How money-transfer scams work
I’ve been half-heartedly looking at bicycles lately. Part of me pines for a new city bike, but the rational side of my brain knows that I have two decent bikes already. Still, I’ve killed a lot of time by paging through the Craigslist bike ads.
At the top of every ad is the following warning about scams:
I’ve always wondered exactly how these scams work, but I’ve never taken the time to look it up. I have no plans to wire money to anyone in Nigeria, so what’s the big deal?
Recently on Ask Metafilter, though, a user named PowerCat posted a question about his friend’s new “job”. PowerCat writes:
Basically, this “job” involves my friend receiving very specific money transfer requests from some dude he found on Craigslist. He gets a transfer, sometimes Western Union, sometimes an Interac or email transfer, he then has to cash it and transer it to someone else. The guy usually wants this done within the next hour or so.
The guy explained that what he’s doing is getting clients to buy gemstones over the internet or something, then he has to transfer it in my friend’s name and then he has to collect the money and transfer it to some other person (a Nigerian!).
Is this some sort of money laundering scam?
The consensus is that yes, duh, this is a scam. PowerCat’s friend may be making easy money right now, but he’s going to be screwed as soon as the banks catch on. Apparently, this is exactly the sort of scam that gets perpetrated on Craigslist. An AskMetafilter user named koeselitz posted an awesome explanation of how this internet money scam works:
This is most likely a fake-check-cashing scheme. Check-cashing scams are popular on Craigslist. […] So: if the money’s coming from a Canadian bank, but the scammer is in Nigeria, who is sending you money? Most likely you are only one of two people being scammed; probably the other person is being sent physical fake checks and being asked to cash them and wire the money to you.
This is a variation on a very common Craigslist scam. It’s much sneakier, however; in the average fake-check scam, what happens is:
- Scammer has some pretense to send a check (e.g. ‘I’d like to buy the bike you listed on Craigslist, but I’m visiting Africa and won’t be back for a few months…’)
- Scammer ‘accidentally’ writes the check for WAY too much ($1000 too much) and begs a favor: ‘could you cash the check and mail the change back to me? If you do, I’ll let you keep $200!’
- Happy dupe goes and cashes the check, keeps the $200 that the ‘generous’ scammer offered, and sends cash back.
- Two days later, he is contacted by his bank, who says that the check was fake and that he owes them $1000.
- Someone cries himself to sleep every night for the next month.
This scam, while pretty successful, has one tough point for scammers: it’s hard to for them to convince somebody to mail them cash sight-unseen, especially when the address is in Nigeria. I imagine they lose a number of people when they ask for that cash to be mailed back, although, again, they’re pretty successful.
The rest of koeselitz’s explanation is too long to reprint here. But if you’ve ever wondered how these internet money scams work, I encourage you to spend a few minutes reading the entire post.
Remember folks: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. In the real world, you don’t get “something for nothing”. Be careful out there. (And for more information, check out the Craigslist “about scams” page.)
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There are 58 comments to "How money-transfer scams work".
I’ve always wondered about that too. There were some “jobs” posted on craigslist that involved cutting and pasting ads into craigslist. But the ads seemed to be of that nature…”I’ll wire you money, cash this check, put this in your name and then sell it back to me…” If it seems too good to be true it probably is. And if it seems fishy at all, it probably is.
Another major scam that keeps popping up over and over again on Craiglist is “Data Entry” positions.
In this scam, they request money for the data entry “equipment” and promise to pay you lots of money for entering data. Instead no equipment arrives and your payment is gone.
Cockeyed.com posted a great explanation back in March called “Investigating the Process of a Craigslist / eBay / MoneyGram Vehicle Scam” http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/accord/craigslist_fraud_outlined.shtml
It’s very well explained for a humor site. And there is even a follow post about one of his readers that was duped by the same scam on Craigslist.
If it looks too good to be true, keep looking and you will eventually figure out why.
I had a friend who almost got taken in by one of these. She rents a room in her home by the day or month, and someone reserved one weekend and arranged to send a check. Then they called and said their company had sent her a check for 4x the proper amount, because they messed up the work expenses reimbursement, and could she just send a check for the difference?
