Money order fraud scam

[caveeagle]

I will try to keep this short.

My 20y old daughter works down in Orlando as a lifeguard, and sells Mary Kay cosmetics on the side (mostely to friends). Earlier this week she gets a txt from somebody in Jacksonville wanting to buy some MK products from her. Say they got her contact info from the MK website (not that unusual). Said they would send her a money order for the products.

Money oder shows up a day or two later. Think its was actually two money orders amounting to ~$2,000. (order was only for around $100). The 'customer' starts txting her frantically, telling her it was a huge mistake. Customer is (claims to be) deaf and disabled, and needs the cosmetics asap for a wedding. Asking my daughter to deposit these money orders and go to western union to wire her the balance of ~$1,900. I told my daughter this sounded like a scam, and that she should probably talk to the police about this. (this was yesterday).

Well.. between school and work, she has not done anything and is now getting abusive txt messages from this Person. They seem to have very bad spelling and poor use of grammer. I suspect this is not even comming from anywhere in the US.

I asked her to stop by the local Police office in Winter Garden to report this.

What would you do?

 

[SteveChris]

it doesn't just sound like a scam, it 100% is.

Tell her to say that when she gets the $100 she will send back the money orders and makeup.

Those money order will go through...but they will not clear.

 

[derklug]

Yep, it's the old buy a car and ship it scam. Nobody accidentally sends $2000 for $100 worth of stuff.

 

[silver03svt]

Posts #2 and #3 are both correct. Also, visiting a local police station and passing along the phone # and the fraudulent Money orders will allow them to a least have a starting point for an investigation.

 

[oldmodman]

She must turn all the texts and the phony money orders over to the Fraud/Bunko division asap. And notify the sender that she has done so.

Never, ever, accept a money order. Even postal money orders can be phony. And when you cash them, doesn't matter if it's at your bank or at the Post Office, they will claw their money back when they find out the money order is fraudulent.
And it can even happen years later.

 

[caveeagle]

Thanks for the feedback guys! My daughter was smart enough to suspect something wrong here. She is just a nice, good-hearted kid that was feeling pressure to believe the BS this scammer was pushing. The fact that this person was willing to steal $2,100 (cash + merchandise) from my kid makes me outraged.

I would like to see these types of criminals punished in a pretty severe way!

 

[silver03svt]

Thanks for the feedback guys! My daughter was smart enough to suspect something wrong here. She is just a nice, good-hearted kid that was feeling pressure to believe the BS this scammer was pushing. The fact that this person was willing to steal $2,100 (cash + merchandise) from my kid makes me outraged.

I would like to see these types of criminals punished in a pretty severe way!

Truth of the matter is that the criminals are so hard to track in a case like this. Most likely the cell # for the texts she is receiving is a prepaid phone. It sucks that there are people in the world that will scam others like this, but it is a more and more common problem.

 

[caveeagle]

I am kind of surprised that they are still harassing her. I have received bogus scams emails from Craigslist, but they usually go away as soon as you ask them a detailed question about their response.

Today, she has received two additional txts, demaning their money, calling here a "cawward" and some other anti-American jab.

Why can't the NSA use there secret squirrell technology to go after these clowns.

Just imagine how much the president's approval rating would go up with a couple well publicized capture/convictions of identity theft / scammers? Hell, How about Team 6 drop into a techno sweat-shop in korea (or wherever) and bust up these predators that are making life hard for decent hard working Americans. .....oh well....

 

[caveeagle]

Follow up:

She took the money orders by the police dept earlier today. Not sure exactly who she spoke to, but.. They took the money orders and looked at here texts. They told her they would "make a record" of it, but that there was really nothing they could do since they did not actually take any money from her. .....WTF.

Now, I don't expect them to call in the FBI over this.. But why does the crime have to me successfull before it is prosecutable? I mean.. attempted murder is punishable.. right? Why the hell is nobody making an attempt to go after this @$$-holes? It seems like scammers and identity thieves have pretty much got free reign at this point.

The frequency at which I see scam emails originating from Craigslist ads is crazy. My wife also sells Mary Kay, and says that she has also received several of these types of scam contacts. She just ignores them. I am sorry... I just am a little pissed about this. It sounds like my kid actually thought about depositing these MOs and sending them the money. Luckily, she decided to call me first.... but she was thinking about giving in to it.

How about a little less useless gov't beurocracy, and start going after some of this crap!!

 

[TBCobra]

Well tell her to hold onto the money order and to not redeem it. She has made a record with the PD and presented her case. If this is a scam then nothing will come of it. If it isnt a scam and some moron really sent 2k to her then he will do something about it. Tell her to send the money order back. lol

 

[RDJ]

a crime has not been committed. this kind of thing happens so often and the tracks covered up so good that unless money has actually been lost they probably don't want to waste resources over it. time for you or your daughter to start having a little fun. Text the person back, offer to meet up with them to give them the money in person. make the meeting place somewhere inconvenient for the scammer and then just not show up to meet them. tell them that the money order has been sent to a relative in jacksonville and that the scammer can pick it up from them. then give the scammer the police dept or local FBI office as the relatives address. tons of potential lulz with a little imagination put into it

Follow up:

She took the money orders by the police dept earlier today. Not sure exactly who she spoke to, but.. They took the money orders and looked at here texts. They told her they would "make a record" of it, but that there was really nothing they could do since they did not actually take any money from her. .....WTF.

