scam

 

[Voodoo]

I say scam even if the phone # was included.

 

[user 488]

[SIZE=21pt]SCAM![/SIZE]

 

[hairicane]

The scammers are gradually getting a little smarter and I have had a couple lately that were really hard for me to tell at first. And I have had plenty of international sales in the past and often get calls and emails in foreign languages or from people that speak english as a 2nd language so often the wording is not quite right. I raise and show dogs and minis so I do get a lot of the scammmers. Usually the biggest tip off is when they say they will have it picked up and will handle everything. Anyone that has had an international sale knows the animal being sold MUST have rabies shot and often rabies titer done a certain amount of time before being shipped and in the case of Japan there may be a 10 month wait from starting the transaction to completion. So if u ask the potential scammer about rabies and shots and testing etc and they say their vet will take care of it once its in their country then u KNOW its a scammer. Be careful!

 

[txminipinto]

I got the same email today. It's a scam. Delete it and forget about it!

 

[sedeh]

I had a similar response on a dream horse add. It was worded funny and I did respond just to see what happened(and in case it was someone who's English was a secondary language), but never got another response. Your's definately sound fishy with the shipping "being taken care of". Good Luck!

 

[MiniHoofBeats]

I want to add my story here, referring to how scammers are getting smarter:

I was selling a pet parrot of mine a while back and I received a phone call on my cell phone from a person who relays messages typed by a deaf person. We conversed back and forth about sending photo's to their e-mail, where they were located, how much to sell the bird and accessories for. I e-mailed this person my birds photo's, we wrote back and forth a few times and then he sent me an e-mail:

(this is long but worthwhile to explain)

Steffanie,

Thanks very much for your email,he is lovely,would take the bird, get back with total selling price for him.The reason I am sending you this email is to make final

reconfirmation and also to let you know that payment will be by certified USPS (United States Postal Servce) Money Order. In view of this,I need you to email me any information that may be required to send the Money Order, as I do not want to send the Money Order to a wrong location lest they gets into the wrong hands.

Regarding the shipping, I have a company that takes care of the pick up of my consignments for me and ship to my destination anywhere in the U.S.A, you do not worry about shipping, the company will send down a representative to arrange the sales documentation and the pick up from your end for onward t! ransfer to my destination.

I also want to alert you on the fact that you will be recieving an

overdraft Money Order, which will cover the money for the pickup (pickup and shipping to the final destination) as well as the money to be paid to the company that will take care of the pickup and the documentation with you. So please, as soon as you receive the Money Order, go and cash them immediately, deduct the money that accrues to you, and send the balance to the Head Office of the company that handles the shipment in London United Kingdom which i will give you the details later.

The Money Order will be in your name to make it easier for you to receive payment, deduct your money and send the balance to the shipper so that they can come for the pick up.I will give you the details of the company that you will send the balance of the money to in London once I get a reply and agreement that you will send the money! to London via Money Gram or Western Union money trnasfer immediately you cash the Money Order.Once the money is received by the agent in London , the shipping agent will contact you immediately to arrange the documentation as well as

the pick up immediately. So in view of the above, here are some of the

details I will need for final issuance of the USPS Money Order to

you.

(1) Full Name

(2) Mailing address, no p.o.box please

(3) your direct telephone number

(4) acceptance of my offer

Once you get back to me with all the above, the Money Order will be

issued out immediately and it will be sent to you .Hope to hear from

you immediately you read this message.

Regards,

James.

N.B I WOULD GIVE AN EXTRA $100 IF THIS BIRD IS RESEVED FOR ME

These scammers are getting REAL smart! This was sent after many e-mails and he finally stopped e-mailing me when I questioned him.

 

[Loess Hills]

Definitely a SCAM! They have gotten smarter, but it's the same old game.

 

[strass]

Watch the phone number thing!!!

When you aren't sure where you are calling, you can step right into a 1-900 type of deal that enables them to hit you with large fees to your phone and little way to fight it since it's a foreign based company.

I would take the time to confirm with someone from the UK that it's at least a potentially legit number before even considering calling them.

Oh, and it's spam anyhow.

 

[fastrack]

Good advice from straus. I wouldn't have thought of that angle. I have deleted the email.

What I have learned is to be careful where you post your advertisement on the internet. The safest is with a site that asks you to register you name and address. That way is someone is abusing, they might be able to track them.

Shoot. I should have sent this spam email to athe administrators of Dream Horse to see if they can block him from doing it to others.

My unspoken question of "why do these guys do this" was answered by Loess Hills story. And to think they went to all the trouble of acting it out with an interpreter!

Thanks everyone

 

[Sandee]

We are trying to sell our big horse trailer. The scammer I got went thru all the trouble to have a second party call me to give a phone number to call when payment arrived! Then I got an e-mail from a shipper of overseas transport company.

They were setting me up to send me too much money and ask for the "extra" back. I had heard about this and didn't take the bait. Told him it had to be in dollars and only for the correct amount. Never heard from him again.

 

[MiniMoment]

Be careful whenever any email seems odd. I got an email awhile back that had a topic line something like "your email has been linked with illegal sites noted by the Gov't". When I read it (assumming it was my server or support system sending this to me), it even mentioned the CIA! AND gave a phone number and address.

Being suspicious, I checked out the phone number on the internet (Reverse lookup under the phone book) and it even listed the CIA number & address correctly.

Luckily before I did anything silly, I heard from a group email to watch out for this type of email as it is a SCAM!

WHEW! I have since put a block on this sender.

I think if the sender doesn't send you an email with your name or some reasonable topic that you recognize, then beware! (If they truly are a friend or someone legite that is trying to get hold of you, then they will contact you again or even call you).