Fortunately she thought to call the company that issued the check in the wrong amount, and found out it was a fake. (Of course if she’d mentioned it to me I’d have known it was a scam, as I’ve heard of these already.)
Whatever you guys do, DO NOT trust a seller who wants you to go through an ESCROW. If an advertiser is pricing way below fair value, beware. The market is efficient, and that price should not be there. Gramatical errors and ridiculous names are other dead giveaways.
JD, why you looking for another bike if you already got 2? Don’t do it! Sell one first, experience the ease or difficulty of it, and then decide in spending the bucks on another bike. 🙂
Best,
RB
Recently my wife put up our PSP on Craigslist. A guy was interested and wanted this for his kid, but he was out of the country. He offered to pay way too much for it (red flag) and pay for shipping to Nigeria (red flag). He says he’ll pay through Paypal. Not having all the details my wife tells me he’ll pay through Paypal, so I told her to send him my email address, so he get us the money.
So I get an email from the gentlemen, thanking me and asking that we wrap, so he can give it to his kid straight-away (he can afford to travel, but has to buy a used PSP from the states?). Then I get an email from “paypal”. The email was from “Paypal “. I use paypal quite heavily and I was interested in why the email was coming from fundnotifications.com. I checkout the domain and find there’s no website there and the domain name is owned by some dude (with a different name) in Texas.
So I sent him an email thanking him by name and providing him his address (that’s on his domain registrar) and a link to his home in Google maps in satellite view. Jerk.
He never responded.
I’ve even encountered this thing on local sales. I posted something for my parents on their local Craigslist and specified cash only, etc. Some guy wrote what was clearly a boilerplate msg saying he would pay me extra to “hold” it. I figured a fake check wouldn’t be far behind.
Unfortunately, these scams are growing with the unemployment rate. If you’ve been out of work for a few months and funds are getting low, you might be tempted to take a stab at it. I think that’s what the scammers are relying on.
There’s a lot of good stuff on Craiglist, but there’s no small amount of this crap either.
It also seems to be a general rule that if a “job” offers to set you up in their plan in order to make money, it’s a scam by default. Unless you’re actively driving the inflow of income, you have to ask yourself why anyone would pay you to perform simple tasks that could more easily be performed in a home office by clerical staff.
Also, if there’s no phone #, along with a name for a bigger ticket item, forget about it. If they say they are travelling overseas and can’t be reached, forget about it.
That said, I’ve bought and sold 7 different cars on CL (13 transactions) in the past 8 years and have had all positive experiences. In fact, I buy and sell everything on CL. 95% positive.
Rgds,
RB
I use craigslist all the time and would agree that it’s 95% kosher. I’ve only encountered one scammer, and when I told him I wasn’t going to ship a washing machine across the country for any amount of money he left me alone. 😀 I also ignore anyone who can’t spell or isn’t local.
It helps that I don’t trust anyone, ever. 😉
Lucky you. Scam when it comes to real established Nigerian scammers is beyond logic it has gone from being called yahoo yahoo to yahoo plus. Just be careful and if you believe in God, pray that you do not fall into the hands of those kinda guys thats all.
Save yourselves credit card problems by using highly secure passwords – not your dads name or child’s birthday. Shop only with known merchants or your credit card details will wind up on some credit card list somewhere on the internet for all to copy and use.
I recently tried selling a car on Craigslist. I got 2 emails from scammers. Too bad I deleted them.
Watch out for landlord scams too. When you’re looking for a place to live on CL, sometimes you’ll see one that looks too good to be true. They never list a phone number and their email address is usually of the variety firstname.lastname@[common web email service.]
One dead giveaway is they never use craigslist’s email routing.
When you email them, they will email back and say they are in Africa or somewhere far away for a while, but you can look at the house and send them a deposit if interested.
Yeah right!
A similar scam was happening locally here in San Diego until a local news team tracked the perps down and got them arrested: http://www.10news.com/news/14732977/detail.html
Yuck!
