Selling a Car? Watch Out for Scammers, Like Andy Mac

Classified Ad Scams: selling a car

Scams and scammers using these names: Andy Mac
"you are required to deduct the cost of your vehicle which is $12200 when payment gets to you and refund balance which is $7600 to my client's shipper"

Are you looking to sell a car? Did "Andy Mac" claiming to be from andymac_114@yahoo.com contact you? Note that he says: "you are required to deduct the cost of your vehicle which is $12200 when payment gets to you and refund balance which is $7600 to my client's shipper".  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 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 typically ramble on about issues ("you are required to deduct the cost of your vehicle which is $12200 when payment gets to you and refund balance which is $7600 to my client's shipper") 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.
6. 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 - from the scammer:

andy Mac [ andymac_114@yahoo.com ]

Hello  ,

Thanks for your reply . After your mail I got in touch with my client on the details of your reply to our enquiry on the vehicle's condition at the AD and evaluation of  your ad it is satifactory to  him.

He really commended your vehicle  from its features in the  advert and has instructed me to carry on with the sales at the  price of $12200  without negotiating further,since the vehicle is still for sale and in good condition as described by the advert.

I am therefore happy to tell you that I have concluded with my client and he has instructed me to carry on with the transaction, He said I should let you know that  payment will get to you in a cashiers check of $19,800 which is a refund payment of a cancelled order earlier made by him.

Due to companys policy this payment has to be made out in this amount to you ,because company policy only allows a refund payment on one cashiers check,this amount is expected to in part cover both the shipping and any other expences that might accrue in the course of this transaction ,so you are required to deduct the cost of your vehicle which is $12200  when payment gets to you and refund balance which is $7600  to my client's shipper,who will come for inspection/pickup  for him to be able to offset shipping & tax charges, and other cosmetic repair costs.

After payment has reached you and balance sent to shipper, the shipper's agent will come for inspection, pick up (of vehicle & signing of title papers).

Confirm this and forward your.... 

LEGAL NAMES.....

ADDRESS.......

PHONE NUMBER

For payment to be made out to you as soon as possible.

All other information needed in completion of this transaction will be given to you in due course.

Your honesty, understanding and co-operation will be highly appreciated. ,

Respectfully,

Mr andy