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scammers

Joined
Jul 20, 2013
Messages
807
Reaction score
76
Location
helotes texas usa
trying to sell my 650 strom. so i get a message that he is cool with the price, he needs my pay pal account to send the money. not being local he is going to employ a trucking company to pick up the bike at a later date.
he is sending the price of the bike, a moving fee and the trucking fee of 940.00 for me to pay the shipper. ( a bit more texting back and forth and he tries to set the hook) oh BTW YOU must PREPAY the money to the shipper before he arrives to pick up the bike out of your pocket". (alarms alarms alarms sirens sirens beep beep beep)
OK OK we will play a bit more. he asks if i have sent the "Money Gram" (available at any wally world or stop and rob)to the shipper?
me:"why yes i sent it this morning"
him: "swell, can you send me a copy of the receipt"?
me "why yes, i sent it this morning"
him:"I have not yet received the requested receipt"
me: "why yes, I sent it this morning" "it just takes a while to get to INDIA via the international mail" "will you tell pay pal to release MY funds, I need the money to go to India,find you and stomp a mudhole in your *** then stomp it dry"
guess what??? no more messages, guess he don't want to play no more!
the morals of the story are "a fool and his money are soon parted" "yes I love you, the checks in the mail" "it's a cream puff" "I will respect you in the morning" !!!!!
 
yep, I was supposed to pay the shipper 940.00 USD before the money that was on HOLD at pay pal would be released into my account.
after calling pay pal, they assured me that there was NO money on hold. ( there was no way I was going to send money anywhere. I was the seller, money would be coming to ME)
it was quite a good scam. they had all the official pay pal logos etc. but there was a little odd something in their sentence structure, like thinking in a different language and converting to English. also on the phone while speaking to him I recognized the Indian accent,there was also quite a "lag" between the spoken words. (I was a phone man at AT&T for over 37 years so I could detect the lag and recognized the gap as LOOOONG distance) also the term USD that foreigners use to denote currency from the USA. we do not use that term here in the states.
 
Good Lord! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 If it wasn't so rampant and sad these would be great comedy sketches!!!
 
I do a ton of money related transactions on Ebay and Paypal and whatever. I am an IT Guy. My advice is if you are doing this through Craigslist, or any online forums or for sale listings use an "escrow service". Escrow services will do all the necessary backgrounds and give you the best advice. We do buy and sell cars through Ebay and Ebay does also provide these services but also does background checks on users. Thats the difference between verified vs non-verified users.

Every single time I list a car through Craigslist I get at least one caller, and it usually goes like this "I am on a military base, and I cannot leave, but I will wire the money to you and you bring me the car." Thats a scam. They will send you money that will temporarily be there and then charge it back some kind of way, say with PayPal.

This is how I do it. I tell the person on the phone, and its almost always text messages. These people are usually foreigners and they don't want to talk with you voice, and thats a RED FLAG right there, anyhow, I tell them goto the bank, one that has an affiliate here in Houston, say Bank of America, and call me once you are at the bank and I will goto a Bank of America bank branch here, and we will do a face to face wire transfer through the bank, or you can use Western Union. Once they hand me actual CASH in my hands, then I will bring you the car or ship it, and they have to pay the upcharge for shipping up front.

Once cash is in your hands, they just can't charge it back, or pull some kind of check scam where 20 days later the check you got bounced and now they want the money back. Thats one way to do it, without using an escrow service but thats what escrow services are for.

Bottom line is, you don't give up a item until whatever numbers are on a computer account can be converted to cash. If a check was deposited into a bank say somewhere else and the bank is unsure about it, they will not let you cash it until they are sure it clears, because once you walk out of the bank with cash, they can't get it back.

Go with what you know, and I know that regardless of how you get me the money, wire , paypal, bank transfer, cashiers check, personal check, whatever, until its converts to cash thats handed to me, nothing you gave me is good until then.
 
Sold plenty of cars/trucks/bikes on Craigslist. I'll answer as many reasonable questions as I can over e-mail or the phone. If they start talking funds without even seeing the car/truck/bike I ask them them to check it out in person first then we can cross that bridge when we get there. That usually stops the scammers.

I've always done cash as I typically keep my stuff long enough that they're only worth a few thousand bucks and most folks don't need to mess with financing or carrying a large sum of money for the transaction.
 
yeah, it could have been a bad experience. the worst part is I still haven't sold the v-strom!! will some one please buy this bike! it really is a great bike, but i just don't ride it. I ride my DR650 and a 2007 honda vfr in the anniversary colors.
 
242532
 
I'll contribute to a fund to get you to India to do the stomp thing, then contribute to the legal defense fund.
 
i was asked yesterday if fedex ships cash. i tell him no. he insists that we do. he shows me a text msg that screams scam. the msg is asking this guy to send $700 and they will send him $6000. i tell the guy it's a scam. i hope you haven't sent any money.

this is something he doesn't want to hear. he pulls up another message. this one is in all caps asking for more money because the fedex truck with HIS money (the $6k) was in a crash. the fire fighters worked hard and were barely able to save the box with his money. now 3men are in the hospital and need his help!

this guy was working hard to believe these messages. he said, "keep scrolling, there's a picture.". sure enuf, there is an image of a burning fedex truck. proof! lol

absolutely incredible to me that this guy was falling for this ploy.
 
he's back!!! and wants to know where his money is for the shipping!

Tell him it's at the local FBI office, and will he please meet you there. :trust:

I guess the scammers wouldn't keep doing it if they didn't get some people, some of the time.

My wife nearly got scammed on her Etsy business last month. I finally convinced her (with help of some strongly worded advice from you nice folks right here). Fortunately, she pulled back at the last moment & got out okay; her only loss was about $20 of cancellation fees.
 
Tell him it's at the local FBI office, and will he please meet you there. :trust:
My wife nearly got scammed on her Etsy business last month. I finally convinced her (with help of some strongly worded advice from you nice folks right here). Fortunately, she pulled back at the last moment & got out okay; her only loss was about $20 of cancellation fees.
I'm glad she got off so lightly Tim, I'm sure she will be more cautious in future.
But I hate that you guys had to deal with it at all, scammers suck!
 
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