Summary: A potential landlord should have a easily-accessible phone number and you should sign a lease before or at the same time as putting down your deposit. The lease should show the landlord’s full contact info, including address.
-Erica
I’m another very happy Craigslist buyer and seller. I’ve even sold a few things that I shipped. Here are a few rules I live by:
1. Never accept anything but cash for a local transaction. The only exception I make to this is if it’s a small item and I get a copy of their driver’s license in exchange for a check. I would never do this for a big ticket item.
2. For out of state transactions, if they’re willing to send a check and wait for it to clear before I send the item, no problem. Otherwise, Paypal only.
3. I refuse ANY deal that seems out of the ordinary, be it buying or selling. 99% of every exchange that seems unusual is a scam and is oftentimes, pretty easy to spot with poor spelling, complicated circumstances, or just about any international deal.
Remember that if you agree to accept a check and it bounces, you will more than likely be charged a fee by your bank. Proceed with caution!
What these scanners rely upon is the lure of easy money. I know someone who was selling puppies and got a too big check, with the same excuses about maybe they’ll have it shipped, which she didn’t want to do, so he asked for a check to be written back to him. Turned out it was a fake money order. So don’t trust those until they clear.
@RB @ Richby30Retireby40
Internet Escrow can be useful – just choose your OWN escrow, don’t go with what the seller suggests (if they do). I bought a high end photographic lens from South Korea some years ago via eBay. Though the seller had a great history on eBay, I requested an escrow arrangement and I chose the escrow company.
Anyway, escrow accounts can be useful – particularly for large ticket items you want to be sure of receiving.
There have been scams surrounding internet escrow accounts – mainly those were ones which the seller suggested. They were not escrow accounts at all, but a front for their own accounts. So be sure to do an independent search and choose your own escrow provider.
It’s also worth pointing out that with the money laundering scams where you receive money in your bank account then have to pass it on, you can be prosecuted for taking part. And you probably will. I work for a bank and we have quite sophisticated ways to highlight new unusual activity on your account. Beware.
Sometimes I wonder how people get taken in by these scams.
Who sends cash in the mail?
Well, besides my in-laws, as Christmas presents..and part of that was stolen out of the envelope, although I can’t prove it because I didn’t tell them the envelope arrived open already when I thanked them. So I don’t know how much was in it to start with.
But again, who would put cash in the mail, to a stranger????
My mom almost got taken in by one of these scammers on ebay. She put in a couple bids on an item. Then she got an email from the “seller” saying she could have it at the buy it now price if she sent the “seller” a Western Union check the next day. She said that sounded great and asked for the Western Union info, which he gave to her. Lucky for her she checked back on the item the next morning and the bidding hadn’t been closed. That’s when she contacted the actual seller and realized she had been emailed by some scammer instead.
Guys, what you are commenting are about the internet and money scams. I am novice to this virtual transaction; But i applied and got hired with the advertised job from craigslist. My boss referred me to odesk and i was invited for a new and first assignment. I worked hard as virtual assistant (or cal it admin assistant), even late at night_ just to understand the videos of instructions given. The efforts was extreme, because,I consider much the work as treasure to me, for i am the only one working in the family__ it’s for survival. after two weeks, I haven’t recieve my payment for the work and it is $156.00. I need to wait 25 days_for my payoneer debit master card (which i chose for the payment method)to be delivered to my address, all the way from the US.
My boss said yesterday, after having seen my financial statement at odesk, that he is not anymore happy with the odesk. So he cut my connection to odesk and promised to pay directly started yesterday_thru paypal or thru somewhere else.
to start with, He (my boss) gave me an assignment. I need to understand the video instructions and get myself familiarized well how the task would be done. I worked overtime trying to fix things, hoping by this day (today) I could be able to carry things out and get it done.
To my surprise, I could not open the url that he assigned to me anymore, and he urgently asked me to get the things done, but there is a problem of opening the site he assigned to me. I hate to accuse him of a scammer. But he said, we are not going any further together. He needs a highly technical assistant ( may be a supersoman/a magician or anything else), that would not cause the operation to be impaired.
