If is sounds like a scam, ....

[mark_theken]

I recently placed a FS post on this forum and received the following

reply:

 

dear seller,

i will love to have your Leica MP black paint

LNIB $2000, Leicavit M purchased from you as soon as

possible please kindly give me your sales terms and

note that i am an international customer,but i have a

relation in the us please let me hear from ASAP.

KIND REGARDS.

 

The sended is: jennfull009@yahoo.com.

Just wondering if anyone has experience with this person.

Thanks in advance for any information.

Mark

[leica ron]

Go into the member directory and do a search by email address, you can then see how long they've been a member and how many threads they've replied to.

 

If you don't trust them, ask for a money order/draft first and once it's in your account you have the money. Then you can ship. Simple as that.

[gaijin]

I received something similar with regards to a Pentax ist DS I was selling. It was a scam. They wanted to send a check for the Pentax and me to send the Pentax immediately upon receipt of the check. I said fine as long as the check is a cashier�s check drawn on a US Bank. Never heard back from them. Oh, and they�re always in a hurry i.e., ASAP, etc.

[skeeter]

what ron said.

[ishik_tuna]

make sure any check or money order actually completes being processed by your bank, and has turned into hard cash in your account before you send anything.

[jerry_lehrer]

Mark,-- Yes, I've seen a few of these scams on items that I wanted to sell and some on items I wanted to buy. possible scams like having three parties involved. Seller/buyer in Scandinavia, camera in Southeast Asia and me in La Jolla, California.

 

Two times I have had the potential buyer saying that he had someone in

Southern California who would pick up the Leica or lens and hand me a

check/ money order/ or Western Union MO. I said "no thank you".

[mark_theken]

Prior to my original post, I searched the photonet member directory with the email address jennfull009@yahoo.com posted above. This is the information I received:

 

A member of the www.photo.net community since January 13, 2006.

 

This person has never made a post to this forum. Has anyone else had any experience with this person?

[SCL]

Make sure you have cleared funds before letting anything out of your possession...and no matter what their hurry is, don't be in a hurry yourself. I would be especially wary if the buyer is from Singapore or Malasia as there are a number of scams from these areas.

[disneyry]

I've been in a hurry before when buying equimpent (going on vacation), so I wouldn't discount them on that alone. If you get the money, send them the camera. Just let them know that you won't ship until the cash is in hand.

[rich815]

<i>"...If you don't trust them, ask for a money order/draft first and once it's in your account you have the money. Then you can ship. Simple as that..."</i><p>

 

This is wrong. I used to work at Wells Fargo as a banker. Sometimes weeks (months?) later, after the MO has made its way through numerous banks from the US to Europe and such, it can be returned to the bank as fradulent or a forged MO, then guess who gets a charge back in their account?

 

I would be very careful with international transactions unless it is a postal money order in USD (assuming you're in the US) or a protected credit card transaction in which your issuer will protect you against such (though few will).

 

Either way the email you rec'd thus far seems like a prelude to the old "I'll send you a check for more then the amount, please cash it, keep the purchase price and send me back the excess" scam.

[william_john_smith]

Small unmarked bills in a plain brown paper bag.

[stephen hazelton]

I understand that what makes the scam work is that your bank will check on the cashier's check to see if it is valid, get a "yes" response, then weeks later, the bank will get the check back as a forgery. Then, they'll take the money back out of your account, but what you sent on to someone else is long gone.

 

Another warning sign is when they appear to cut-n-paste the description and don't ask any questions about it.

[bobtodrick]

Listen to Richard S. A couple of years back we (where I work) were stung for 20 Nikon F100 camera bodies purchased by a school on Thailand. This was just before internet scams became so popular. We took all the precautions we thought necessary...primarily requiring a bank draft to be transmitted electronically from their bank to ours (Royal Bank of Canada) and verified before we would release the cameras. It was sent and verified by the bank and the cameras were released. A week or so later our bank informed us that they had been the victoms of fraud and THAT THEY WERE NOT RESPONSIBLE (the old 'read the fine print'). After a couple months with the lawyers they agreed to be responsible for half of the loss...big of them.

