Weird emails

[ChoppyChoppy]

This past week I've had several emails come through, I'm wondering what they would achieve from me replying?

Hello good day,I will like to know if you do carry fire wood for sell,can you kindly let me know the types and sizes you do have instock and also would like to know if you accept credit card payment,so that we can proceed.

Best Regards,
Eddie Moss.

This one here they filled out the contact form on my website even, so not just a "random" spam email.

Name: John Lynda
E-Mail Address: [email protected]
Phone: 4783452930

Hello Sales,

I\'m Mr John and am interested in purchasing some of your firewood but firstly i want you to know that i

will be shipping directly to Dominican Republic and i will be taking care of the shipping charges and aso

i want to know if you do accept credit card for payment,And if you can get me the sizes that you have

in Stock so we can proceed from there,Waiting to read from you soon.

Thank you,

Mr John Lynda

Those are the only 2 that I saved. I had another one wanting to arrange shipping to Mexico and another that came from my website asking the price (which are all on the website). I'm not going to waste my time with them, but just curious what the motive is.

 

[sirbuildalot]

Typically these type of scams will ask you for a deposit into a third party account to continue the process once you reply and agree to the deal. The credit card is stolen and the payment will not go through or will be cancelled. In other words it would go like this "Yes I'll take a cc." They will then say " great, but first we need you to place a small deposit into this account so we can send the payment" then the payment gets cancelled Seems like common sense not to reply, but alot of people fall for it.? Kind of like the one stating that you need to pay the IRS immediately or you could face fines or jail time. There is a new one now with National Grid and getting your power shut off.

 

[Jakers]

still get them all the time for tree service. usually they pick a foreclosed house in a city somewhere near me and ask me to do some work for them. they cant be there because theyre in the hospital for some reason. i picked up on their style quick now i either dont reply or mess with them. sometimes i tell them to F-off cuz i dont have time to entertain low life scum of the earth

 

[muddstopper]

Why would the Dominican Republic need firewood., It kind of a tropical island temps averaging around 77f year round

 

[old CB]

I got one a year or so ago. If not the odd language I would have been tipped off by the guy's name--Mr. Joker Benson. I used to know Guy Benson, so I wondered if he was just f-ing with me, but it was clear that this was someone in an internet cafe in Nairobi, or some such location.

 

[kevin j]

another common one is they will either credit card you too much or they will send you a check that’s considerably larger supposedly to include the freight and then you’re supposed to cash the check and deposit money back or send left over back to them of course a month later the check bounces and you put out a few hundred sending the overage back. just because the check clears the bank the next day doesn’t mean it stays good. they can bounce back up to a month or two after it’s deposited.

they’re not going to ship firewood to Dominican republic. Unless they’re asking about the highly valuable black walnut wood. that might be legitimate

 

[svk]

They always have an angle.

I emailed about a house to rent this winter and they insisted on needing an email address rather than using the Facebook interchange.

They send all kinds of fake info and the pictures on the "2600" sf house were very lavish and looked to be about a 4000 sf house. Then they wanted first and last month deposit to show the house. Yeah, nice try.

 

[svk]

Why would the Dominican Republic need firewood., It kind of a tropical island temps averaging around 77f year round

Yeah and isn't 478 area code for suburban Atlanta lol.

 

[unclemoustache]

I got one wanting me to fix up a house in town that he was buying. I found the house - it was indeed on the market, but the realtor said there was no contract on it. I should have recognized the signs earlier to keep from wasting my time.

 

[GVS]

I got one a year or so ago. If not the odd language I would have been tipped off by the guy's name--Mr. Joker Benson. I used to know Guy Benson, so I wondered if he was just f-ing with me, but it was clear that this was someone in an internet cafe in Nairobi, or some such location.

I remember Bobby Benson,probably not related though.

 

[capetrees]

Just mess with them. Tell them you only ship in 10 cord loads and need cash up front first before begin processing and they need to arrange for the truck.

I love to mess with scammers and make them feel like fools, frustrating them throughout the entire conversation.

 

[Conquistador3]

I got a similar email when I was selling an MS290. It claimed to be from either Senegal or Nigeria, I don't remember now.
I was tempted to launch myself in a longwinded tirade on why he needed a crappy Farm Boss when they still have the 070 available down there but thought better than it. I may have ended up being scammed of 070 money.

 

[muddstopper]

Back when I was looking for a used boat, I ran into quite a few to good to be real deals on CL. I started doing goggle searches on the pictures. Boats for sale in local CL, but same pics also listed in Texas, Michigan, New jersey, Cali. ect. The first couple of times I thought I had a deal, and contacted them, the same story always came up. The boat is in storage someplace to far to go check out and they would ship as soon as payment cleared. I started marking the ads as spam as soon as I found a bogus ad. Even had fun with one guy, he would post, I would mark spam and CL would take the ad down. Hour later, similar ad would go back up and another report and down it would come, I think the ad was placed 5 or 6 times one nite before the guy finally gave up. Any more, if there is a ad for something I am interested in, i do a search of the email or phone number, and sometimes there is even a name, if the info comes up with anything negative, I just go ahead and report the posting as spam.

 

[svk]

Back when I was looking for a used boat, I ran into quite a few to good to be real deals on CL. I started doing goggle searches on the pictures. Boats for sale in local CL, but same pics also listed in Texas, Michigan, New jersey, Cali. ect. The first couple of times I thought I had a deal, and contacted them, the same story always came up. The boat is in storage someplace to far to go check out and they would ship as soon as payment cleared. I started marking the ads as spam as soon as I found a bogus ad. Even had fun with one guy, he would post, I would mark spam and CL would take the ad down. Hour later, similar ad would go back up and another report and down it would come, I think the ad was placed 5 or 6 times one nite before the guy finally gave up. Any more, if there is a ad for something I am interested in, i do a search of the email or phone number, and sometimes there is even a name, if the info comes up with anything negative, I just go ahead and report the posting as spam.

Yup and unless you are in a big city where there are more transients, any phone number out of your area code is a big red flag too.

 

[blades]

My shop phone land line avg 40 calls a day - about 5 or 6 are legit. driving me crazy. I stopped answering and just let it go to VM -if legit on that I call back. Fricking google is the worst offender-

 

[NSMaple1]

Those Google calls are getting to be a big pita. I get them all the time, seemingly from all over the continent.

 

[svk]

Google calls? Please explain

 

[NSMaple1]

'Hello, this is (different name every time), your local Google ad representative. Your Google listing is [click from me hanging up]...'

I have no Google listing.

 

[svk]

So are they trying to sell you advertising? Or is it a scammer?

 

[NSMaple1]

Don't know. I hang up. I have no patience for unsolicited sales/crap calls whether 'legit' or not.