I understand or I respect what he needs, though it is hurting but i tried to understand the situation. If ever possible, I don’t think worse against anyone.
But what about my payment for my two-week work with odesk? He said the odesk would pay me, because he paid odesk for me.
What do you think guys? It hurts to be victim of scam. Though, I learned much of the virtual world, but I should be paid for my burden, however, I have served them. Thus, I am applying for another one, and this comment
(testivar.com)
My mom almost got taken in by one of these scammers on ebay. She put in a couple bids on an item. Then she got an email from the “seller” saying she could have it at the buy it now price if she sent the “seller” a Western Union check the next day. She said that sounded great and asked for the Western Union info, which he gave to her. Lucky for her she checked back on the item the next morning and the bidding hadn’t been closed. That’s when she contacted the actual seller and realized she had been emailed by some scammer instead.
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
I recently posted a desk on Craigslist, and got this email from one “dav clinton” (name already suspicious):
“Good day,
I’m interested in the item you placed on craiglist and I’ll like to know if its still available for sale so that i can come and look and pick it up if I’m pleased with it.”
Bad grammar and no actual mention of the item I was selling – I didn’t even respond.
While we’re on the subject of Nigerian scams, you must have a look at this page that details how someone “scammed a scammer”
http://www.419eater.com/html/booked.htm
The entire site is devoted to these experiences.
Tyler (#14) has it right. Keep it simple when using Craigslist. I’ve done it a few times and always meet in a public place (usually a well lit gas station or fast food joint) and insist on cash. Otherwise, it’s not worth the hassle.
Can’t believe people fall for this stuff still after all the stories out there in the media and online.
My friends nearly got caught in a similar scam from this. They were listing a room for rent, and this guy from England with a sick mother was going to send them a check.
Presumably, he would then have asked them for the cash back right after he sent it, having changed his mind or whatever, but they googled his name and someone had posted on craigslist in montreal a scam experience.
I actually enjoy “playing their own game” with these crooks. As a matter of fact, not too long ago, I had a guy from “Africa” send me 3 checks before he finally gave up. Each time, I reported that I had never received it. It was blast!
you’re so funny
@Matt #27.
Some of these folks aren’t just scammers, they’re connected to gang activity or other organized crime. Toying with them could bring unforeseen calamity at unexpected times and places. Recommend you just ignore – or report to authorities – anything you think is a scam…
Holy cats (to use JD’s term), that 419 eaters website at Chetan #24 was unbelievable. People on both sides of this issue waste far, far too much time looking to screw one another. Of course, now I’ve just wasted plenty of time reading the story…
Nothing beats an old Raleigh 3 speed for commuting. I have a 1974 model that I bought reconditioned from a hard-working, locally owned reconditioner of old bicycles. http://www.bikeville.com/ Check out the photo of the van on their homepage.
It is also a great business model: Buy nice old bikes at flea markets for cheap, invest some sweat and parts to make them mechanically sound, and re-sell them for $100-$200. Usually they come with a mechanical guarantee from the shop.
I’m sure Portland has such a shop. Most big cities do.
Happy cycling!
It’s a shame that scammers have ruined Western Union for the rest of us. PayPal in my country will only take you with a credit card (and not one of those pre-paid ones you buy, a proper one). You can add debit accounts, but you must have a credit card to get started. For seven years, while I recovered from heavy debts, I had no credit card, and therefore no PayPal. Fortunately, this was in the early days of eBay before the Western Union scams got started, so I had no problems buying and selling via Western Union. In e-commerce terms, I would be really screwed if I didn’t have a credit card now.
Here is an example of a scam that was tried on me while selling a bike on craigslist.
Scammer: Hello,
I was fortunate to spot your advert on the net and I like to know if
it is still available for sale.If Available,please get back to me with
the following enquirers:
Are you the first owner?
Any accident……..
Last price?….
