QTH.COM Swap Chat

Received the email below as regards a rotor i had for sale. Never once did he say where he was, etc. Playing along with him for his information; he never responded to those questions. Then just dissapeared. just as well. I suppose he can or will change his QTH.COM name...Caution!!

Hello,
i am okay with your reponses and i will pay $170 because i will ship my self . I love
to have the (Rotor and Control Box) as soon as possible thats why we
suggest to proceed on its purchase.
The (Rotor and Control Box.) 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 check or money order will
be made out to you immediately by my U..S based
creditunion agent who will be crediting me some funds
worth $3000.35 on an earlier cancelled 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............
Arrangements 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 (Rotor and Control Box)with registered with thier Vet sector
for ransportation effectively.
Looking forward to your soonest reply and details
soon.
Thanks & Best Regards
KELLY MOLLER

Sounds like you were being targeted for an overpayment scam. The way it works is they tell you they'll send you a certified check worth more than the cost of whatever you're selling and ask that you refund the difference. The check turns out to be a forgery, good enough to fool the teller at your bank when you deposit it, but (obviously) not good enough to be worth anything. So naturally, it bounces and then you're out both whatever it was you sold them, plus whatever overpayment you refunded.

The FTC has issued a warning about this scam. You'll find more on how it works on hoax-slayer.com.

The clue is the "(...)" , this is most likely done using a BOT which picks up key words in HTML coding and enters them between the " (...)". I have had a few of these and actually drilled it back to an IP account which was in Nigeria.

I learned of this when I planted a bug on a news group in that I had a "Cheap Antenna Tuner" for sale , Overseas buyers welcome , soon after I got an email with "(Cheap Antenna Tuner)" all over inside the email.

I then proceeded to see "how" it was done , knowing that this $2.00 SWR meter was going to get ripped off.

I received a Western Money Order for $35, then I got an email shortly after with a UPS Label for shipping. I put the UPS label on the box and sent it away.

Two days later , a package arrived on my doorstep from "Old Navy". Inside was 4 pairs of the most expensive jeans.

Within about 2 hours , I got an email from the guy who bought the SWR meter and he stated , he hoped I did not mind he sent some things for me to "forward" to him using the UPS label he would email me.

This is when I started to investigate...

I called Western Union to find out if the "buyer" was OK. They were happy I called in that the check was issued on a Canadian Credit Card that was stolen. This was not reported for a few days , so the Wetern Union check was issued as an "OK" check.

Then I called Old Navy. , the account was opened in MY name with a third party , you got it , Canadian Credit Card.

The biggest problem was even Old Navy would NOT let me close the account because my "Password" and "Identification Questions" could not be matched with that of the guy who opened the account on the phone.

Then I called UPS , guess what , I had a new account for shipping , based in Nigeria. How creative.

I closed that account , finally got Old Navy to close that account and the Canadian Credit Card issued me a refund for the $35 that Western Union wanted back.

To make a long story short , I wanted to see how these operations worked and did it knowingly that I was in for a ride , however I never figured that "accounts" could be opened in my name on someone elses credit card. Bottom line , they can!

All in all , I learned a great deal , lost a cheap SWR meter that was delivered in Nigeria...