Scammers hit TradeMe

Hey everyone, just reading Ayesha's post http://technoculture05.blogspot.com/2005/09/email-scams.html regarding email scams etc and I thought I had better edit this post.

I remember getting similar emails and even letters in the post from someone in Nigeria wanting to transfer some money. All he needed was your bank account details and a cheque for his admin costs, etc, and he could give you so many thousands of $$$ for your troubles. Yes, sadly many fell for it. And there are so many more scams out there. They prey on people not confident with computers using shock tactics (I'm sure you've all had those pop ups: "Your computer has critical errors" which look like a windows warning box and almost impossible to close.) Anyway, back to my original post:

Well, I recently sold a mobile phone on trademe.co.nz and the winning bidder was, you guessed it, from Nigeria. He told me he was buying the phone for his uncle and he would pay by 'Bidpay' (A legitimate company similar to 'Paypal'). Of course the sceptic in me said WTF? and I told him that I wouldnt send the goods until I recieved they money.

After doing a bit of 'googling' (nigerian buyer scams etc) I found a number of websites detailing a particular scam happening on Ebay at the moment. What happens is exactly as I have described. After a few days the seller recieves an email supposedly from Bidpay saying that the money is ready to be paid to his/her account once the shipping has been confirmed. These emails were always sent from bogus addresses (such as 'bidpay@hotmail.com' - as if an international company would have a hotmail account..) Anyway, so if you were sucked in you would send the goods to Nigeria and never see any money for them.

Ok, so I figure I am in the middle of one of these scams. I have emailed trademe (still waiting to hear from them). I am waiting for the bogus Bidpay email before I decide how to deal with the dirty scamming ... person. I could do what joewein.de suggests and send a package containing a dead squirril, dog waste and used cat litter to the Nigerian address. (see http://www.joewein.de/sw/fraud-bidpay-get-even.htm for details... very funny). Or I could just tell him to get lost I suppose..

I just thought everyone should know about this scam as it is probably going to do the rounds and unfortunatley many will fall for it. I am also considering writing to the Herald (eww) or Craccum just to get it out there. And of course I'll let you all know how this turns out.