Present condition?……………
Pics?………
Best Regards,
Owen………
Me:yes its still available
2nd owner
last price? i lowered from 725
no accident, condition is good
the pics on craigslist are the ones that I currently have
Scammer: Thanks for the response.I have been searching for this for a while now
and I am looking to Buy ASAP.. I am okay with what i have seen in the
Ad and i would be willing to buy it from you..Am a set administrator
for a movie. We move from one location to another.My superiors have
given me the go-ahead and i will need the following info to get the
payment sent to you:
1)Full Name
2)Your address
3)Your phone contacts (home/office/mobile) .
Also,I will forward your mail to my Associate to send you the payment
and also instruct him to include the shipping fee to your
payment,because he has to arrange for the shipping..
PLEASE NOTE: That the payment will be cleared first before Pick-up.
Best Regards,
Owen………
Me: Sorry, the bike is sold and I don’t get fooled by scammers like yourself. Karma will get the best of you crook. Get a real job…
my boyfriend almost got scammed on an ad for a dog in the local newspaper. there were pix and all. but once i asked about the lady and wanted to see the emails i picked up on the scam immediately. i could tell that the person writing the email was not a native because of the bad grammar, even tho she had supposedly just moved to africa for missionary work. i started googling her name and phone and came upon a website where someone had posted the same email my boyfriend had received saying the puppies were free, but we would have to pay half of the shipping from africa. live dogs shipped from africa!!! sorry to say my boyfriend is very gullible and wanted to get me my favorite dog, but if it weren’t for me sticking my nose into it, he pry would’ve been scammed. i did some more research and came up with a website about nigeria and all the scams that come out of that country. don’t remember for sure what the site was but there were many types of scams…usually the ones you hear the elderly falling for like credit card info and checking account stuff.
My brother in law got scammed. He was selling his drum set and someone emailed him saying they would pay for it and pay for it to be shipped to the states. So the guy sent a cheque and once my brother in law had cashed it the guy said he wanted the money back. My stupid brother in law didnt wait til the cheque cleared and sent the guy the money only to find out the next day that the cheque was no good. He blamed the bank and the news was going to do a report on it, but I think they were going to mock my brother in law for falling for this scam! Seriously who would fall for that??
I manage an apartment building and when I put ads on Craigslist I often get scam replies. It’s always from someone living overseas who will be moving here for work and will have “an associate” already in the States check out the place.
What’s amusing is that many of these scammers use the same template! You get identical stories, almost word for word.
A while back, my wife had a strange experience.
She started getting emails from friends asking why she was out in Nigeria. Then I got an email from ‘her’. From her old Hotmail account. In it it said she had gone out to Africa to do some work with the needy folk out there. She’d had a problem, can’t quite remember if it was because she’d been robbed now, but anyway, she’d lost all her money, had none to get her back here (to Denmark, though they didn’t specify where) and would we send some money over to her asap. I think they specified an amount, can’t remember how much now. Details to follow.
She was of course sat next to me while reading this email. As far as we can tell, they had managed to get into her old, not used now we’re on Macs, Hotmail email account and sent these emails to people in her address book. They’d changed the password so she couldn’t get into it or use it in any way.
Luckily, it would seem no one got caught out by this, as loads of people sent emails to confirm, and we sent emails out to all and sundry warning them.
If you have a question on whether or not a check is fraudulent then just ask your bank. They can examine the check and do the research to make sure it’s legitimate.
I had an experience with this company called OICO Fund Management. The scam is so packaged that you won’t suspect anything. They have an intranet for their supposed employees and a public website (which looks so elegant but doesn’t contain much).
Basically, they got my info from Yahoo Hotjobs and contacted me for a customer service position in the company. After the long recruitment process, they gave me a training packet where I found out that my primary duty was to transfer money from one account to the other. I wasn’t comfortable with this and told my ‘supposed’ manager that I thought it was a scam. That was the last time I heard from them.
FYI, these are not Nigerians and they are not even Africans.
