Nigerian Scammers on ebay

moni72

Has anyone had experience of Nigerian scammers on ebay?

I had a Psion handheld computer listed on a Buy It Now. Some guy, supposedly from London, bought it and asked me to ship it to Nigeria. This is the email I got from him:

"Hi,
I would like to pay for this item via postal order,right
now i'am presently in singapore and i want to give it to my prophet as a
surprised new year gift, so i will like to know if you can ship it
to nigeria,i dont mind paying any amount for the shipping cost,please
if you can do this for me i will be very grateful.if you accept,
kindly send your full name and address which am going to send the
payment to. Here's the shipping address.
Mr B Gorge
6,matthew street
off ojuelegba rd
surulere lagos
23401
Nigeria
Please Reply As Soon As Possible."

I was highly suspicious but wasn't sure what the scam was as I wouldn't send the goods till I had cashed the Postal Orders. I did some investigating and I'm still not quite sure what the scam is but his London address doesn't exist on Royal Mail's address finder, his telephone number is bogus as the person had never heard of a "David Coal", supposedly his name. It also seems he has registered multiple IDs. He bought from me using tunelo2 but there is a tunelo0 through to tunelo5 all first registered today and buying electronic items. Ebay haven't been much use as they haven't suspended or removed him and won't disclose any details of their investigations.

Surely if he has a fake address and telephone number that's enough to have hime removed!

Does anyone else have any experience or know what the scam is??

Justicia

It's unfortunately a bit too late for my 419 brain to engage but...

I would suspect that you will be pressured by e-mails to send the item before payment is received ("need it by a certain date for the prophet...") and to do this, "he" may well send the postal orders via a method that's trackable via a fake website or an empty, but very trackable envelope...

...Or possibly ask you to send the item immediately once postal orders received and before you can confirm that they are fakes.

Amba_Gambla

usually a case of Postal orders which turn out as fakes when it's too late and you've posted the item....

more info on this and many more on www.419eater.com

woohoo_postingid

Ignore him, block him, report him for false contact details, claim your fees back and relist the item - either without BIN or with BIN but with immediate payment required.

Also ensure you block bidders from countries you don't ship to in your preferences.

moni72

Thanks everyone!

I found multiple IDs for this guy tunelo0 through to tunelo5, only when I reported this to ebay did they remove them all. I've also sent an email to his service provider at hismail.com telling them that the email addresses are being used for criminal abuse purposes as per http://www.data-wales.co.uk/nigerian.htm

I've relisted my item but ebay will only refund the second lot of insertion fees if my item sells, so in effect they get paid twice for letting a fraudster onto their website!!! Appalling customer care if you ask me!

Alltheloginsaretakenappar

You were right to check the address, that's the quickest way to get ebay to take action against them. My Nigerian scammer had a road and postcode that didn't match and his account was closed by ebay and my final value fees refunded in just a few hours. But I had the same situation with the insertion fees that you mentioned, it was most annoying as I'd listed on a cheap listing day for about 50p but to relist would cost £5

Anyone else with this problem can find lots of helpful advice on how to deal with it here -> http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=400110624&tstart=40&mod=1136363138469

netty061

My daughter dropped her phone in a glass of water a couple of days before Christmas (as you do!!!) so I was trying to find a replacement on ebay. There were loads of listings saying "No nigerian scammers please" or "will not send to nigeria" or words to that effect. That was just looking for one type of phone so I think its pretty rife in ebay.

slowen

Here is what I received from a Nigerian scammer on ebay

Dear seller,
i will like to purchase this item for a friend in NIGERIA as an
gift so i want an urgent reply cause i will be paying via PAYPAL and
i want item shipped today vIA dhl to the ADDRESS below
AHMED ABDUL
NO 12 ABIODUN STREET
IFAKO IJAIYE OGBA
LAGOS STATE
NIGERIA
23401.
So mail me the total cost of the item and dhl cost so that i can pay
and also mail me your personal email address for contact.
thanks.
also here is some additional information

Email address - moris2@verizonmail.com (Ian Morris)
Ebay ID - moris9894

fake address that was supplied to ebay - moris lan
1 sydney drive
skegness,
Lincolnshire
2e5pjd
United Kingdom

Account was set up and removed the same day, Ebay should have some proceedure in place to verify addresses and members before giving them full reign on the site as if you just look at the address he registered it is total rubbish. I know it would take time for ebay to verify people but it would cut down on the amount of scammer on ebay

Justicia

netty061 wrote:

There were loads of listings saying "No nigerian scammers please" or "will not send to nigeria" or words to that effect. That was just looking for one type of phone so I think its pretty rife in ebay.

Sadly, it's rife everywhere that distance trading occurs, from the internet to the local, small ads... :rolleyes:

Justicia

slowen wrote:

Ebay should have some proceedure in place to verify addresses and members before giving them full reign on the site as if you just look at the address he registered it is total rubbish. I know it would take time for ebay to verify people but it would cut down on the amount of scammer on ebay

Totally agree with you Slowen; any determined steps by eBay to reduce these scams would be a start...

mcwarre

Justicia wrote:

Totally agree with you Slowen; any determined steps by eBay to reduce these scams would be a start...

True, or just use your intelligence perhaps?