A few days back, a message was posted to the india-gii mailing list, with the following spam message.
Return-Path: <collectstore2 at yahoo.com> Received: from web12010.mail.yahoo.com (web12010.mail.yahoo.com [216.136.174.137]) by www.webindia.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with SMTP id i6O2p3G05024 for <xxxxx at example.com>; Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:51:03 -0700 Message-ID: <20040724025325.62740.qmail at web12010.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [213.185.119.130] by web12010.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:53:25 PDT Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:53:25 -0700 (PDT) From: SAMMY SHOLOLA <collectstore2 at yahoo.com> Subject: international order To: xxx at example.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-631815243-1090637605=:57251" Hello Sales, Please i will like to order for some products in your store and will like to know if you ship goods internationally,Please reply as soon s possible regarding this so i will know the next step,besides i will be paying with my Credit Card.Hope to read from you sooner. Best Regards, Sammy Sholola
I was quite intrigued by this spam. This is quite different from the Nigerian-419 scam. On the face of it, it appears to have come from a confused customer. I tried to search for a discussion on this type of scam but did not turn up anything useful. I posted a message back to the mailing list. Suresh Ramasubramanian and Devdas Bhagat were kind enough to throw more light on this type of scam
The scammer pays with a stolen credit card, or by a fake cashiers check. However, that is not the only means these slimeballs swindle money. If the product you are selling costs Rs.6500 he will pay you Rs.10,000 (story is, he got a check from one of his customers, and he is endorsing it over to you, and you have to pay him the difference in cash by western union). Western union transfer is instant ... but when you present the check in your bank, it has to go to the foreign bank for clearance before it is found to be bogus, so that money credited to your account till the check clears is now debited back to the bank. In the meantime if you have gone and shipped the goods, you face even more loss.
Comments
"SALES REPRESENTATIVES
Hi there,
Good day and well done i am Mr Tim Nelson and i
will like to
place an international order from your store and also
to know if you do
accept credit cards or money orders for
the charges made
and if you would ship to these
address slated below
# 3 Adenmosun street
mushin
lagos state, Nigeria
234-01
Thanks!!
Best regards
Tim Nelson."
From: jokem@yahoo.com"
I ignore them. Couple of years ago I accepted an order from a Nigerian who paid with a CC. I shipped the order, got the CC money, and the order was returned by the PO. So I 'made money'!. Another order was also returned, paid by a stolen CC and the owner was refuned. I was out shipping $. Very strange. The thief made no money on either transaction. Both shipped to Lagos, Nigeria.
Cheers