To:2cool2hurt:
I got the same email.Did they want all your banking info.as one of the last steps in the process?When you didn’t here from them they didn’t get into your account did they?Your the only comment on this company. usually there many of them.I wonder if these people just set up this mirror company and its so new that even the real company hasn’t realized it yet.I notice by the date of your message that its really new. please email me back at:[email protected]
Thank You,
Mark
My son got an offer through Craig’s list to be a personal assistant to someone who lives in Australia most of the year. He wants him to take this money order/check to his bank and deposit it, then withdraw the money the same day and send all but $100 to somewhere in Turkey. I’m afraid my son is going to fall for this and I’m afraid it’s a huge scam. How do I convince him that he will lose his money in the end?
Currently dealing with a relative who has been caught up in the Nigerian money scams for a number of years. Lots of money sent overseas. Said relative is currently waiting for money to be wired to a checking account with the instructions from Barrister Steven to wire $1,000.00 increments to three different individuals in Nigeria. A closer look shows all three folks live in the same town in Nigeria with area code. Waiting to see if wire actually shows up in the account but have already notified the bank to red flag anything that comes thru.
Is picking up western union money and resenting it back to over sea as money laundering ????
Yes,it is money laundering!
I wonder if Paypal is an effective way to filter such money scams. I have just responded to a (potential) scammer to paypal me with the amount for the product he is interested in getting (in this particular case rent). Will see how it turns out.
For the guy who asked if using paypal would avoid this sort of scam. Paypal is filled with scammers.. they might be a different subset or “specialty” but basically the same sort of thing. Worse is that with paypal, it is easier for them to have you believe they are legitimate for a longer period of time. They have about 6 months before they pass the time limit allowed by paypal to “chargeback” and basically yank all that money back leaving you in negatives.. so whatever service they convince you to do, or stuff they buy, or money you send (or bitcoin that seems a popular thing because once sent there is no getting it back without the other party agreeing – even if they are arrested for theft/fraud you won’t get that back.. the government/police/some agency will sell it off for themselves..) Anyway whatever they got from you PLUS all the money they sent they get back.. and they can take a really long time before hitting you with it. Don’t get me wrong paypal has some fraud detection stuff that goes off when another place/bank/processor wouldn’t even blink.. so it might help with preventing certain types of scams, but they are horribly susceptible to others. What they call “friendly fraud” (google it) is bad there. They might as well wrap up your bank account and hand it to the scammers with a little red bow on it. For sending money between friends and family, or doing business with people you KNOW.. it is fantastic! fast and easy, but DON’T use it as the main processor for anything business-wise. Paypal will NEVER take the blame or the financial hit even when they (and everyone else) knows the fault is with the fraud detection or whatever. Like bob uses a stolen credit card, something is a little fishy and paypal holds the payments for 24 hours.. they knew something was off.. then they release the money into your account and you go “oh cool, it was fine.” and spend it.. a month later.. oops that was a stolen credit card.. they take the same amount away (into the negatives if you do not have the paypal balance to cover it) and after an investigation (that you cannot win by the way.. bob was never the real owner of the credit card) So after 10 days or so they then add a fee of about 20 bucks.. cause you sold something a month ago and didn’t wait a month to ship it.. duh.. you are also out whatever you sold. plus the money… plus the paypal fee.. if left in the negatives long enough they will draw from an attached bank account or credit card too.. they want to make sure they don’t lose a dime, even if the result puts you out of your little home based business. Don’t get me wrong.. from their point of view it makes sense.. if it is that easy to rip people off.. morals/ethics are the only things keeping everyone who uses paypal from doing it. So world wide.. that would be alot of money to lose. It’s just insult to injury to add a fee when YOU had no way to know it was a fraudulent/stolen card.. in fact THEY approved the payment as legitimate… Maybe I’m a little bitter from personal experience.. but keep in mind that was personal experience.. not something I pulled out of the air.
I myself actually fell for a money transfer scam TWICE. I guess I knew in the back of my mind it was all a scam but I continued anyway.
I was sent two checks.
One for 2,550 and one for $1,950.
I was totally screwed on both. The 2550 bounced due to “closed account” and the 1950 was a fake check. So my Bank account was in major trouble. It took all my WEDDING savings ($1100), my mother giving me $700 and all my cash savings ($1710) to bring me up positive.
