F-ing with a craiglist scammer

[aitm]

So I listed some items on CL and sold a couple and got an interesting email on a bedroom set. Some "gal" wants exactly what we have and is willing to pay a 100.00 over my price (350.00) more so she trusts that I will help her with her movers who will be in the area picking up other items and if she sends their money included in my "check" will I be honest enough to give it to them?

So I am laughing at this and decide to play the game…"sure" I says that sounds just great.

So I get a USPS overnight letter complete with tracking number and I did track it so it sure looked legit. The check is for $1950.00 a whopping 1500 more than I am supposed to get paid…..anyway its a damn good looking fake but lets be real..so I sit on it a day and start getting text messages wondering if I got it because the movers needed the money transferred via Western Union 10 minute express so they could schedule my pick up and golly she was nervous…and of course the obligatory….God Bless you.

So I email her back with the story that my husband took ill after church last night and we been in the hospital and he handles all the finances and I can't understand all that western union rigamarole so I double rolled the money and mailed it to the address she gave me.

naturally the response was slightly muted, "Oh no, they won't get it because they are "always on the road" now I may lose the money and the furniture….

So I write back to relax cause I wrote my return address on it so if the good lord wills it will come back and I will make sure she gets it post haste, and not to worry because, God will take care of you.

The reply was to text her back immediately so she could discuss other alternatives

My reply again was the my husbands phone was dead and I can't operate the texty thing anyway,,, but I will let you know when he get out out of the hospital as to how he will handle it.

I imagine she will get ansty as the deposit time will start on monday and she will only have about 5 days before the bank would declare the bad check, (no , I did not deposit it)

So i want to drag this out and really fuck with them some more but I need some help. One of her  texts requested this:


Please do take care of everything asap so that the mover can contact you
for the pick up arrangement. And as soon as you are done with the transfer,
You will be given a receipt so get back to me with the MTCN #, Sender name
and the Exact Amount transfer after deducting the 10 minutes transfer fees
from the rest money you are sending to……….

anybody use the WU 10 minute expresss? I need to know what the MCTN # would look like and then I will tell her that "golly. the mail man returned my letter, silly me I forgot to put the zip code on" and tell her I am "sending her the money as requested" but would love to have a number  where I can mix in a zero with a o and make the bastard spend several hours trying to find the right combination and when that fails I will inform them, "oops I meant and start all over again.

So anybody know what a MTCN# characters would look like and how many?

[Jason78]

[aitm]

Thanks Jason, crap no letters….hmmm

[SGOS]

I'm not sure what the scam is.  Is she trying to get you to cash a bad check?

[aitm]

yeah, she wants me to deposit the check on a saturday into my account and immediately transfer the 1500.00 "over payment" to her "mover"
so natch when the check bounces...

[SGOS]

OK, I get it.  The creativity of these people never ceases to amaze me.

[aitm]

That they do this, suggests to me that it has been successful in the past, and that is both sad and scary.

[SGOS]

I can see how it would work.  People want to trust others.  Probably a lot of people would sense something that makes them uncomfortable, but not see what was up.  It would just seem a little strange but you want to trust people.

[Johan]

Those checks probably cost almost nothing to produce. If you send out enough of them, a few idiots are bound to bite.

[aitm]

yep, tomorrow around 2:30 I'm going to tell her the mailman brought back the "letter" because I forgot to stamp it…silly me, so how do I do this Pony express thing? That'll drive her crazy so she will give me the hurry up and I will put her on the burner by telling her I don't drive heck I don't even have a car, I have to wait for sister Melba to pick me for church services and it will be about 2:00pm before we can find one of those thingy dingys……oh man..this is fun. Then I give her a whacked up ID # and that will take a day for two for me to realize that the 0 with the slash in it is not an 8…..should drive the bastard absolutely crazy.

[_Xenu_]

There's actually a forum dedicated to people who do this stuff as a hobby.

http://www.419eater.com/

[SGOS]

There's actually a forum dedicated to people who do this stuff as a hobby.

http://www.419eater.com/

Ha!! Note the last red flag of the scam alert. 

Welcome to the world of Scambaiting!
Get the latest Anti Scam News and Information here.

Does somebody want to transfer millions of dollars into your account?
Does someone want to pay you to cash cheques and send them the money?
Met a new friend/penpal on a friendship/dating site who's asking you for money?
Has a dying person contacted you wanting your help to give his money to charity?
Have you sold an item and are asked to accept a payment larger than the item amount?   <------

IT'S A SCAM!

Don't fall for common scams like this - fight them!

[aitm]

well how about that.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I listed a junk bicycle on cl for $50 (not really worth $50) and got an offer to pay $600 and pay me to ship the damned thing to Canada from South Carolina. Needless to say I told the scammer I sold it for 40 bucks already.. I still have the bike and never actually sold it..

[kilodelta]

Tell them your grandchild drew dinosaurs eating people on the check and that you need a new one.