By Daria Belov
In early July we published news regarding an Internet scammer that e-mailed dozens of individuals with the same scammy e-mail script. Today, Dr. Michael Dorausch, posted some information to the blog regarding similar fraudulent scams. Yesterday, someone tried it again, and it was great to see the lightning fast responses sent in by chiropractors with classified ad posts.
Lets face it, e-mails from scammers can be a real pain in the coccyx. They are relentless and use a number of different techniques. For the most part though, their methods are really easy to spot. As long as a seller is not suddenly paralyzed from the neck up from the excitement to potentially sell a listed item, fraudulent scam e-mails should just about be a no-brainer.
The July news article regarding community working together to minimize classified fraudulent activity is a good place to start if you’re interested in this topic. Yes this is a chiropractic web site, but it’s not a chiropractic issue. Try posting the same product to craigslist or other classified web sites and you’ll likely receive similar fraudulent e-mails. Craigslist has a page which is totally relevant to this topic (avoiding scams and fraud).
Some information has been stripped, but here is one of the most recent replies to someone that answered questions regarding a classified advertisement for a Decompression Table. The pitch was real simple that consisted of a single sentence from [email protected] (Yahoo e-mail accounts appear to be real popular among scammers)
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BELOW IS A REPLY TO YOUR CLASSIFIED AD
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Ad Headline: Thompson MRT Decompression Table For Sale
Posted To: Chiropractic Classifieds
intrested in your posted item for sale so get back to me with the present condition and the last price…
john
[email protected]
———- Forwarded message ———-
Hello
I am okay with your responses and price $8,000 i will love to have the (Thompson MRT Decompression Table )as soon as possible thats why we suggest to proceed on its purchase. The (item) will be transported to its destination by my cargo agent who will be coming to your location for the collection soon after sale and payment which is in form of a U.S certified bank cashier’s cheque or money order will be made out to you immediately by my U.S based credit union agent who will be crediting me some funds worth $12,500 on an earlier canceled order. He has agreed to issue out the funds to you since am purchasing from you . I will require your details for the payment and further reference as in the below form.
Full Name………
Full Contact Address…..
Postal Code …..
Phone…………
Country…
Arrange! ments as to how and when it will be picked-up
from you location will be made known to you by my shipping agency who is presently making concrete arrangements for the transportation . Hope we can trust you with the transactions to fore see that the purchased (good) with registered with a shipping company for transportation effectively.Looking forward to your soonest reply and details soon
Thanks & Best Regards
————–
Can you spot the fraudulent requests in that e-mail? If you know what to look for it should be fairly easy. Remember that most scams involve one or more of the following: inquiry from someone far away (often in another country); information regarding cashiers checks, money orders, shipping, or escrow services; offers to pay more than the item is worth (followed by a request to wire or mail the balance to the scammer).
This case was different than others, in that it involved just a single sentence. Here it is again…
intrested in your posted item for sale so get back to me with the present condition and the last price…
Keep your eyes and ears open and enjoy good times on the Internet.
planetc1.com-news @Â 10:25 pm | Article ID:Â 1218086781
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