[icuneko]

If it walks like a scam, and quacks like a scam, ...

[SolaresLarrave]

Stinks of a scam a mile away. Don't sell it to this buyer. At least, I wouldn't.

 

In fact, when I was selling a Contax G kit a while ago, I got loads of poorly written messages offering me a check for a gazillion bucks which the buyer was supposed to collect were he in the US. I was supposed to take my share and send the rest to the buyer, along with the camera. I've seen this scam in the news: the check clears withing 10 days, but two or three months later your bank gets back to you... in a nasty way, and you're out of a lot of money and your gear.

 

I wouldn't sell it to jennfull009.

[patrick_owen]

Here is an explination of the scam that the person emailing you is trying to do:

 

http://www.ocalasmostwanted.com/common_nigerian_scam.htm

 

There's a woman who sells horses and gets tons of emails like this one. She strings them

along and documents it on her website. Very funny actually.

[robert_m_johnson]

How to avoid being scammed from Craigslist... You could try and sell your cam there!

 

http://boston.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

 

GOOD INFO!!

[michaelkh]

I think you're right to suspect this is a scam.

 

Being a somewhat trusting sort of person I have learned these three rules, though I can't

remember who from:

 

1) don't be stupid

 

2) don't be greedy

 

3) don't be stupid _and_ greedy.

 

They keep me from getting my fingers burnt on the auction site.

[pico_digoliardi]

"If you don't trust them, ask for a money order/draft first and once it's in your account you have the money. Then you can ship. Simple as that."

 

Not so. Some counterfeits are accepted for deposit, then some time later you get a notice that it is worthless. If you have already shipped the item, you are out of that money.

[sl1]

The best way is to ask the buyer to wire = T/T the money directly into you bank account. You will not have to reveal your bank account or any info of yourself. The bank will issue you a routing id and number. This way, they cannot cheat even their own bank because it is always money up front to his bank before you will get the wiring.

[kai_griffin]

<i>If you don't trust them, ask for a money order/draft first and once it's in your account you have the money. Then you can ship. Simple as that.</i><p>

Not only is that advice wrong, the entire scam hinges upon people thinking that the above is how the banking system works. That's why it is a successful scam - people think that once the bank takes the bogus money order/draft and credits your account then they are fine. In fact, the scam relies precisely on this misconception. It's only much later when the "issuing bank" for the bogus money order/draft gets their hands on the cheque (check) and declares it fraudulent that the victim loses his/her money (as well as whatever piece of equipment they long ago sent to the scammer).

[paul_chan4]

Mark, I've bought on Ebay and from sellers on this forum. I'd send a bank check drawn at a bank in New York in the seller's name and mail it out. It takes time for the check to reach its destination in ConUS (depending on where it was mailed from an oversea country). And it takes additional time for the check to be cleared and payment credited into the seller's account. You get your confirmation from your bank before you ship out the item. Wire-transfer is another option but more costly at the buyer's expense. If I need to pay $1000 for the item I'd need to wire the equivalent of $1025 to cover the bank commission at the seller's receiving end. On top of this the buyer usually has to add for shipping cost. So if time not being the essence of the deal, it's best to ask for a bank check in which case both parties need to be patient before the deal can be concluded up to the receipt of the item (2-4 weeks). I suppose it's a 'give-and-take' situation but it makes a successful transaction.

[john_r._fulton_jr.]

Richard S. -- How about a bank to bank wire transfer?? Alot of international transactions take

place using that. I realize there's a fee involved. How 'safe' do you consider those?

[terry_rory]

The other bit that would concern me is... "but i have a relation in the us"

 

I expect the 'relation' and his friends would be collecting from your house long before any money transaction had completed.

[terry_rory]

There should not be any problem finding a customer known to be a member of photo.net with a proper e-mail address and a proper home/delivery address (verifiable in the appropriate white pages) who is prepared to pay via paypal/personal cheque/postal order/credit card in the normal way.

 

If something looks suspicious it more than likely IS suspicious.