I'm sure that every one of you has sold something on Ebay or Craigslist and received the scammer email from a guy who is supposedly the agent for his client who wants to purchase your bike and then transport it to some far away land. They always want to send you a check for several thousands more than your full asking price, then you are supposed to send them the excess funds immediately via western union so that the shipper can pick up the bike.

of course we all know what will happen to that money you send... it's gone and you are screwed. After blowing off several of these guys I finally decided to play their game and see how far I could make them go , maybe even make them spend some money that they wont get back. I had 3 different fraudulent persons contact me about the same motorcycle ad I had placed.

I acted dumb and told them that they could send me the check and proceed with the sale. So I got 3 different checks, I had them sent to my business address so I dont end up getting a pipe bomb in my mailbox. I got 3 separate checks- the asking price on the bike was 3500.00 and one check was for 11K, the next was for 6500 and the last was 5900. One arrived in a Fedex overnight envelope - I know that had to cost about 20 bucks. Then each one gave me the same directions - take the excess funds IMMEDIATELY (same day) to the western union and send it to the person who they said was the shipper. Obviously some ficticious name. They also ask for the ten digit MCN (money control number) which is issued by western union.

So I had a little fun, I shot off an email with a random 10 digit MCN number and then just waited. The next day I got a frantic email back asking me to verify my numbers because they had gone to their local western union and could retrieve the money they THOUGHT they were going to get.

Once the guy found out that he was double-crossed he really got pissed and started sending some pretty nasty emails. I was satisfied knowing that I made them spend some of their own money on overnight Fedex charges and the embarassment of going to the western union only to be turned away emptyhanded.

And I will do it again... and I encourage anyone else who gets a scammer email to do what you can to make them chase their tails! Its fun at their expense!

 

lol right jz! glad to hear that the scammers are are getting a taste

 

lol, this is pretty good, i would send them $1 dollar for kicks.

 

wonder how far you could take it if you opened up a bank account just for the sake of cashing scammers checks (i'm sure the bank would put a hold on it then it would bounce)

 

the checks that they send you are very meticuously handcrafted to look like a real check. In fact they use real banks for their checks. I called one, it was a credit union in Texas and the lady asked me for the check number, etc and she looked it up and verified it was fake.

Its real enough looking that your bank will deposit it, and it will take over 10 days before your bank gets the notification from the other bank that it was fake.

 

just don't try to cash the check. I worked doing banking fraud for 4 years and like jzanuto said the checks are fake. Your bank can and most likely will close your account if you try to deposit the check. Even if you don't try to withdraw any funds just for depositing it.

 

If people would put as much energy into earning honest money, as they do frauding, they could probably be millionaires by now. legally. lol

 

true that

 

That is a awsome idea, keep up the good work

 

Here is a whole website dedicated to scamming the scammers (hilarious if you read them)http://www.scamorama.com