WARNING: Scammer on the prowl on UK forums

James

Chairman
It probably won't make a difference to us as Buy & Sell need to be official members, but keep your eyes peeled on other forums.

Thank you to SplanK on the AOC for this (oldskool MSC member he is!!):

SplanK said:
WARNING - scammer on the prowl on UK forums...

Theres a guy doing a scam at the moment kinda like Fusion Dude pulled here a while back. He posts up saying he has a garage full of car parts to shift, all very rare, desirable stuff. ANd great prices. Only accepts Paypal and if anyone wants to collect he goesa bit quiet on them. Usually claims to be rebuilding a V8 Landrover but whatever the forum is (Opel Manta, Mk1 Astra, Ford Escort) he's got piles of stuff for them from an old project.

Needless to say people get excited, pay him hods of cahs by Paypal and then he dissappears...

Examples of him in action

http://www.escortevolution.co.uk/fo...showtopic=74748

http://www.mantaclub.org/forum/topi...186&whichpage=1

http://www.vwgolfmk1.org.uk/modules...9749&highlight=

http://www.mk1oc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5219

he took the Escort guys for well over a grand before he was busted.

Please keep it in mind that forums are no more trustworthy than the local rag and probably far less safe thean eBay.

Be wary out there. If it seems to good to be true it probably is and if someone won't play ball with cash on collection then run a mile.
 

Ed

Fusion Motorsport
MSC Founder
Official MSC Trader
Thats mad, I actually reckon if he does that enough times someone actually will find him and pay him a visit. A classic example of why the MSC does not allow non members to sell on here.. (not that that really guarantees anything)
 

Type-R

Ex. Club Member
theres a guy on the UK vw forums who has ripped loads of people off. Its a good business for them, as theres no one to go to and say look what happened!!
 

Krian

Fear me, for I am Onibaku
Thats mad, I actually reckon if he does that enough times someone actually will find him and pay him a visit. A classic example of why the MSC does not allow non members to sell on here.. (not that that really guarantees anything)

Yeah, but at least if a member tries it James/Kev has the address for the membership pack, so you can go to the police with an address and report em for fraud.

Tho I reckon if enough people from the other forums put in reports they could track the guy down via his IP address and paypal details. Having said that, why dont they just call paypal and report an undelivered item? Paypal is usually a bit too good at arbitrarially refunding people, hence all the nigerian ebay scams.
 
OP
OP
James

James

Chairman
He actually says he "Doesn't do the internet" in his forum posts, I assume he gets people to send cash or cheques. Amusingly though, cheques can be cancelled up to 6 months AFTER theyre cashed I think as long as you give a good enough reason to your bank (and probably pay a charge for it).
 

Arnold

www.alanarnold.co.uk
Moderator
Site Supporter
theres no one to go to and say look what happened!!

Definitly the police. They are responsible for all online fraud, unfortunatly they dont have the resources to follow cases up quickly and its usually too late by the time they bash doors down.

When my debit card was frauded, i had the names / alias's, delivery address etc from three different companies within 24 hours. That info could have been used to make an arrest, but it took 2 police forces, 3 months and so much paperwork to be done, before they went round. Surprise surprise, they had moved on.
 

Krian

Fear me, for I am Onibaku
If I had his address from posting a cheque i'd be soo very tempted to pay him a visit :D Friends at uni's mean i have most of the country covered, so i could probably get floor space at night and say hello to him in the morning :p
 

tse_adam

Micra Attitude
He actually says he "Doesn't do the internet" in his forum posts, I assume he gets people to send cash or cheques. Amusingly though, cheques can be cancelled up to 6 months AFTER theyre cashed I think as long as you give a good enough reason to your bank (and probably pay a charge for it).

i dont think thats true, i paid for a xbox 360 but never delivered. tried to recover money paid by cheque, hsbc said once its gone its gone.

If I had his address from posting a cheque i'd be soo very tempted to pay him a visit :D Friends at uni's mean i have most of the country covered, so i could probably get floor space at night and say hello to him in the morning :p

and thats not true either, if someone is doing a proper job at scamming would they be using their real address? the guy sold me the xbox had a fake address as told by coppers. they would go as far as breaking into someone's home and retrieve the cheque. :down:
 

Krian

Fear me, for I am Onibaku
But if your posting out a cheque they need some method to collect it, only real option for hiding it is 'dead boxing' used to be used by tele-sales scammers, whereby you use a empty house and wait for the delivery people. With letters like cheques thats a tad more difficult as your waiting for the postie, and as we all know Royal Mail sucks a fair bit at accurate mail deliverys.

Plus, they'd generally do it in the same area, and usually use their real name on the cheque, so I know if its Joe Bloggs in muswell hill, its not too hard to track down. Anything more complicated than that and your getting into the big gang territory - e.g. fake names, address and facility for cashing em. Which the smaller scammers just cant do.

Admittedly it would take the police a fair bit of footwork to sort out, but unfortunatly, specially in london, small scale fraud is no longer really a 'serious' crime, so it doesnt really get the man-power it needs - they're too busy chasing murderers and what not :D Im sure our resident policeman can prolly confirm this :p Fancy wading in here Pete?
 

Antony

Ex. Club Member
well if the police dont want to deal with a £3.5k bike theft with the guys name address telephone number CCTV evidence, parole officers statement, witnesses etc etc then why would they bother about a couple of "internet users" being scammed?


i have posted on the escort evo site saying they have the support of the MSC and most of the british car forums to catch this guy. but i dont think anyone will...
 

Alienfish360

Awesome Dawson
my sister is head of a big science lab, and she had a government credit card stolen (no limit on it at all)

it was used on 7 small purchases for less than £15 each, police made an arrest within 12 hours of it being reported.

However, if people are paying cheques surely there's a way of finding what bank it was paid to?
 

tse_adam

Micra Attitude
my sister is head of a big science lab, and she had a government credit card stolen (no limit on it at all)

it was used on 7 small purchases for less than £15 each, police made an arrest within 12 hours of it being reported.

However, if people are paying cheques surely there's a way of finding what bank it was paid to?

yea you can find out where the cheque was cashed but it doesnt do any good. an average joe can come in and cash a cheque without their name on the cheque. :doh:
 

Arnold

www.alanarnold.co.uk
Moderator
Site Supporter
my sister is head of a big science lab, and she had a government credit card stolen (no limit on it at all)

it was used on 7 small purchases for less than £15 each, police made an arrest within 12 hours of it being reported.

Well the reason it was probably dealt with so quick was the word "government"!

However, if people are paying cheques surely there's a way of finding what bank it was paid to?

Yes there is. Our company sometimes loses cheque's, or they get cashed before reaching there destination. Just call your bank, they can tell you where it was cashed.
 

Krian

Fear me, for I am Onibaku
well if the police dont want to deal with a £3.5k bike theft with the guys name address telephone number CCTV evidence, parole officers statement, witnesses etc etc then why would they bother about a couple of "internet users" being scammed?

I'll quite probably be told off for saying this, but things like that really make me want to advocate vigilanty justice - club hammer + knee caps = no more bike theft :wasntme: not that i'd ever advocate breaking any UK laws of course.

Personally i like the film quote - tho cant remember the film now.

Coroner "He died of natural causes."
Detective "He was at the bottom of a elevator shaft with 12 bullets in him!"
Coroner "Yes, well we reckon he fell down the lift shaft, on to the bullets - natural causes you see."
 
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