someone please explain this scam

[Joe Nerve]

put my warwick up on craigslist and some guy emails me this...

Hello,
I saw your advert and it fits what i have been searching for,I'm highly interested in buying it,what is the current condition and your last offering price,please get back to me asap In term of shipping don't bother yourself, I have an international shipping agent that take good care of my goods he'll be coming to your location for the pickup.
Regard..

Didn't think anything of it and responded. Then he writes back this....

Everything sounds well,I must commend that the Warwick Corvette is in good condition and am okay with it want you to keep other buyer's off.Concerning Payment will be made via a money order of $4000 by a client of mine in the state an amount oweing, so she said it can only be issued on a money order and it can be cashed at any local outlets in your area.All i need from you is your full name and addres s including phone number so i can fax it to my client. Pickup arrangement will be made by my shipper, so as soon as you recieve payment you will deduct your actual amount and extra $120 for wiring the rest of the funs to my shipper via western union money transfer who will be at your location for the pick up.and $100 for your runing around confirm this and get back to me with neccessary details I await your response.
REGARDS.
TOTAL FUND TO DEDUCT
YOUR FUND====$700
EXTRA FUND===$100
WIRE FUND===$120
TOTAL======$920
THE REMAINING FUND TO WIRE TO MY SHIPPER WILL BE $3080.
i await your information so my client can issue the check with your name.
full name
poster address
zip code
phone number.

people who play with me get me very angry. i've a feeling i want to hurt this person, even though i'm not quite sure exactly what the hell they're trying to do or how they're trying to do it. can someone please shed some light on this for me? he obviously wants my name address and number - uh... can't he just get anybody's info out of a phone book? am I supposed to cash a money order for $4000 and he's going to trust me to send him $3080? what am I missing?

[xcental34x]

This is a typical scam. I'm not 100% percent sure how it goes down, but from what I understand is that they send you a bogus payment that doesn't clear or they get all your bank info and raid your account. Whatever it involves, just don't do it.

~Patrick

[James Hart]

Joe, this is a long running scam.

just ignore them.

[Joe Nerve]

i AM ignoring it. i'm just curious on what exactly these people are thinking. i don't get the scam? would someone ever actually send them thousands of dollars before having a check clear? are these people for real? what do they look like? I can't imagine someone sitting by their computer getting all excited about this kind of stuff. do these people have friends, lives??? do they ever make any money from this stuff? if they do, i think they almost deserve it if people are stupid enough to follow through.


when i was 17 i lost my entire paycheck ($80) to a 3 card monty guy on 42nd st. in ny. i deserved it. he earned it.

i still want to hurt this guy though.

[xcental34x]

Usually its scammers from countries like Indonesia, Gana, and Nigeria. We get alot of them in my IP Relay job. It makes me feel bad that I have to relay these scumbags conversations, and then the victims want to blame us.

~Patrick

[Nino Valenti]

The scam is, they give you a fake Money order for $4000. You give them the difference in cash/wire transfer of $3080.00

You deposit the bogus payment and have to pay bounce check fees. Thjey get your money and laugh.

There is the scam.

when i was 17 i lost my entire paycheck ($80) to a 3 card monty guy on 42nd st. in ny. i deserved it. he earned it.

Me, too.

[RLT]

I saw one of these on a scam baiter site. The check they sent was fake but done so well the issuing bank had problems telling it was a fake.
You put the check in your account. Send them the cash difference. A western union wire is cash. The check bounces they get $3080.00 and your Warwick. You get large withdraw from your account for the $3080 you sent and investigated for passing bogus checks.

Rusty

[Indi86]

The trick with most of these 419's if you can't see them immediately is the terribly thick English grammar these people use. They talk like they're deliberately trying to convince you that nothing wrong is going on. Maybe we should try to counter scam this one ppp powerbook style?

[Hambone]

One HUGE caveat with this type of transaction is that, should you go through with it, the deal will look legit for sometimes weeks even months or, get this, years!, until your bank discovers the fraudulent MO and then seeks you out to remedy it. I saw a big expose on this scam here in ATL on the news. Turns out your bank is under absolutely no obligation to you to determine the validity of the instrument in a timely manner. They can take whatever amount of time they want. Usually it will be quick for the sake of customer service but the local news story recited cases of it taking months for local banks to discover these scams and themn come-a-calling on the account holders. One of these was for an expensive BMW sold overseas.

[eric atkinson]

Well a couple years ago i worked for a small music store here in Joplin Missouri. I had a call me on the phone wanting to know if he bought like 6 grand worth of cymbals from the store if we couldnt ship it fast! Well he was forign cant remember from where! But the whole thing was a stolen credit card thing! He wanted us to send the gear after the credit card worked! But after a few days when the poor persons credit card was reported stolen i dont know what would have happend! But i took the credit card info from him and called the local police! The called another authority and gave them the info! So maybe you should get the info and report it!

[Brendan]

Aren't there laws that keep the bank from sitting on that kind of stuff for months? I mean, it's not their fault it's a bad check, but don'tcha think that a couple MONTHS is a little long to sit on a bad check, financial wise?