Dockside Chat - How to hurt a scam artist !!!

I have a 1989 Force 85hp engine for sale on Craigs List. So a few days later, I got an email from a supposedly interested party. I can immediately tell that it's the old " I send you too much money and you forward the balance by Western Union scam ". So for the $450 engine, he wanted to send a $3000 check which I take the cost plus a hundred and forward the rest to his shipper.

So I decided to have some fun. I agreed with him for the deal to proceed. So yesterday, I got the phony $3000 check by Fedex next day (cost him $15 or so) but no instructions how to proceed. Finally , I got another email with a name and address in LA , which are probably also phony.

The funny thing is that the check was made out to Chard myname, instead of Richard myname. So now I decided to tweak him a bit because he thinks he's got a live one on the hook. So I emailed him back and told him that my bank won't let me deposit the check, and I have to send it back to him and can he give me an address to send it to. I'm trying to get enough information so I can get the FBI on his sorry ass !!!

He emailed me back and I know that I've got him going, he's cranked up by the tone of the email and he told me to tell the bank it was a mistake and they will take it . So later that day, I emailed back and said they definitely won't take it and if he won't send another check, I'm going to sell it locally (and he will lose his fish) !!! He emailed back that he will send another check on Monday. At that point, he will have invested about $30-$35.



I think everyone should do this when someone tries to scam them. Cost them money, if enough people do it, it will get old real fast to them.

Sad thing is, I called the state Attorney General's office, I went to the FBI Internet Crime web site, nobody cares !!! He's somewhere in LA, maybe somebody cares in California !!! At some point, I'm going to tell this foreign POS just exactly what I would like to do to him if I should ever catch up to him, but for now, I'm content to play a bit.

What should I do next to torment this criminal??? :grin:

AFAIK, If his check is bogus, he's committed mail fraud. Contact Fedex and see what they have to say about it.

bow..... bear in mind that if he sent you a FedEx pkg, he now has your home address........ :nono:

Why not open another account and deposit his check. Then wait to see what happens.

take it to a hobib store and cash it :grin:

He's probably not in LA, he doesn't care about the engine, just the extra money. We get fraudulent orders almost daily, annoying enough to be a big deterrent to selling online. I play along with one every now and again if I need to burn off some steam. Its quite fun. But don't bother wasting your time to tell fedex, or the fbi, or local police or any agency. Its a complete waste of time. In our case they are actually after the product, so I used to give whatever agency i was trying that week all the info they could ever need to knab they crook as they pick up the overnight package. Never saw any interest from law enforcement so I gave up trying.

Tell him you owed the city of Los Angeles, or the LAPD, a few hundred bucks so you endorsed the check over to them and mailed it, and the Financial Crimes Unit will contact him with his refund.

Gringo - 9/8/2007 9:24 PM

Tell him you owed the city of Los Angeles, or the LAPD, a few hundred bucks so you endorsed the check over to them and mailed it, and the Financial Crimes Unit will contact him with his refund.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

God, I love this stuff.

I heard back from him, he's going to send another check Monday. That's 2 charges for Fedex shipping that I've nailed him for !!! As far as my address, bring it on !!!! I'm well armed being a Federal Firearms Dealer, I welcome raising body count. I love that one about the LAPD, I might just use that one before this is over. Right now I'm just trying to figure out how to prolong his agony.

I can't believe after all these years as a Federal Judge someone is willing to work with me , so what do we do next, sir.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Tell him you are going to be in LA for a Hells Angels business meeting, anyhow, and will deliver his refund in person...

then ask him if he has any daughters...

Prolong the agony.........Tell the man he made another mistake with the check. Tell him the check you recieved is for $300 instead of $3000.

Itwill be interesting to find out what happens next on whatever you decide to do. ;cool;

DaddyO

so.....lemme think about this.... You've already got a check from him, with his name,address, bank and account info on it? Is that right?

Won't be his name, address, bank or account #'s.

