Bike buyer

here in the Uk someone did the same to me. this is how my train of thought went.

he wants the bike and he's going to pay too much due to another business in the UK owing him a load of money. i think it's a pain but he hasn't chipped my price.

he says he'll pay too much and to clear the money then send him money and the bike will be collected. i think, ok, he's paying too much and he wants to pay less income tax at the end of the year.

he sends the cheque and i see it's from the dept of social security. i think, ok, he's unemployed, he's got the dept SS to write out a cheque for a nice car, he's got 4 kids and the missus. he's buying a cheap bike and pocketing the change i give him back. that's just about ok.

overnight i ask two mates about defrauding the dept SS. they say bank it, f~~~ the state!

i wake up and tell the dept SS. they tell me that he wants the cheque and the bike, keep playing him along and we'll stake out your empty house (i was selling up) and catch them/him.

turns out that the cheque was fake and that my bank would have called it 'cleared and ok'. after four days i would have given the bloke nearly £3,000 ($5,000) and then dept SS would have come to see me for the money which they can legally collect back in the UK.

they wanted the money electronically transferred by western mail but i told them the nearest place was 200 miles. he tells me his wife is dieing of cancer and i should drive 200 miles to 'do this thing for him'.

so we staked the place out but they never arrived. this was two months ago. his mobile number started at 00234 which is nigeria.

the idea is that you send him a 'cash back' by electronic mail, he's not interested in the bike, the cheque bounces and you go **** up!

Taffy

RE: lose my money?

Tim,

It's simply an extension of the "Nigerian email scam". I've got over a hundred copies in my deleted folder. The scam is so popular that spam blockers can detect it, and I've had ISP's write me(automated) to tell me that so and so sent me an email which was identified as the Nigerian email scam.

In short, I wouldn't deal w/them.

thanks,
json

Here is the best site, I think, devoted to turning the tables on the Nigerian 419 scammers.419 eater.com

I have heard of this scam before but I have never experienced it first hand.My thought on this is if it sounds to good to be true it proably is.Be careful out there.