This is a beauty, very crafty scammer.

Hi

I have a boat listed in various classifieds online. I have had a plethera of fake emails and txt messages trying to lue me into a response. But, one of them is very crafty, here is how it goes:

"Hi Folks
A couple of things.
1) Is there a toilet and shower on board?
2) I'm currently working overseas. Idf I bought it, would you be prepared to pack her for shipping by Truck to WA?
Thanks for the reply in advance.
regards
######"

Topic related questions, convincing enough & I have seen a lot of yachts shipped to WA. The market is big over there for them as people earn $$$ in the mining boom.

To cut a long story short.

There were numerous yachting relevant questions posed over several emails.

Then he wanted to buy the boat, first a deposit then to meet us some week latter to pay the rest.

Sounds good, but I would not send the bank account details. I said I would only send them after a phone call.

He made the call some days latter. Aussie sounding bloke, very convincing, all the right questions.

The next day I send the bank account details.

This was the reply:
"Hi xxxx
Thanks for this.
I'll endeavour to put the deposit in within the next 24 hours.
I'll send you an email after I've done that, with a bank receipt attached. I've got some more questions to ask (sorry, but I'm keen tio know everything about her, and the list won't be anywhere as long), which I'll put in the next email.
Cheers
xxxxx"

50 hrs latter and no funds and no emails

If it is too good to be true, then it probably is !

So, what should I do about the bank account ?
I did empty it before giving him the details

No PayPal was ever mentioned.

Great forum.

Be careful. He could pretend to be you, sell your boat, have the money transferred to your account. But you will think it is the money from him. Then he could say, oh sorry, emergency came up - keep ten percent for your trouble then send the rest to me by Western Union.

He could also do a "balance transfer" from a stolen credit card, then convince you to send the money to him. If he does send money, don't send any of it back, for any reason. Make him sue you - then you will know who he is.

Dealing with strangers far away is too scary for me. A local guy told me he was tricked on a boat sale. Sent him one check for both the boat and the shipping, with instruction to send the shipping money to the shipper. When the check eventually bounced back, he still had the boat but owed the bank a lot of money.

[AlanJones]

Mumbles gives some good possible scenarios. For your own peace of mind, it is probably a good idea to speak to your bank and advise them what has happened.

It may just be as simple as a buyer changing their mind in the cold light of day (perhaps the wife told him he couldn't have a boat ) or it may be something more sinister.

Thank you for the advice, some wise words !

Here is the latest email that came in a hour ago:
"Hi xxxxx
It's xxxxxxxx.
I've had a setback, and I would like to give you the choice of what you would like to do.
The gent who was going to replace me while I went to xxxxx, has resigned, and this leaves me currently unable to travel to xxxxx until the end of April. Unfortunately, mine is not the type of role that you can simply take leave as the consequences of leaving it to someone who is not fully experienced with the challenges, as it could mean the rig stops working. with significant cost results. As you can appreciate, my employer does not want to be put into that position, and so will not grant me leave unless there is someone to replace me.
I'm still very keen to buy xxxx, and am happy to put the deposit in, but as I said i couldn't get to xxxxx until about the ##th or ##th of April, which is the end of my current swing.
I fully understand that this puts impositions and added expenses on yourselves. I'm more than happy to pay for mooring fees during that time, but I equally understand if you decide to pursue the sale with someone else. Please have a think about it and let me know what you decide. I've spent hours at night looking and relooking at the pictures, and I think she's a great little craft, and would like to buy her if I could, But as I said, i understand your need to sell it as soon a possible.
Just let me know what you decide.
Kind regards
xxxxxxxx"

posting.php?mode=reply&f=4&t=80449#

Is that pretty good or what ?

What percentage chance of it being genuine, 80=no 20=yes ?

Do you have a star rating system for the quality of the scams ?

[AlanJones]

He's definitely making more effort than the usual "I'll send you the money, please forward some of it to my shipper by Western Union" scams.

I can't work out what his line is unless he plans on giving you the deposit and then quickly asking for it back because of some emergency and leaving you down the deposit when the fraudulent transfer is noticed.

Is his email address a gmail or hotmail/outlook.com one? If not, if you can post the email headers here (remove your personal details and his) then we can possibly work out where he is emailing from.

The reason you advertised is to find somebody that will buy your boat, soon. There's lots of boats in the world he can buy when he gets back to land. All of this "wait until spring, pack for shipping", etc. has nothing to do with your goal, which is to sell your boat for cash, today. There is no benefit for you to hold it for a stranger who may never come.

Is his email address a gmail or hotmail/outlook.com one? If not, if you can post the email headers here (remove your personal details and his) then we can possibly work out where he is emailing from.

What is the implication if it is Gmail or a Outlook/Hotmail address ?

He has two email addresses both are yahoo.com

Thanks for the assistance !

With a yahoo address , we may be able to determine his location from the Email Header if you care to post the headers . Edit out your own details if you do .

Here is the header from one of the emails. If I have inadvertently left some form of personal info in there then Moderators please delete or replace wit xxxx's.



x-store-info:SmXCjkY1Un5L3qlTmewTw2528Vzv4BD3W1rHhSfkQboE+4NEy+kAtBPTAX59lHJO2TEkH0Cfzhfwa7Xtn02lBDZfKm+I1+l1Ww4z8TyZ4UnYseV4l9hevJ74HvixzEVPxZ8jEDEUP2M=
Authentication-Results: hotmail.com; spf=none (sender IP is 98.139.212.166) [email protected]; dkim=pass header.d=yahoo.com; x-hmca=pass [email protected]
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Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 14:25:41 -0800 (PST)
From: xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: xxxx - Interested in Buying - extra info
To: xxxxxxxx
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The source host name is "chevro10.lnk.telstra.net" and the source IP address is 139.130.91.106.

Geo-Location Information

Country Australia
State/Region 08
City Perth

The person said they were working in mining in West Kalamattan (Indonesia). So, would that be possible for the ISP via Perth WA ?

Could that email be origination from a Telstra mobile phone on global roaming ?

Thanks

He claims to be in Indonesia. The scammer is not actually there. He's in Australia. His character is in Indonesia, but his character is not a real person and has no real money with which to buy boats.

Got an attempted phone call from him today. The connection was so terrible that no communication ensured. But, then perhaps that is convenient, as I might get the "I tried to ring you, but that did not work. So best we continue via email"

Just hypothetical but this is a good exercise in lateral thinking.

I will talk to the bank. Seems that we can get a new account number.

posting.php?mode=reply&f=4&t=80449#

If it's a scammer 'notanotherone' it's not the sort we usually deal with. His mail to you is pretty flawless as regards grammar and style which is very hard for a non-Westerner to manage without being completely assimilated into the culture. The problem is that I always consider the introduction of too much biographical material is always a 'red flag' because the buying and selling process is fundamentally simple and shouldn't require you to know detail about his personal circumstances, and i always find it hard to believe that people out of the country even think of buying things for use back home, particularly if the person isn't likely to spend a lot of the year in the country to use it.

The idea that someone is willing to buy a boat 'sight unseen' and/or pay a deposit for a boat he won't see for three months sounds eccentric to say the least. If I had to match it to a scam, I'd say he wants to have your photos and details to offer it for sale himself and encourage you to take your adverts off the market. It's not uncommon for this to happen.

I'm undecided but I'd recommend that you be very cautious.