The check is a forged bank check from JP Morgan Chase Bank in Belleville, Michigan. If you plug that into a search engine, you will find that scammers have been using their bank routing number. It's part of their MO. MY wife works in a credit union so we know all ab out how these scams work.

I went to a supper at my club tonight and had a good suggestion from one of my friends. My Force engine was for sale for $450. The check was for $3000. I'm supposed to take an extra $100 "for my trouble" before forwarding the $2450 balance to him by Western Union. My buddy suggested that I "misplace the decimal point" and send him $2.45 . I think that would be a scream except for how expensive it is to wire money. I still might do it though just to see how he reacts.

Game on :thumbsup:
Thanks for the insight Bow

bowhuntrrl - 9/9/2007 12:18 PM

The check is a forged bank check from JP Morgan Chase Bank in Belleville, Michigan. If you plug that into a search engine, you will find that scammers have been using their bank routing number. It's part of their MO. MY wife works in a credit union so we know all ab out how these scams work.

I went to a supper at my club tonight and had a good suggestion from one of my friends. My Force engine was for sale for $450. The check was for $3000. I'm supposed to take an extra $100 "for my trouble" before forwarding the $2450 balance to him by Western Union. My buddy suggested that I "misplace the decimal point" and send him $2.45 . I think that would be a scream except for how expensive it is to wire money. I still might do it though just to see how he reacts.





Playing with the schmuck is one thing, but when you start investing YOUR MONEY into playing with him, you've lost sight of the objective. Maybe take a step back and rethink this if you ever get to the point that you need spend a single dime of your money.

Chances are he used a stolen fed ex account number so it's probably not costing him any money.

I would provide the name of your local police chief to the scammer and tell him to make the check out to the police chief. After you receive it, place it in an envelop and send it to the chief with a note saying " Please accept this donation and put it to good use"

These scams will continue until our prosecutors get serious about taking care of them.

FireFly - 9/9/2007 12:16 PM

Chances are he used a stolen fed ex account number so it's probably not costing him any money.

I would provide the name of your local police chief to the scammer and tell him to make the check out to the police chief. After you receive it, place it in an envelop and send it to the chief with a note saying " Please accept this donation and put it to good use"

These scams will continue until our prosecutors get serious about taking care of them.


Pretty sad isn't it ?? If you go down to a Cumberland Farms or Seven-Eleven and take $20 out of the register, you will probably do six months to a year in jail. Scam someone out of $3000 and nobody cares because it's an internet crime . Go figure!!!!

Hide from the Fed Ex man. He will likely just leave the package on the doorstep.

Collect the bad check. Wait a day and then claim you never got the check. Also sound a little upset and suggest he is backing out of the deal. Say that if you do not get the check the next day, then the deal is off.

Now you have three checks :)

By the way, the real bank that uses that routing number may like to hear from you. They have lawyers and lots of money.

email him back & tell him you're afraid this whole thing is a scam & you want him to prove he's legit by sending a picture of himself holding today's USA Today. Nothing major, but you get to jerk his chain a little...

At some point tell him it's been deposited and you are wating for it to clear.

Here is one of the funniest ones on scamming scammers.

The infamous Capt. Magilicuddy. (at one point he has the guy hold the logo of the FS forum)
http://www.captainmcgillicuddy.com/Mcgillicuddy/Savimbi.asp

This is an entire site dedicated to it.
http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

Just a quick follow up. I emailed him after not receiving the replacement check telling him that I had someone local looking at it and I needed the check pronto !!! I received it by UPS Express envelope yesterday morning. I then replied by email that he was too late and if he would email his address that I would send the check back. Then today, I got this email , this is a cut and paste:

