Bus Phishing Scam or Not?

[Loc]

Well kids, I have been trying for a while (half heartedly) to sell my 1992 XL on a couple of really cheap online websites (sorry Jim, Prevost-Stuff is next). I have had several serious inquiries and then today I got this one:

Hello,
Thanks for your mail,meanwhile I believe first to secure the motorhome through a deposit before any arrangement is to be made.I am impressed with the property,I should love to call you to discuss with you but am on a field assignment in France and would like to know the followings about your property:-
1. Your bottom price?
2. What major repairs has been done?
3. How many owners?
4. When did you buy the motorhome and why do you want to sell it?
5. Are you a US citizen?
6.The property and the ownership is on whose name?
However,I would like to know your last price (non-negotiable)from that of the net price for onward transaction,if your price is okay then I can arrange for a deposit while my agent will call you to arrange for the property inspection and other necessary renovation if any will be taken care of by him.Do get back to me immediately as I have limited time to conclude this this transaction
Till I hear from you have a wonderful day.
Regards,
Mr. J.


I have changed the name to protect the guilty (opps I mean innocent). This just doesn't pass the smell test to me. This looks like a scam to me and I am thinking about my response - please help me decide:

1) Pose as JDUB. Send back information about JDUB's bus with a really low price. I can talked talked about all the repairs I did on my (posing as Jerry) last vacation. I (again as Jerry) want to sell my bus cuz I got the Duece;

2) Respond and lose thousands of dollars;

3) Do not respond; or

4) Respond by telling the sender that it appears to be a scam and I am forwarding the email to the local authorities for review.

Loc

[rmboies]

Loc,

Though replying as JDUB may be entertaining, I would just not reply at all. You may remember the scam we were presented with earlier this year and these thieves are merciless. They hound you with emails, getting as much information as they can about your coach, and they one day you might see your bus for sale on another site and you didn't put it there:eek: I wish there was a way to catch these jerks--most of them are from Nigeria, according to my FBI friend. We see this in the horse biz all the time--same scam different number. :mad:

[Gary & Peggy Stevens]

Loc, sorry your bus hasn't sold yet. I am sure that is frustrating, especially as nice as yours is.

The email reply you got is ABSOLUTELY a SCAM. I would not even respond to it.

Gary S

[Toy Box]

Sounds like the same scam we have seen in the boating world. For grins (fun) I have replied with, "when your check for the 50 % deposit clears,". I have never been bothered since!

[Ray Davis]

I had a similar scam pulled on me (more than once) while trying to sell a jeep. They they tell you that they have a cashiers check to send you, but darn it's too much (because they were going to purchase a different vehicle which fell through).

They want you to cash the cashier's check, and then wait and send them the balance via wire transfer or other.

Problem is, if you cash a bogus cashiers check the bank is not responsible, you are. So, in the end, you are out the extra money you sent "back" to them nice people who never showed up to get your motorhome.

Luckily a quick google search when I was approached like this saved my butt. I figured a cashiers check was like gold. NOT!!

Ray

[truk4u]

Loc,

Do not play along as Jim has suggested! Don't respond and block any further mail. I got the same thing when selling big red.

[garyde]

I get those all the time for Property I rent for vacation rentals. They are not worth the effort of a response as they send out 100's if not 1000's all the time hoping for just one or two people to bite. The local law enforcement does not even bother with them because they are so common. And yes, I read in the local paper from time to time where a innocent individual gets burned.
The best response is no response.

[jello_jeep]

The other way it works, is they actually fedex you a check for a deposit, and ask you to forward part of it to a company that is going to transport it for them.

A call to the bank confirmed that the name of the company on the check, was in fact a large commercial customer of the bank, but wrong acct number, and the company would have no logical reason to buy the item involved.

Total scam, and is usually always given away by bad English and improper grammar (Truk comes by this naturally, so don't discount offers from him though) :)

[Just Plain Jeff]

I've tried to copycat JDUB, but since I actually went to OSU (being The Ohio State University) and speak English, after a couple of emails back and forth, they realized the difference between a person from the United States and one of the territories.

Didn't work.

[Jerry Winchester]

to the same guy that tried to by Loc's rig. Check this scam out;

Hello,
actually my parents like this RV and they are willing to buy it asap
I have forwarded the information to my parents and there have accepted to buy it.
my parents will make a deposit of ($30,000) to you for the RV and have made out a certified cashiers check of ($38,000) then the balance of $8,000 is for our broker to come for inspection shipping arrangement and other necessary welfare.So you're required to deduct the deposit of ($30,000) and send the balance of ($8,000) to our broker via money gram money transfer to enable him offset other necessary arrangements, then payment will be made in full after shipping arrangement. the balance can sent after inspection

I will provide the information you need once you receive the Certified Check.and all the paper will be sign in your presence.
I am his son.
Confirm this information so that the Certified Check can be mail to you as
soon as possible.

