Worst attempt at a fraud yet?

rsvmark · October 2018

I am selling my car. Today I got this response:

Great! please consider it sold and remove the adverts online as i am willing to pay your asking price? because i need to buy it for my cousin asap as a surprise gift, i have read through the advert and i'm totally satisfied with it, sadly i would not be able to come personally to collect due to my hearing loss and I'm just recovering from heart surgery so I'm home-bound. can i earn your trust, hope i wont be disappointed? I have a courier agent that would help me to pick it up at your preferred location after you have received your money and cleared to your account and i'll pay you via PayPal today once you get back to me with your Paypal email and full name. Where is the pick up location so that i can inform the courier agent about it now? Await your response.

Is this the worst attempt yet at attempted fraud?

m_c · October 2018

I wonder how long it would take them to get their money back if you sent them a random PayPal address...

Keefy · October 2018

Give them an address in Shetland.

Keefy · October 2018

Or how about this response:

Great! please consider yourself a twat and stop responding to my advert, Because I need your offer like a hole in the head, I have read through your email and I'm totally convinced it is a crock of shit, sadly I would not be able to come personally to take this out of your sorry hide due to soiling myself after a bout of immoderate hilarity. No way will I trust you, I am bound to be disappointed. I have some very unsavoury friends who would love to meet you at your preferred location after you have reversed your payment. Where is your preferred pick up location so that I can remember never to go there.

skunkwerx · October 2018

These people are idiots.

Who the fuck buys a car as a surprise gift? For their cousin?
Like its an Americans fucking sweet 16 or something.

Their story never changes either. Makes me laugh. Always some kind of bullshit ailment and sob story.

Dominic · October 2018

What a coincidence ;I am recovering from Brain Surgery and only have a small part of my brain left but I am still not stupid enough to fall for your scumbag Paypal reclaim scam you dirty little Fuckpig .Fuck off and stop wasting the planet's oxygen and my time.
Shitcunts like you want boiling, peeling and rolling in salt.

Legionreturns · October 2018

Tell him you've sold it to your Nigerian prince cousin, but that he'll sell it on if he sends him the full price by Western Union.

robgilmo · October 2018

Ask them for an adress, tell them you will deliver it.

I remember when I was on the tools we had a crusty old transit come in, it was an mot failure due to corrosion, it was proper fecked! The owner asked us to sell it for him or scrap it, so we put it on eBay.

We had a huge amount of very stupidly high offers, cash offers they were too from African gentlemen all in the London area, we were based in Suffolk! Anyhow, it sold on eBay for silly money , a lot more than it was worth, and who picked it up? An African man from London! It was a legit sale and a legit buyer, after a bit of research it was probably exported to somewhere in Africa (I cant remember the exact country now) and the vehicles there were on sale for huge amounts of money, the average crock of shit was fetching stupid money. So my guess is it was filled full of car parts or other goods and exported to be sold, so sometimes what looks like a scam may well not be.

In this case though, listen to the alarm bells, only accept cash.

MattBanshee · October 2018

That's a copy and paste fraud attempt that will probably have been sent all over the shop.

randella · October 2018

Someone, somewhere will fall for it or they wouldn’t bother.

You wonder who.

proggy · October 2018

Give them the address of your local police station.

jonnyburgo · October 2018

MattBanshee said:

That's a copy and paste fraud attempt that will probably have been sent all over the shop.

I had the same response for a guitar years ago, the fact that they refer to it as “item” or similar means they just blanket email thousands of ads and hope for the best. I wonder what their success rate is?

Modulus_Amps · October 2018

ask him for his paypal e-mail address so you can send a payment request, if he sends it to you, contact paypal with the guys e-mail address and report the fraud, you might save someone some huge grief.

goldtop · October 2018

jonnyburgo said:

MattBanshee said:

That's a copy and paste fraud attempt that will probably have been sent all over the shop.

I had the same response for a guitar years ago, the fact that they refer to it as “item” or similar means they just blanket email thousands of ads and hope for the best. I wonder what their success rate is?

That's the clever thing - the wording is deliberate to make the success rate almost zero. That's why it's such a transparent story of nonsense. Scammers send so many of these that they could not possibly deal with too many people responding. It's designed from the first word to only catch the most gullible.

Microsoft did some research on this years ago, and the scam is labour intensive once someone responds, and so the scammers need to weed out all of the people who would figure out the scam, wasting the scammers' time before getting to the $$$$$s.

All that's needed to kill off this type of scam is for everyone to reply to the scammers, using a fictional PP account. That way the responses from the few people gullible enough to fall for it would be swamped by useless info.

Dominic · October 2018

proggy said:

Give them the address of your local police station.

What for?
My son's motorbike was stolen from the local Train station car Park 2 weeks ago.
The Met Police wasted 2 days squabbling over whether it was their problem or British Transport Police issue .Neither wanted to own it !
I took the piss by asking them " what if the thief was caught driving out of the Car Park with one wheel on the road and the other still in the car park ?......." the irony was lost on them.
The station office confirmed that it was all covered on 24 hour CCTV.
The Police confirmed it would take them 3 MONTHS to access and view it !.......................Pathetic.
Yes I'm sure they will be desperate to arrest a Gumtree Scammer .......by asking him to wait around outside the Police Station for 3 months !

Creed_Clicks · October 2018

There's an Irish classifieds website, and anytime I put up an ad, I get these types of emails. "I'll buy your guitar!! Send me your details!".
I had thought about giving them fake info and emails. I will the next time...

jonnyburgo · October 2018

I just give them a fake email, if it wastes a bit of their time then good

duotone · October 2018

rsvmark said:

can i earn your trust, hope i wont be disappointed?

Don't disappoint the man!

scrumhalf · October 2018

Just for the record, as someone who's had major heart surgery three weeks ago and also had an ear operation a few years ago I'd like to quash any possible rumours that I sent that message!

Tell him you've had two other offers, one from a unicorn and one from Lord Lucan and at the moment he's in third place.

King85 · October 2018

Just arrange a meet somewhere nearby and then down turn up, at least waste their time a bit.

danishbacon · October 2018

Someone out 17k: https://www.rolexforums.com/showthread.php?t=632641

It's obviously a whole different dynamic out in the US, given geography and culture - but still, always good to be clued up on latest methods

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