Being around stock car racing, one learns quickly what an expensive sport it is. One way to save some money on parts is going on the various message boards and advertising the items you are selling or trying to buy. However, you have to be careful about accepting money orders, cashier’s checks, etc for merchandise you’re selling.
A couple of years ago, I advertised my race car in the classified section of www.dirtdrivers.com I received an email from a guy who identified himself as “Jerry Thomas.” He wanted to know if I still had the car, if I had pictures, what was the bottom dollar, etc. However, in reading through the email, I saw a lot of spelling and grammatical errors, as well as sentence structure that wasn’t quite “right.” I replied with a couple of pictures, and he answered that if I still had the car, he would buy it. I asked where he lived so we could make arrangements, but he would not answer me.
Jerry then sent me an email and told me to take the ad of the website and that he would be sending me the “funds.” He told me when I received the “funds” to deposit them. However, he told me he was sending me substantially more than what I was asking for the car. He wanted me to send the extra money by Western Union back to him so he could pay his “shipper.” By now, I knew this just had to be a scam.
In a day or two, I got a UPS envelope delivered to my door. Inside were three money orders for $890 each. Keep in mind I was asking $750 for the car. Within the hour, I received another email from Jerry, telling me to immediately cash the money orders and send the balance to him so he could get his “shipper” on the way.
The money orders looked good, but I called the number listed on the back of the check to verify that the checks were good. The security division was able to quickly tell me that two of the checks had already been cashed and the third had never been issued and was cancelled. The checks that had been cashed were both for substantially less than what the checks were made out for.
I shot “Jerry” an email back and told him I would send the money to him as soon as the money orders cleared my bank, and that it could take as long as 21 days. He said to keep in contact with him. Every couple of days he would send an e-mail asking if I had to money yet and I’d tell him the bank was still processing the money orders. In the meantime, I kept asking him where he lived, but he would never answer me.
There are free programs on the internet that allow you to find out where an e-mail has originated from. Early on, I used that to track Jerry’s e-mails and found that they were coming from three different computers located at the same address. That address was in Nigeria!!
I finally sent Jerry an e-mail back and told him the bank would not cash the money orders because my name was hand-written in instead of typed in. He told me he would “contact my client” and have “more funds” sent to me. Another couple of days and I get another Fed Ex, this time containing five American Express Travelers Checks for $500 each. The first problem had already arisen - American Express does not have $500 Travelers Checks!!
To make a long story short, I kept putting Jerry off, then I told him I would not wire money to him for his “shipper,” instead I would give the “shipper” the cash when he came to pick up the car. Jerry started whining about that, saying that wasn’t the deal. I told him that was the only way the deal was going to go, and he then demanded his money back, threatening to go to the FBI if I didn’t return his money!
I shot Jerry an email back and told him if he was going to notify the FBI, to be sure to contact the Omaha office, as that was the closest one to where I lived. I also gave him the correct number. A couple of days later, I shot him another email and asked if he’d heard anything from the FBI. I told him if I did not hear from him I’d be spending all his money on Christmas presents for my grandkids. Another day of not hearing anything and I sent another email explaining that I am a police officer and I already knew that he was actually in Nigeria. I told him he had better be watching over his shoulder because some day he would be sitting at his computer trying to scam somebody when he felt a tap on his shoulder and I would be standing there with an International Arrest Warrant.
Since the money orders weren’t cashed, there wasn’t a crime committed. If I had cashed the money orders, I’d have been the one on the hook for the money, and the scammer would have been off scott-free.
There are a lot of variations of this, including people actually getting a letter in the mail along with a check. The letter says the recipient has won a lottery and they need to cash the check and send part of it back to pay the “fees.” I’ve worked several of these and done some follow up on them. I’ve contacted the companies the checks were written on and in each case the checks were fake. The companies had been plagued with these fake checks for some time.
I currently have the SCS race car advertised on dirt drivers.com. Today I received an obvious scam email from “Donna Salter.” The context of email follows:
“Good Day,
I saw your advert posted am so much interested in buying your older SCS stock car and firstly i will like to know your last asking price for it and i also hope is in great condition.. so get back to me ASAP and i look forward to hear back from you.
Thanks
Donna…”
The email address is from a United Kingdom address. I can’t believe there isn’t a race car for sale closer to the United Kingdom than Nebraska! I guess I’ll see how much I can get this scammer riled up!
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