how does the Nigerian phone scam work?

mah_jong

Can you tell me, please?

I think that someone I know might yet be scammed .....

ManAtHome

Normally seems to be something like:

1. Can you ship the phone directly to my mate/brother/sister/granny in some other country.

2. Can I pay you by (forged) cheque which look like it's cleared but will be cancelled in a few weeks.

3. Can I overpay you due to some implausible circumstance (or I don;t know the shipping costs so I'll send a few grand extra) and you can send me the change by Western Union.

Probably many variations, do you you have any specifics?

carrie483

ManAtHome wrote:

2. Can I pay you by (forged) cheque which look like it's cleared but will be cancelled in a few weeks.

Or another service like Escrow, never paypal and if they do via paypal then they would ask you to send it to a different address to the one verified.

As ManAtHome said, it hard to explain if you don't go into detail as to why you think someone is about to be scammed.

If you can, search what your 'buyer' has bid on recently (advanced search, by bidder, inclue completed listings)

Also, check how long they have been registered, how much feedback they have etc.

Carrie.

little_miss_thrifty

I and 4 other poor souls were scammed in the same evening a few weeks ago when selling our phones - mine was worth about £130 (luckily sold it a week later) but the 'winning bidder' bid up to £200...i was suspicious from then on but wanted to see where it was going since they had !!!!!!ed my sale up. They said they were in the USA and could i post it to her husband in Nigeria; gave me an address and wanted my paypal account details to pay into...i said it didn't work like that; then a few days later i got a 'paypal' email (very good fake) saying that the funds were ready to transfer...all i had to do was post it to the Nigerian address with shipping details and then within a month, paypal would release the money into my paypal account...emailed her again saying paypal STILL didn''t work like this...never heard anything again....they collected 4 lovely red negatives that night, but i suppose they just registered under a different name the next day.

Caparn

Watch out for fake confirmation of payment letters from Paypal, Western Union etc.
Never send out the item unless you are 100% sure that the money has cleared.

shopbot

http://www.419eater.com/

gives more detail.

apprentice_tycoon

not just ebay, not just phones - my son is selling his single scull rowing boat, oars, stroke counter etc, he has posted it on the web (not sure where exactly.....) he got an email from someone who got his interest by asking about the condition etc then came back with an offer to buy the boat for the full asking price. He said that someone in the UK owed him £5k, this person would come and take the boat, give my son the cheque for £5k and son would send the change by cheque to Nigera, oh how we laughed......son was a bit cheesed though....

mah_jong

I dont know the ins and outs of it...... I know they were sending a phone to Nigeria and it was being paid by paypal. Perhaps it was all OK and above board, I just had an awful feeling!

I just hope its fine!

soolin

mah_jong wrote:

I dont know the ins and outs of it...... I know they were sending a phone to Nigeria and it was being paid by paypal. Perhaps it was all OK and above board, I just had an awful feeling!

I just hope its fine!

I think you are right to be worried. Just for a start the Royal mail no longer cover phones over £32 sent overseas regardless of what postage method was used, so your friend will be sending it to a country whose revenue has in recent years been bolstered by scams and with no insurance if the buyer claims not to get it.

Whislt i am sure that there are some very nice Nigerian people who are not scammers ( I actually work with several Nigerian people who are as appalled by the scammers as I am), whilst their economy is based on fraud, and where this fraud seems actively encouraged by those in charge I would certainly risk offending someone genuine, that risk sending my phone there.

Soo

frivolous_fay

Paypal CAN be used in Nigerian scams - the notification will be fake, or the credit card stolen. (Which would mean the seller losing the money later)

Based on the info that your friend is sending a phone to Nigeria, I'd say there's a 95% chance it's a bad idea.

Blairweech

I can't help but feel sorry for the genuine legitimate citizens of Nigeria - i.e the ones who aren't out to scam people. It must be an absolute nightmare trying to get something.