Full Name :
Address :
Phone Number :

NB: Consider your RV sold to my parents . I look forward doing
business with you.

Below is my Parent"s information that will be in the Title:
Dr Alan $ Sharon sot
Foster Mellon trust company
Canadian General Supervisor on
International oil and gas industry.
1252 Haro Street ,
Vancouver Bc Canada V1G45

regards

williams scot

I wonder how many folks fall for this? Also, how many folks get a scam mail from eBay or PayPal every week? I can't believe security at eBay is that bad. I have complained, but they only send me canned e-mail advice on how to avoid being taken, but now how to avoid my information getting away from them.

[Ray Davis]

The Ebay scammers actually have nothing to do with Ebay, and don't even know if you have an Ebay account. They just get ahold of millions of emails, and blanket them with an Ebay scam email. Probably 60+ percent of the people do have an Ebay account, and some very small percentage of that will fall for the scam.

I got one today I'd never seen before, and that was *supposedly* from Bank of America. If you clicked the link, it took you to a yahoo based website. Yeah, I'll put my info in there!!


Ray

[jonnie]

Jdub,
I Have Had Way To Much Fun Tonight And Even I Would Not Bite On That Scam. Sh*t, These Guys Don't Even Write Good English. Or Is It That The Diction, Verbosity And Tense Agreement Sucks. Well Anyway, English 101(i Think I Failed), Is Still Relevant. Hope I Spelled All This Stuff Right!
John

[Yankee802]

Jdub,
I Have Had Way To Much Fun Tonight And Even I Would Not Bite On That Scam. Sh*t, These Guys Don't Even Write Good English. Or Is It That The Diction, Verbosity And Tense Agreement Sucks. Well Anyway, English 101(i Think I Failed), Is Still Relevant. Hope I Spelled All This Stuff Right!
John

You sure did, your spelling and grammar are spot on. :) Not so for your punctuation though, unless everything you just said is a title of something like a book or song. :D

Yeah, these scammers are frigging annoying, I'm always finding this crap in my inbox. Luckily they are SO easy to spot, I guess click and spit doesn't translate well to english.

[0533]

We sell to clients all over the world via our websites. These scammers work day and night in an effort to take control of our customers login info and accounts, Every morning we literally see 100's of scam emails trying gain access to our customers login info, and some almost get in. We run 2 huge firewalls to stop this activity, but these people are like ants.

One of their goals is to take control of the customer account info, emails and name, even domain names so that they can take over the sales effort, in other words, if you are selling a bus, anything online, ebay whatever, if these guys step into your place (you will never know that it happened) and offer to sell your stuff online using your info, but with a different PayPal account # and address, get it, they take low offers, sell your stuff, take the $$ and never send along the stuff, they can do this several times with the same stuff before Ebay is alerted by the poor sucker who never gets his whatever. They go after high ticket items and items that they know will sell.

Never ever respond to these people, as this will offer the scammer your real email address and your IP address info from your computer, and god forbid if you give up anything else, simply evaluate the email content and if it does not smell right put it in the trash, and if you are on a mac label it as "junk" if it isn't already.

[wrongagain]

I buy and sell on ebay also and have had this on anything I have sold that cost more than $1000.00.
Scammers are running wild, stolen accounts, stolen ads, stolen pics then they make their own ads for my stuff.
I have changed my ebay account 3 times, paypal info even more often.
I am running more antivirus, firewalls, spam detectors, filters, etc and the scumbags still get thru.
I have all but stopped using ebay.
I have seen dozens of things for sale worth tens of thousands of dollars for $1500.00.
I even emailed a fellow ebayer to warn him he was going to get screwed "which is against ebays policys" and the guy responded by telling me that I was wrong and whoever was selling it was just selling it cheap because he needed the money, well, in the end he got screwed.
Usually you can tell by the lingo they use and that they want you to contact them thru their email and not to use ebays email system.
Lots of $50,000.00 tractors on ebay for $3500.00 with free shipping.
Yeah right.
And if you contact ebay with the scammers email address they claim they track them down.
Not the email address that you can see but the real server addresses hidden away from people who dont know how to pry into a computer to get what you need.
There is some very good hacker type tracking software out on the web.