Maybe a con ?

Recieved this E-Mail this morning anyone had anything similar ?

"hello,
this is MRS ROSS TUCK ,i just lost my husband some few months ago and he deals with buying and selling of hifi steroes.so i dont want the business to die,that was why i continued the business.
,the reason why i mailed you was that i
saw you advert placed on net that you want to sell the above
mentioned
item
please if is still available kindly tell me?
1.the current condition[tell if negotiable]
2.your asking price
3.the goods picture
4 payment through a cheque that can be drwan in any uK bank.

best regards
ROSS"

And this classic follow up.............



"Hello,
thanks for getting to me fast. mere reading your mail i see how honest you are and i need to see the pics for what i am purchasing
haven read your mail i will contact my colleague who is indebted to me.so he will be sending you the uk cheque.
mind you he will be sending a cheque of the total amount of money he owes me which is £3000 UK Sterling,when you get the cheque,go and deposit it in your account and when it has been transfered to your account you deduct your £600UK Sterling and forward the remaining to my shipping company through western union money transfer.

the shipping company will be coming for the pickup of the P1a + monolithic PSU ,that is
three days after you have sent them funds.the funds will be meant for the shipping and clearing arrangement of the P1a + monolithic PSU.

i hope i can count on you for my portion after you have deducted your £600 UK Sterling
I WILL NEED YOUR NAME,ADDRESS AND YOUR PHONE NUMBER FOR THE ADDRESSION OF THE CHEQUE.


i will entertain suggestion,comments and opinion from you.
I NEED A GO AHEAD FROM YOU,BEFORE I WILL INSTRUCT MY CLIENT TO MAKE THE PAYMENT.


REPLY ASAP.
mrs ross tuck"

So there you go, they want to send me a chq for £3k (from a man they've never meet) to me for goods they've only seen a photo of and for me to sent them the balance, needless to say, haven't heard back yet

 

What do they gain from it? If the check clears its okay right?

Or are they somehow money laundering?

 

The grammar and spelling is very poor (even by my standards) so I would suggest that the person is running a Nigeria 418 style scam. You already know this though

I hate scams like this because some times people are actually taken in my it all. I remember getting my first Nigeria 418 email when I was 13, I was so excited I told my parents and they told me it was a con. This was 8 years ago now thats how longs its been going on.

 

Judging by the writer's command of English it's probably a foreign cheque in UK Sterling. A foreign cheque can be cancelled for up to 28 days so you think you've got the money but then your bank gets the instruction to take it back - which they are obliged to do.

So if Tony went ahead he'd end up £3K down and also without the products he was selling

One would hope that any decent bank would make you aware of the 28 day thing when putting in a foreign cheque....

Michael.

 

AT, they're called 419 scams but this doesn't look like it. For a start 419 scams usually involve far more money and they work differently.

This one is actually worse because you do get the money for a short period of time and most people are blissfully unaware of the caveats with foreign cheques.

Michael.

 

Yeah 419 scams are the ones where they ask you to given them say £10,000 and you will get £1 million in return aren't they? Thats the email I kind of got.

I get them all the time now its just as routine as getting the bus in the moring.

The latest scam involves ringing peoples mobile phones from a premium rate number and if you ring it back you get charged £50 a minute. Most people wouldn't have enough credit but if you're on contract that can be very dangerous.

 

Dunno, seems genuine to me Plus s/he can addression you now too.

 

Simple - just pay the cheque into your bank and leave it at that. Send them no money and no hi-fi gear

 

Well guys forgive my sceptisum, but they haven't had replied since I suggest either direct bank transfer or paypal
Also, I'm sorry, but If I've never meet a person before , I've never offered a £3k chq to be sent from some one who owes me money to some one else who I've never meet before, for some thing I've never seen?
I never exchange car tranfer details in a pub car-park with a dodgy bloke I've never met before with a 'bankers draft' at 12 am, genuine people are different, nice to be proved wrong however I doubt it some how in this case. Wm

 

I just love the complete lack of any effort they make to try and sound convincing. I actually believe they are completely fluent in English but write it like that deliberately for pure enjoyment. I think most of these originate from Indonesia (dont ask me why)

Mind you WM their grammar and spelling must make you envious.

 

foreign cheque

Foreign cheques, received a cheque from the UK made out in Aust$ deposited it in my bank account here in Australia, now I'm feeling good that the Bank has lost it! (The Bank still paid me the funds) little chance of it getting cancelled now............ must just be this weeks good luck.

Wadia-miester, Don't take the cheque! This has been a scam for many years, and has started here in Aus. If you put the cheque in your bank account you then become liable for the transaction of the seller. If the seller does not ship he goods the buyer can file a fraud report against you with the police and not he seller.

cheers

Al

 

Tis true Greg if only I could aspire to the english the mail ended in ES, is that estonia ? or Spain

 

ES is Spain.

It's definitely a con.

-- Ian

 

surely if it's accepted that the cheque isn;t 'good' until 28 days have passed it would be ok to delay any payment / shipping until this period has passed?
tone, do it, and stick it in a high interest 90 day access a/c or tessa just to see what happens. that way you get some interest on the stuff if it's legit. or you potentially screw up the bank system if it isn;t, either way it's a job well done.
cheers


julian

 

Strangely enough, they haven't repiled to my last mail, asking them to clarify their postion

 

Have a heart guys - she's lost her husband. I think we should all chip in £50 just to cheer her up.

 

So they want to send you loads more money than the cost of the item and then you are to forward the balance on?

That screams "money laundering" at me - basically it's a process known as "layering" where they try to cover up the original source of the funds.

Given that the vast majority of dirty money (that needs laundering) comes from drugs trafficking then you'd be well advised to steer clear as getting involved in this kind of thing could be potentially a lot more dodgy than losing some money for some gear you have sold.

Matt.

 

I'm not convinced of the money laundering and wonder whether they are stolen or forged cheques that will bounce but only after they have received saleable goods from you

 

Guess my sarcasm wasn't apparent enough! This is most certainly a scam.

The cheque is worthless, it'll be cancelled just after you put it into the banking system. What they gain is the cash gullable people send to them.

1] You put the checque in your account
2] Cheque is cancelled -- takes a few days
3] You send balance of cash $4000 not realizing cheque is cancelled
4] You ship merchandise

Thus they are up $4000+merchandise. Worst case for them -- they are out nothing.

~ ~ David

 

Money Laundering

From my understanding of money laundering this shounds like a case of it. You get paid £3000 in dirty money. You then keep £3000 dirty money and send 3000-600 of your own clean money to them therefore money laundering.

Alastair