ddd Scams - sss, ccc

Classified Ad Seller Scams: ddd

Scams and scammers using this email: tamkowal@aol.com

Are you looking to sell a  car that is located in Hawaii? Did your respond to an ad? Note that he says:

"The car is in perfect condition, with no need for additional repairs, no scratches, dings, special marks whatsoever.". 

That's a clue to a scam right there!

Here are the clues that this is a scam:

1. First, you will notice the syntax and grammar.  Often, is it not pathetically bad, it's just plain strange. It looks like it was written by someone who is not a native English-speaker, and writes very rarely in English. This is very typical of scammers, who largely are in Nigeria and have little formal education and probably none in English.
2. Next, he wants to write a check in excess of the required amount. Why? That makes no sense at all. If he hasn't got a bank account, he could always pay in cash or get a money order.
3. Then, he wants the "excess" from the check sent BACK to him or to other individuals, often in many different locations, and always by Western Union or Money Gram! Alarm bells should be going off by now.  Western Union wires and Moneygrams are not only untraceable, they're irretrievable.  Once the recipient picks them up (which can be done at ANY Western Union office in the world), the money is gone, gone, gone!
4. And then there are the little clues; signs like the strange name and location changes.  Maybe, first he's "David Rapheal", then he's suddenly Shawn Nickolas, supposedly in England, yet the first name has an American spelling and the last name is spelled more like an Eastern European or Germanic origin.
5. The scammers NEVER can meet in person.  They may have a $50,000 boat to sell to you or want to buy a $45,000 car from you, but somehow they are always "out of the country" on business, in in the army, whatever.  In the real world, anyone buying or selling something for more than a few hundred dollars, wants to see it first.  And especially when renting a house or apartment!
6. The scammers typically ramble on about issues ("The car is in perfect condition, with no need for additional repairs, no scratches, dings, special marks whatsoever.") that are irrelevant to such a sale or rental; such as, how they are doing this for charity, or recently moved to the UK, or are traveling in Africa right now.  You as a seller / landlord, don't and shouldn't care about these issues: you are trying to find a legitimate buyer or renter for your item at a fair market price.  The scammer knows this and is merely trying to cloud the issue and provide excuses for not complying with the basic requirements of a sale. He's also trying to engender trust; one of the key elements of any con game.
7. Scammers frequently refer to "trust", "faith" and God; in ways that no rational person in western Society would ever do in a business transaction, as in, "I know I can trust you", or "my faith in God tells me to enter this agreement with you".
8. Look at the huge number of misspellings, weird use of capital letters, poor punctuation and made-up words.  Again, this is typical of the scammer filth who live and operate in Nigeria.

An actual email that illustrate this type of CraigsList scam:

Any highlighted passages below are to draw your attention to typical scam clues:

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Email 1 - from the scammer:

First Email from tamkowal@aol.com

Hello,

The car is in perfect condition, with no need for additional repairs, no scratches, dings, special marks whatsoever. It has 77,000 miles and the VIN # is :4T1BE32K33U194588 . It has a clear title ready to be signed and notarized on your name. You can see more pictures by click on the link below :

http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm236/toyota_camry_photos/

  This car needs nothing, the title is clear, it is not a salvage one. I want this transaction to go smoothly enough as I am caught in the middle of some very important events and have little time at my disposal. I already have tons of emails so I hope you understand that I need to sort them out.

 The price is $3,800 THIS IS MY LAST PRICE. I will not negotiate the price. I will take in consideration only those buyers who are really interested in buying the car, to be sure that I don't waste my time with endless discussions. This way, I shall be assured of the serious intentions.

 So if you are interested please email me back so we can move forward

Email 2 - from the scammer:

The car is in Hawaii it was listed nation wide,so it was available also locally.It is not an inconvenient to me,i can ship the car anywhere in continental US for free. My brother in law works at a shipping firm,and he promised me that it will cost me nothing to ship it in the Continental US.

The transaction will be closed only through Global Payments Inc and this way we will both be protected. I work in the army and my current job doesn't allow me to do otherwise. I have way to little free time to handle home visits and my phone calls are very limited. As I said before the car is as described and you will be able to inspect the car before a final decision..The total price including the shipping cost is $3,800.If you agree with that please let me know and I will try to explain how global payments inc process work.