Examples of Suspected Fraud/Fake Emails

[PayPal_Adrian]

Hello everyone!

One of the greatest strengths consumers possess against fraud and phishing is education and collaboration.  To help support your safety online, I'm going to open this special thread up for you.  Here, you can post examples of what you believe to be attempts by individuals to defraud you or others of their hard earned valuables and money. 

Before we begin, a few housekeeping points:

• We will be using this as a "master thread," so if we find an example in other areas of the boards, we may merge the post into this one.

• For everyone's safety, please remove any last names or contact information (including email addresses) from your examples.  In many instances, the names provided by fraudsters are fake or may actually be the name of someone they already defrauded. 

• On that same note, please don't ever attempt to confront a fraudster or attempt to track them down.  Instead, turn the information you do have over to your local authorities. 

• Please also remove any links from your posts, as these could potentially go to spoofed or phishing websites.

Other than that, we only ask that you keep it productive and stay within the Forum Decorum and posting guidelines.  I'll be stopping in on a regular basis to clean house and comment on posts, so don't be surprised if you see my mug - or another moderator - stopping in to say hello! 

With that said, I'm going to start moving posts in, so you might see some older examples mixed in with the new posts.  I hope this thread becomes a great resource for everyone!

Stay safe,

Adrian

[dpalmisano]

hey there,

just got an attempt fraud by this one:

Name........................Taiwo <removed>

Address......................<removed>

Country.........................Nigeria

Zipcode..........................112001

[blondon]

HI, was selling an iPhone 4 16gb black on ebay for £165 and my offer was accepted from someone who had 100% positive feedback and had been online since 2008!

Turns out this was some nigerian scammer.

"I just received an email from eBay saying something is wrong with my ebay account, I knew where the problem came from. It was my daughter who had to log on to my ebay account to view the purchase, But ebay had thought it was a third party due to their over zealousness. they decided to protect us both. The issues with my account have now been resolved and confirmed by ebay.

Am sorry i didn't inform you I precisely purchased the item on behalf of a folk of mine in West Africa who has been transferred to serve as a missionary in Nigeria. I have sorted out the postage costs on the Royal mail website and i will be adding it accordingly to the costs of the item and i want the posted via Royal mail.

Here Is the postage address

Cole <removed>
Nigeria

I will pay immediately via paypal and please remember to post via Royal mail.

Many Thanks.
Mary."

"I just want to tell you that I have sent the payment I'm sure you must have received the confirmation email from PayPal by now, so I would like you to get the item posted via Royal Mail and email paypal the shipment reference number as soon as possible.

Here is the postal address below.

Cole <removed>
Nigeria

Many Thanks.
Mary."

Now this person DOES have an address on their ebay account in a place i did ship so I am presuming this person had an ebay account and somehow this nigerian scammer is ahold of it? weird.. He also had posted feedback on other items in 2011. i guess this nigerian got ahold of it 😄

anyway i cancelled transaction and i am waiting for my fvf to be refunded.

Then strangely enough i receive two spoof emails from ebay and paypal asking me to immediately ship the item to this person. i was dieing at the spelling mistakes hahaa

and it turns out the email was from a third party service, the ones where you can send an email as a certain address..

another user had the same problem with me selling to this person saying he tried to scam him.

I reported this user to spoof@ebay.co.uk and spoof@paypal.com

[Zoe89]

Hi 

I am trying to sell an item on gum tree.

I did not get the person to pay via paypal, instead I got the buyer to pay directly into my bank account. 

Buyer has gotten back to me by sending an email from the bank of America telling me that he has already transfered the cash but the amount will be credited into my bank account only after I provide the shipment tracking number. This is to say I have to ship the item out first.

"The money is on Pending due to new banking policy that protect online trade against fraudulent act , the money is only on pending in Bank of America Data Base not in your bank data base , every thing will be release once you provide shipping tracking number including the reference number everything will be release to your within some minute after you ship the item ....thanks"

Here's his reply when I explained I need to see the cash in my bank account first. 

Can anyone advise whether this is a scam?? I have not heard of any case where seller has to ship item out before they will receive the payment

[cbrooks1013]

I was just emailed by this person as well wanting me to send a smart phone to this adress. But the name of the person was Paul. I got the same emails and such as you did. The ebay account they used was Paul_&_Liz. Unfortunatly before i knew anything about this kind of stuff I actually sent the item.

---

[carte-_-blanche]

Oh my goodness! I think my friend may have fallen for the scam! He sold and posted his iPhone 5s to someone in NIGERIA!!! At first I didn't think much of it... But when he relist the item (he had 2 to sell) the SAME PERSON bought it in a short period of time and demand it posting out to him!!! It's then I realised something's not right!!! I googled iPhone scam Nigeria and found this! Gosh, I really hoped it hadn't happen to my friend but I think unfortunately he really has fallen for it!!!! DO NOT SEND ANYTHING TO NIGERIA!!!!!!!

[PhilfromUK]

I had a similar one last night, sold a camera body to a user who was ostensibly in the UK, then got a request to ship it to Nigeria.

Bisi <removed>
Country-   Nigeria     
Postal Code-     +23401

Spoke to Ebay support, they said on no account send ANYTHING to Nigeria.

Reversed the sale, reported the user to Ebay. 

No money appeared, but I'd reversed the sale by then.

Tempted to send something unpleasant to the address. Maybe a sealed box containing a couple of pounds of raw liver, maybe with some houseflies......

Phil

[donis21]

Be aware,we got a new one here: <removed>

Jerry<removed>
Nigeria.

It almost happened to me.He asked me to send money request to his email,and then tried to prove by fake 'paypal' email's that the money is pending,but it won't show up in my acount as pending balance.

I figured to google the adress aaand here I am posting this.

[fanghan]

so.. I also received a somewhat similar email regarding someone's brother birthday and having USD$100 as a shipping fee. 

Person who contacted me is a certain Nancy Marshall. 

A word of warning : do not ever sell your item to someone deregistered on eBay right after they bought your item. They want to contact you outside of eBay to pull of this scam. 

[minniemoo]

OMG i have just sent a package to nigeria. A camera to the address

Abiola <removed>

23401

It was a woman in london wanting to buy it and send it to her friend

 what should I do? should i delete my paypal and create another one?

[fanghan]

No! Your PayPal is not compromised, they are just sending the email impersonating to be PayPal. Login to your PayPal, check whether there are any payments by the buyer. If no, you had just been scammed. Get back your camera from the post office at all costs, bribe them, beg them, anything! Once the camera leaves the country, you have no way to get it back again.