This was very recent and I am still recovering, but THANK GOD I will still be able to have my wedding.
IF ANYONE ASKS YOU TO TRANSFER MONEY TO SOMEONE ELSE THROUGH WESTERN UNION OR MONEY GRAM DO NOT DO IT!
Just the other day I received another check in the mail for $1950. It was a cashiers check, like a previous one I cashed and got burned on. I took it to AMSCOT to see if it could be cashed (Maybe get some of my money back) but they informed it was a fake. I was not surprised.
I am very angry at my bank.
Just because your bank lets you cash a check, doesn’t mean it is any good.
I don’t understand why the bank couldn’t tell right away that the check was a fake and yet AMSCOT could.
I should have stopped once the person became so urgent that I send money to someone else. They even threatened to call the FBI…..
I no long post on Craigslist for ANYTHING. If I have to sell I use Ebay.
I have been so stupid, and all that has happened to me is my fault. I just bankrupted my Fiance’ and I. I don’t really plan on telling him what happened, he never looks at the bank statements.
This whole experience nearly gave me a heart attack (No exaggeration at all)
I responded to an add on craigslist for restaurant work and got a response that they didnt need anyone else for those positions but they were in need of mystery shoppers. I received a check for $1950 and I was supposed to deposit it in my account. They kept texting me asking me when the money would be ready and when I said 7 days the texts stopped because they figured my bank would catch on by then. Anyway I was supposed to keep $400 for myself then go to Walmart and spend $50 in the electronics department and observe everything and basically send a report about my experience. Then with the remaining $1500 get a money gram and send it to Michael Vaughn in Arkansas. Well the check ended up clearing so I started spending the money, I spent like $290 but then in 7 more days they took the whole amount of the check back. Now my account is negative over $300! I’m just glad I didn’t spend more. Do not fall for this scam! Another add they use is ice cream truck driver.
They can’t cancel the check once it’s deposited! The check cleared your bank but hasn’t cleared BOTH banks! It can take months for a check to clear BOTH banks. You could bait the scammers! I tricked scammers into emailing me bank accounts. I tell them I won’t wire the money western union but I will wire the money by direct bank transfer. I had some of the bank accounts flagged and closed.
I usually see the ad’s that say this job is based around your schedule you tell me how many hours you want to work and what days and we’ll go along with it stuff
What are you going to do if you send the money and later you found out is scam?
I ran into a person who called themselves “Trissy Smith” on a local chat site, this person wired me $1,600 and i was supposed to forward it elsewhere via WU. Well, when “Trissy” informed the funds were ready to be picked up at a MoneyGram location, i picked it up and kept it. “Trissy” threatened to report me to the police but i knew better.
Hello, how sure are you that he is a scam and how long has that been since he contacted you?
question whether or not this would be a scam. I met someone on a AYI date site couple months back and his work consisted of traveling supervising building construction. He applied for a 2-week job in Nigeria on new expressway then intended to go to his home in Idaho. While working in Nigeria on this expressway there was an onsite accident putting a couple people in hospital. He can’t leave until he pays $4800 additional damages to what he already paid as they held him responsible for the accident. Contract people taking care of food and hotel and flight home, but he needs money from his bank in Idaho. Said he called his bank and they won’t wire him money from his account without an authorized signature from him. He has asked me if they could transfer some money from his account into “my” account and then for me to send him the money he needs. If his bank will transfer money from his account to mine, “why” will they NOT transfer money “directly” to him by wire? Am I asking for trouble here? What is actually going on?
they want to keep it in the same bank
Some guy guy me up and told me I can make some money. He said send him $100 and he’ll send me $800+ but I don’t understand how he makes money. All of this is through Western Union. I think he had a inside man what do you think
Did u get the $800??
I met an Asian Prince online a few weeks ago, and he asked me to send in some money for a plane ticket, and for some reason it costed a few hundred dollars. but i decide to steal some money from my parents, and to my surprise i get an email back a few weeks later saying he gotten the money and that hes not coming! this makes me mad! Now thats a scam!