Hello Rich,
How are you doing and your family i realy appreciate that you got the payment with you but that is not my problem now because i have a serious problem that am facing now right now am in united kingdom and i got an urgent call today that my wife had an accident and she is lieing down in the hospital and am in scotland and she need my help because thier is an operation that they need to carry out immediately and since the payment i sent to you was issued on your name,i will want you to help me because you are the only one that can help me,i want you to cashed it and deduct the prize you want to sell the item for yourself and keep it for the help you want to render me, and Rich, if you can do these for me i will never forget it because i dont want my wife to die,and i will want you to these immediately for me and the remainning money to be sent to the doctor that is in charge of the operation via western union money transfer and i realy appreciate these and God will continue to bless you and your family
HERE IS THE DOCTOR INFORMATION WERE THE MONEY WILL BE WIRE TO THEM VIA WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER
Name: Hope Dukes
Address:4 east avenue Road
Sumter, SC 29150
USA
AND PLEASE IF YOU GET THE MONEY SENT TO THEM GET BACK TO ME WITH THE WESTERN UNION DETAILS SO THAT I CAN FORWARD IT TO THEM
NAME OF SENDER
TOTAL AMOUNT SENT(after deducting your own money and western union charges)
M.T.C.N (ten control digit number)
And hope to hear back from you immediately and i pray these kind of thing will not happen to your own family and have a blessed day and please make it urgent

UNF***INGBELIEVABLE !!!!!

Anyways, I took the time today to do an IP search and found out that he's in Lagos, Nigeria. I even have a Lat and Long for him. So I sent him back the following email. I know there are some who will say that I shouldn't have said what I did, but hey, he's a criminal and he's in Nigeria !!!! Anyways, this is what I sent. It has provided me a great deal of amusement !!

One other thing that I forgot to ask. How are things
in Lagos today ??? Also how does it feel to be
outsmarted by someone that you thought that you would
scam?? At last count, you have had to pay for 2 UPS
Express envelopes.

You obviously have no conscience about trying to steal
money from US Citizens. I would like you to know that
I would welcome the opportunity to peel the skin from
your body in 1 inch strips, then coat you in honey for
the bees and red ants to finish off. If they didn't do
the job, I would finish you off by pouring gasoline on
you and then setting you on fire.

Since I am in the US Special Forces, I will be
deploying soon to the Middle East. When I receive my
first liberty, I will take a side trip to Lagos and
hunt you down. You are a scumbag motherf***er and I
will take great joy in watching you die !!!

Until then, enjoy yourself, but remember that you are
not as smart as you think.

Sincerely,

Roger (my "other" name for that email addy)




--- harry samuel

That's the scumbag's email if anyone else wants to play !!

I think the falls under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service. Thats who I reported the last 12 fake checks I got from these scammers. One guy overnighted me a check from london that must have cost him!!
U.S. Secret Service Financial Crimes Division

Bow u are d man, i love this crap and its so nice to see someone takin a stand and playin the game with these dirtbags and schooling us on how to get some satisfaction out of a bogus deal,
Thanks, :thumbsup:

never2rough - 9/25/2007 4:26 PM

Bow u are d man, i love this crap and its so nice to see someone takin a stand and playin the game with these dirtbags and schooling us on how to get some satisfaction out of a bogus deal,
Thanks, :thumbsup:

I would love it if more people would take the time to do this. We could all become a royal pain in the a$$ for them. Eventually, it would become too costly and they might tire of it.

bowhuntrrl - 9/26/2007 2:37 PM

I would love it if more people would take the time to do this. We could all become a royal pain in the a$$ for them. Eventually, it would become too costly and they might tire of it.





There are a few websites that publish concluded scamming-the-scammer scenarios. Those guys are the pros, work together to scam the scammers. They sometimes get scammers to tattoo themselves and send in pix of the tats, hoping to get paid. Of course, they never do get paid.

Anyway, on those websites they publish some cautionary notices for anyone wanting to likewise scam the scammers. Scammers are not nice people, I guess some people have died. So if you are going to play with the scammers you gotta be prepared, know what you are doing, and never allow a trail back to yourself…like you did by giving the scammer your address. Not that the scammer in Nigeria is a problem or can do anything personally, but any friends he has living in your area are only an email’d favor away. ;)

The same exact thing happened to me when I tried selling my drums on craigslist. They sent me two checks one for 8000 and another for 6000. These c**k S*****S piss me off!!!! They should all die!!!!!