Now, I don't expect them to call in the FBI over this.. But why does the crime have to me successfull before it is prosecutable? I mean.. attempted murder is punishable.. right? Why the hell is nobody making an attempt to go after this @$$-holes? It seems like scammers and identity thieves have pretty much got free reign at this point.

The frequency at which I see scam emails originating from Craigslist ads is crazy. My wife also sells Mary Kay, and says that she has also received several of these types of scam contacts. She just ignores them. I am sorry... I just am a little pissed about this. It sounds like my kid actually thought about depositing these MOs and sending them the money. Luckily, she decided to call me first.... but she was thinking about giving in to it.

How about a little less useless gov't beurocracy, and start going after some of this crap!!

 

[caveeagle]

a crime has not been committed.

I find it pretty hard to fathom, this its "legal" to fraudulently counterfeit financial documents such as money orders and pass them around trying to sucker people into this kind of scam. All i have to do is freaking pick up my cell phone (while driving) and I get the long arm of the law yanking my chain! and people allowd to pull this crap and I get "no crime has been committed" ? WTF!

.....this kind of thing happens so often and the tracks covered up so good that unless money has actually been lost they probably don't want to waste resources over it.

OK.. I get that the PD has to be smart about how they allocate resources. And likelyhood of catching these perps is low. I am just disgusted by this.

We are all now forced to pay for "lifelock" and put up with all sorts of crap and it seems that nobody in govt gives a crap about it. Our big govt lovers are all about regulating cow farts and 10,000 other aspects of our lives, but when activity is ongoing that is actually hurting people.... we get this kind of crap!

....Sorry for the rant. I just know there is some little old lady out there that is (or has) fallen victem to these A-holes. I just want a little less harassment of law abiding citezens that are not harming anyone, and a little more pressure aplied to thugs and crooks out there operating with free reign.

 

[RDJ]

Rant away dude I am right there with you. this kind of thing is way too common and the perps pick up and more way too often to track very well. I could be wrong but while it is not "legal" to fraudulent counterfeit this shit, the crime is not actionable until money changes hands. so in your daughter's case if she had sent them money the cops could do something about it. but since she did the RIGHT thing (MUCH more important IMHO) their hands were pretty much tied. the difference between you picking up the cell phone and what they do, is your "crime" is public and easily seen and enforced. theirs takes huge amounts of (usually) multi-state resources just to track them down, and by the time they are found, they have moved on and are lost in the wind, yet again.

I find it pretty hard to fathom, this its "legal" to fraudulently counterfeit financial documents such as money orders and pass them around trying to sucker people into this kind of scam. All i have to do is freaking pick up my cell phone (while driving) and I get the long arm of the law yanking my chain! and people allowd to pull this crap and I get "no crime has been committed" ? WTF!



OK.. I get that the PD has to be smart about how they allocate resources. And likelyhood of catching these perps is low. I am just disgusted by this.

We are all now forced to pay for "lifelock" and put up with all sorts of crap and it seems that nobody in govt gives a crap about it. Our big govt lovers are all about regulating cow farts and 10,000 other aspects of our lives, but when activity is ongoing that is actually hurting people.... we get this kind of crap!

....Sorry for the rant. I just know there is some little old lady out there that is (or has) fallen victem to these A-holes. I just want a little less harassment of law abiding citezens that are not harming anyone, and a little more pressure aplied to thugs and crooks out there operating with free reign.

 

[nux1]

I've read of a similar scam a while back. The person who is texting your daughter (scammer) probably put up an ad for a pricier item let's say an expensive laptop although any pricy item works here then lists it for less than the laptop retails. The scammer then finds a lower priced item to buy (your daughters stuff in this case). When someone eventually bites (victim #1) on the scammers deal they just have them wire the money to buy the other item from victim #2 (your daughter). Victim #2 then ships the goods to the scammer. When they get the goods they stop stalling for time and eventually victim #1 realizes there is no laptop and files a report. It likely get ignored but if they actually investigate they will trace the wire back to victim #2 and eventually make them pay. This scammer just got a bit more advanced and decided to get the money instead. Good thing you guys knew it was a scam. As a rule of thumb never send/accept wired money from anyone you don't personally know. Tell your daughter to hold on to those money orders and money as someone might come looking for them. The reports should help as proof she did nothing wrong too.

 

[Deceptive]

I had something similar to this involving a car. I was sent a check and the buyer said a friend would pick up the vehicle. I felt something was a miss and a day later the bank said the check was a fraud. I went to the local law enforcement and they said the same thing. Since the vehicle was still in my possession and I had lost no money, there was technically no crime.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

I had something similar to this involving a car. I was sent a check and the buyer said a friend would pick up the vehicle. I felt something was a miss and a day later the bank said the check was a fraud. I went to the local law enforcement and they said the same thing. Since the vehicle was still in my possession and I had lost no money, there was technically no crime.

Also I was recently tried to sell a car part on another forum and was contacted by someone who was interested. He said he would pay by paypal and send someone over to pickup the package. That is a HUGE red flag, its an old scam. They send you a link to a fake paypal saying they paid and for you to check it. So they also get your logon info for paypal and there is no real money sent.

The first red flag is always/usually a story about them being overseas on business or something.