funny conversation with a craigslist scammer

i'll post this in cronological order. I started having fun with him immediatly when i saw his first obvious scam e-mail. i want to know what to say next to him...

My ad is for a "FS: '97 Talon Esi - needs trans - Pittsburg KS - $2000 (Pittsburg KS)"

here we go:

Scammer: Is this above item available forsale????


Me:Yes it is.


Scammer:
Hello jay,
I Just got your message and thanks for your response to my mail sent to you regards the FS: '97 Talon Esi - needs trans - Pittsburg KS - $4350(Pittsburg KS) and the price is okay by me and i am ready to purchase from you immediately, I anticipate that the Cashier's Check of $2050 will be sent via Express mail or Ups where by you will deduct $3550 as regards the agreed price and my addition compensation and the rest will be send to my Mover, and also will like you to know that i am very pleased and alright with your last offer..Ok

My mover will come for the pick up at your location upon your confirmation of receiving the payment and i will like you to count it sold to me and kindly remove the ads from CL, Moreover i would have love to come down for the pickup myself but am not chanced to do that now due to my work schedule and i am a deaf and i am really feeling bad about my health and the only person that can make this call on my behalf is my nephew who is present not around as i live and residence in IDAHO ..MOUNTAIN HOME ...I will like to read from you concerning this moving arrangement before processing and sending the payment out to you.Your full information is needed where the payment will be send to.(Full Name,Address,phone number).

Thanks for your co-operation, while awaiting your response.
Regards

David Butt
Idaho, Mountain Home


Me: Would it be easier for you if we just did an direct account transfer? a cashiers check could take a few days to get here.


Scammer:
Hello Jay,
thanks for the reply,i would love to know were your location is,then if we have to talk of direct transfer definitely you should know that i'm going to need all the necessary information that the bank as required.so can you open an E-TRADE Account and if you will comply with my proposal kindly forward all necessary information with immediate effect.
thanks.
Dave.




God why do they make it so obvious? Are they really THAT dumb? What should i say next? i want to tell him that i'll give him my full bank account information over the phone....maybe he'll forget he's "deaf". haha.

When those "fishermen" bots answer 1000-10,000 ads per day (or per hour) like yours in the same manner they just might get lucky enough to find a small fish once in a blue moon who takes the hook.
Responding to them is just a waste of electrons.

yeah it looks like a "fill-in-the-blank" message he sent me. i'm havin fun though. so, they just create some program that automatically sends e-mails to to people with vehicle for sale ads?

so they really act like they want to get "all my information" to send me a [fake] cashiers check, whats their plan then? what do they do?

They send the "check" in an amount larger than the selling price and ask that you give the excess money to...[in this case the "mover"].
I like your idea of trying to get a phone # off of them and seeing if he 'forgets' he is deaf - but as I type that I'm thinking that the 'deaf' story is their excuse to NOT providing a phone number.

Did you report them to CraigsList? although it probably wouldn't do much good as it would be hard to really track them.

Scammers su(k

I think you should respond in the same language they're using. You know, the one that's kind of like English but isn't?

Something like this...

Mr. Butt,
I'm be pleasing to have send all informationals you are requested and yesterdays. Willing four these transactions to become known final closer. Waiting from here to you,

Thanks, Jay.

--------------
See what he makes out of that.

HAHAHAHA omg thats perfect!!!

A guy my father works with got scammed like that. Selling a motorcycle for a set amount. Guy responded, and sent him a check for approximately double the value with instructions to ship the motorcycle, and return a check for any money leftover. The scammer got the motorcycle, and a check for several thousand dollars. BTW, the original check didn't clear if you couldn't have guessed that.


Moral of the story, always wait for a check to clear.

I am naive here. A cashier's check is different from a money order or bank check so you would deposit it and give the "mover" money from your account and then the check would bounce? Is that the idea behind it?

Get the address, call the police in his town.

Yes, surprisingly a bank or chashiers check is not guaranteed.

I played to a CL scammer a couple of months ago. He advertised a motorcycle with a very low price, but not totally unrealistic. First email response was that he was working in Italy and the bike was stored. Wrote him "No problem. I'll go check it out and pay the storage company or whatever". But the scam was that the storage company would deliver the bike after I sent them money. After I had tested the bike, I would authorize the storage company to give him his money. After the scam became obvious, I asked for the VIN# so I could check the title. That's when it fell apart. Interestingly, the earlier emails had been well written with few grammar and spelling mistakes. The later ones were by a different writer with poor grammar and spelling.

BTW the Storage company was alledgedly "Trident Storage". Google showed a company by that name operating with a New Orleans address. Lot's of links regarding scams, etc.

I would have really liked the bike.

Yeah, Trident Storage . . . . there's that one and another one that does overseas shipments. They even have a website (link provided by scammer, of course).

And yes, BIGIRON beat me to it but the way our banking system works has something to do with zones. They're divided much like our time zones. Even a bank check, when sent from one zone to another, could come back bad up to NINETY DAYS LATER!! I should have paid more attention when I heard all of this but that is all I remember.

Scammers are getting very clever. I used to consider myself scam proof but a couple of years ago they almost got me . . . in a way they did get me but I caught it in time. I was selling computer memory on Ebay. I got a question from a member asking about shipping to England. I responded but instead of logging in myself I used the link. Their forgery of the ebay page that came up when I clicked "respond" was amazing and back then, this type of hijack was not well known. That night I was selling a Harley Davidson for 1/2 what it was worth on a 1 day auction. I became suspicious when minutes after I responded to that question, I got a questionier from ebay asking for personal info because my account was being "upgraded."

These *******s went in to my ebay account and turned off email notification, then tried to get more personal info. Thankfully, Ebay doesn't display full account info even when you are logged in. Their plan was to reroute the payment so they would get it instead of me. Someone actually won the auction but Ebay and I got it all stopped before it went further.

You cannot be careful enough.

how did they log into your ebay account?

Probably when he used the 'Respond' link in their message [directed to a fake eBay page] he had to sign in. They captured the info he provided. my guess

Cashier check scam info: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/cashier.asp

Deaf people can have phone numbers and use a relay operator. However, some Googling indicates scam artists use relay operators too.
From a 2004 article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ID/4781806/
"Telephone operators who help the deaf use the Internet to make phone calls say the system is being overrun by con artists trying to cheat American merchants.

Starting two years ago, companies like MCI and AT&T began offering free calls to the hearing-impaired through Internet Web pages. Hard of hearing consumers type their messages into dialog boxes similar to those used in Internet chat rooms; on the other end of the line, a relay operator reads the text, places the call, and verbalizes the text for the call recipient.
... there is no cost to the caller. Costs are covered by the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund, collected via a small fee long-distance companies pay for every minute of service they sell.

...But the system also offers that same free access to criminals looking to cheat U.S. merchants. The Internet-based relay system lets con artists call for free, even from far away places like Nigeria. It also helps disguise a caller's broken English, which in some cases could be a scam tip-off, and adds an air of sympathy to the call that might make otherwise suspicious merchants drop their guard."

Some info that might be helpful

http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraudschemes.htm