Monday, February 24, 2014

Scammers at large!

Yesterday I posted a few things for sale on kijiji and Craiglist.  Later in the evening I noticed an email in my inbox with the following message:

Please contact Ms. Juninho my tenant at smithkate328 at gmail.com for your final price and where to pay. Thanx...


I wrote back with the details. The last thing I expected was to start receiving this type of email, from somebody called "Charlotte Wellington":

Good to hear back from you. I'm satisfied with the price and the
condition. Presently, i am out of town with my WORLD HEALTH
ORGANIZATION TEAM to raise funds for People Living with Diabetes and i
won't be able to come for the inspection due to the nature of my work.
I will be paying you through PayPal as it is the only Medium at which
i can send Payment at the Moment.if you don't have a PayPal account,
It's pretty easy to set up a PayPal account at www.paypal.com . it's
just a few minutes away from signing up. it's safe and secure for both
Parties and i have been using PayPal to buy and sell for years now
without problems. Pls get back to me with your PayPal email and FINAL
SELLING PRICE so i can proceed with the payment and contact the Pick
up Agent who will come
for the Pick up

I look forward to your Positive response.



Understand of course, I had already confirmed the price and advised to pay through paypal. Why they needed to reconfirm this, I didn't quite catch on. But then I got this:

I have just completed the payment and i am sure PayPal would have sent you a
Confirmation email. Please, check all your mail folders(INBOX,SPAM and JUNK
mail). I sent a total Payment of $1,350. I added $600 but $500 will be
sent to my Pick Up Agent via Western Union. The extra $100 is to cover the
Western Union fee and PayPal charges. PayPal will not release the funds
until you email them the Western Union details for verification and also to
enable my pick up agent to come for pick up and inspection. Here is the
agent's details where the money will be sent.


AGENT'S NAME: TASHAS KELLY

CITY: AUSTIN
STATE: TEXAS
ZIP CODE: 78719
COUNTRY: UNITED STATES


Please get the necessary details sent to PayPal : 10 DIGIT Western Union
MTCN, Sender's Name and Address used to send the $500.00USD so that they can
release the whole funds into your account. Please get back to me once it's
done.


That's when it clicked. I checked my paypal account of course no funds had been transferred. So I let it sit there unanswered. It came as no surprise to see this in my inbox this morning:

i'm a STRUGGLING mother, my younger sister who is starting
college this fall also lives with me, and we share one car. I think it is
pretty low for another human to try and take advantage of another
human. Why do you do this to people


The kicker though, was the next email, from the "FBI":

You have been reported to the FBI TEAM and Local Sheriff Police division for none response  for the Transaction between you and a PayPalverified Client  Charlotte Wellington. We have had series of fraudulent issues in recent years and we are putting preventive measure s to wiping them off thereby affiliating our team to PayPal and Western Union to help them solve fraudulent issues which tend to occur often. If the WESTERN UNION  details needed by PayPal is not received at the PayPal customer care desk in the next 3 hours, we will be visiting your home address and you would have to come with us to our base for further queries. We look forward to hearing from you soon.


Attorney James Mcfadden
 
200 McCarty Avenue


Strangely enough, nobody has visited my house from any police or enforcement agency. Shocking, I know! Haven't received any other emails since then and am quite disappointed they've given up so easily. I was having such a good laugh. On a Monday and everything.

Clearly I will not handing over $500 to anybody. Except maybe the notary next week when I sign for the new condo.  And then it will be significantly more than $500. 

Sorry Charlotte ;)

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Pre-move sale

Long time no see.  It's two weeks until my move and I have a few things to sell.  Here are the links to my ads on kijiji:

Washer & Dryer

BBQ

Videotron HD terminal

If you know of anybody looking for these items, please feel free to forward.