Australia rip-off?

[JDeMoss]

Over the last half a year I've had about five people e-mail me from Australia. They usually want to order a bunch of my work. They usually want to use some weird carrier and will pay with a credit card. It usually bulk mailed and they need to use spell-check or something.

It totally seems like a scam. Anyone else have these guys doing anything similar? I e-mailed back and forth with the first lady and she identifies specific pieces that she wanted, but I never ended up sending any.

Just curious. It would be sweet if it was real, because they wanted a bunch of stuff, but I bet it is a scam. I'm just not sure what the scam was.

[menty666]

I got an order for 5 custom dillis from somone in AU but I'm pretty sure she's legit. Nothing else.

[Mike_Aurelius]

It's a scam. I had one that I pwned just today -- she wanted 5 of my kilns with US power to be shipped to Taiwan (which has totally different power requirements). She "lives" in Australia. But the funny thing is that her IP address is/was in Israel.

I played with her a bit -- the story is always the same, wants to place a very large dollar amount order - usually just under $2500 -- but they always want to have "their agent" pick up the merchandise at your store -- and have you pay the agent from the proceeds of the credit card purchase by Western Union moneygram sent to someplace in New Jersey.

I got 4 credit card numbers transmitted in the clear via e-mail. I called Mastercard who will provide you with the name of the issueing bank. Then called the issuing bank and spoke to their loss prevention department. I verified that the name provided was not the card holders name, and that none of the addresses provided were the card holders. The bank then contacts the card holder with a fraud alert, and cancels the card.

I did this with 5 numbers from this yahoo -- then the final e-mail with 2 more numbers came in this morning, I again called the bank and had the numbers alerted then wrote back and told her she was out of business.

LMAO -- always fun to scam the scammers!!

Here's the latest one I'm playing with:



Subject: Order Inquiry To Australia

Hello Sales,
I am interested in purchasing some of your product to our store here in
Taree, NSW, AUSTRALIA Because Some Are Highly Demanded For In Our Area.

However, I will Like To Know If You Ship To Our Location (Taree,
NSW,AUSTRALIA) More so If You Accept credit Cards(Visa /Master) As Form Of
Payment. As Soon As I Read Back From You I Will Let You Know All We Needed
So We Can Proceed.
I Will Wait For Your Reply As Soon As Possible.


Best Regard,
Terry Gilson
C & H Store Inc
67 Whitbread Street, Taree, NSW, 2430, Australia Phone +61 8 9467 5956, Fax
(08) 9439 5544 Email:candhstoreinc@gmail.com (Email%3Acandhstoreinc@gmail.com)

[lucidvisions]

Yah we had a similiar scam come our way. Stay clear man.

Josh

[JDeMoss]

Perfect, that's what I thought. I need to figure out a way to screw them.

[Ben Burton Glass]

Maybe take a dump i a paper bag and send it to her!?!

Scammers Suck..

Aloha!

[Zed]

Tell them you accidentally send their merch/money order general delivery to a PO within 200 miles of them in their name... try to get them to drive the distance to pick it up.

[MUPH]

Send them packing penuts

[barefoot stash]

Dam , I was almost stoked this morning, for like a half a second. Wish I had 5k worth of orders in my inbox every morning. Oh well, maybe tommorrow it will be legit :) Thanks for looking out Mike.

[The Cheese]

You ought to try re-selling on ebay if you think you get a lot of scams now. lol, it's insane what a Nigerian pesant is willing to and can pay for a PS2. Whether or not you get it is another thing.

Learned to block those people pretty quick.

Chris Hansen on MSNBC did a story about these types of scams a year or two ago. Pretty good show. This old guy got taken for like 50k or some outrageous number. His hot little "fiance" talked him out of every bit of it through email. poor fool.

[Batou]

Reeks just like the russians that ordered 6 bottles of Cirstal and 2 bottles of Dom Perignon (my day job is at a VERY LARGE liquor store) the totall came out to be over $1500. Every thing seemed legit-- en route it got re-routed and we got fucked... we are still fighting with the credit card company. Be careful out there.

[Kym]

Taree? Don't think there is 5,000 worth of anything IN Taree. Very strange language use for someone from Taree, sounds more like someone from Taiwan.
Taree is cattle country, not exactly the hub of the glassart world.

Kym

[Aussie]

funny how all the initial letters are in capitals, us aussies are generally too lazy to use the shift button much ... hard enough typing with one hand while you have a beer in the other

[Aussie]

makes me think, actually. i got a slightly suspect email from someone with a gmail account (not that it really means anything) which goes something like:

Hi,

Saw your work on line and loved it immediately. Would love to give a
piece as a birthday present to my one out of a life time soulmate
Matt, living in Sydney these days. He will have his birthday on the
7th of august, 39 then and still loads of flamboyant energy to spread
in music, love, words and dancing (notably in programming the
peatsridge festival, if heared of).

Some more, to say that I (Ilse, same age, living between France and
Africa - Australia too now -), loved Christian's Vicious gag, Tribal
dancer, Dragonsword, Turtle, Lizard 1 (beautiful colours), and African
coctail goblet, and Laurie's pate de verre Foong dress and the
Flamenco woman dress (white in wet deail, wonderful). And ofcourse
your Nudibranch work together : umarmung !, seahorses are sexy - smile
- and the colourful anemone dancers.

What do you think ? Would it be possible to order some personalized
work with you, for delivery in Sydney on the 7th, with payement made
by me in France ? Life is crazy enough for this, no ?

Looking forward to hear from you

Thanks and kind regards


..... is that the kind of message you guys get?
could be legit, she went through our website, but her mail seems slightly convoluted to me africa, france, australia .... maybe a bit too enthusiastic and urgent?
we wrote one back to her, but haven't heard since,
dunno
seems suss

[shark bait]

I called the phone number to see if Terry was legit. All I got was a recording saying the number had been disconnected.

[Meerkat]

What do you think ? Would it be possible to order some personalized
work with you, for delivery in Sydney on the 7th, with payement made
by me in France ? Life is crazy enough for this, no ?


Yeah, something just doesnt seem right there.

[atseasick]

Maybe the cows have taken up blowing? Sounds like a load of bull to me. :)