Public Service Announcement: BEWARE!!! FRAUD!!!

[junkiemanxl]

I just thought i should share this piece of info with you guys. Not too long ago, i was selling my Burny les paul custom. I posted this on several forums and not long after, i got an email from an individual by the name of Dr Benneth Williams. From our first email conversation, he made it clear that he was very interested in the guitar and told me that he had money ready and wanted the guitar to be shipped to Turkey. The mode of payment he offered was through paypal or western union transfer.

We traded a few emails before i felt something amiss in the conversations. He did not have too many questions about the guitar. The only question he asked was if the guitar is in good condition. Later on, he mention that he would want the guitar to be shipped to Nigeria instead of Turkey. I went on and googled Benneth Williams and dmixer1@yahoo.com and found some very interesting details. One of the many is this..

http://forums.ebay.com.sg/thread.jspa?threadID=500001636

I proceeded to play along with the game and sent him an over charged paypal invoice for SGD$2880 including shipping. That's an excess of over $1k!! Any sane person would protest but Within the hour with no questions asked, I received a notification from paypal that i have received funds for $2880 that had been credited into my paypal account. The notification looked legit like the original notification but when i logged into my paypal account there was no money transferred.

I sent him an email saying that there was no money being transferred and his reply was that funds had already been deducted from his account and paypal will only release the funds once a tracking number is given. He was pretty hostile and tried to intimidate me to send the guitar out asap but i told him i will check with paypal before proceeding with any form of transaction.

Just to be sure, i gave paypal Singapore a call, forwarded the notification to paypal to verify this and true enough, paypal verified this and that legit looking notification as a phishing attempt and a fraud. They advised me to not ship the items out and would investigate the matter.

Here is the con man's "particuars"

NAME: BENNETH WILLIAMS
ADDRESS: NW4/150,IDI-ORO,EKOTEDO
CITY: IBADAN
STATE: OYO
COUNTRY: NIGERIA
ZIP CODE: 23402
Phone: 2347029509189
Email :dmixer1@yahoo.com / bunny_williams_01@.../ deliveryman99@ymail.com

I have not heard from the fella since i mentioned checking this transaction with paypal. Apparently, this fella is doing con jobs around the world. he has made attempts at several forums posing to buy items.

Just a little awareness goes a long way. so.....

NEVER EVER SEND ANY ITEMS TO AFRICAN COUNTRIES UNLESS IT'S VERIFIED!!

NEVER SEND AN ITEM OUT BEFORE PAYMENT IS RECEIVED!!

ALWAYS BE VIGILANT WHEN MAKING TRANSACTIONS ONLINE!!

Cheers fellow softies!

 

[faizal_rocks]

I got this kinda thing before, typical Nigerian con job

 

[Maidendroogie]

Dude, duh.

Everyone knows Nigeria is full of scammers trying to suck money out of the world.

I get tonnes of emails for Nigerians asking me to invest in their eductaion, banks, whatever.

 

[junkiemanxl]

just a heads up for those who dun know la bro..
we even have people buying fake es335's and not knowing it and crying about it later..

 

[hifi_killer]

wow. Dr Benneth William? Nigeria? Thats quite a giveaway

 

[blueprintstudios]

*Spam?* Fbi Important Notification‏
From: Federal Bureau Of Investigation (robertmueller@fbi.gov)

ANTI-TERRORIST & MONETARY CRIMES DIVISION
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
1110 THIRD AVENUE
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 98101 USA


ATTENTION: BENEFICIARY


This e-mail has been issued to you in order to Officially notify you that our International Monitoring System discovered that you are presently having a transaction with an impostor from another country. The scam artist offered you a lot of money claiming to be an inheritance payment, next of kin and even a lottery winning.

Please take note that these are ALL lies and false claims, these impostors claim to be either: Charles Soludo, Patrick Aziza, Frank Nweke, Benson Edward, Paul Smith. They usually claim to be attached to banks or even attached to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Take note that they are all liars and the transactions were NEVER authorized to go through them.

Presently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has no jurisdiction in foreign countries. However, it came to our notice that you LEGALLY have the sum of $5,500,000.00 USD (Five Million, Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars) held at a bank over here in Washington, USA.

According to our completed investigation, a Lottery Company in Nigeria ran an Online Lottery Competition in which they created a program known as "Online Balloting System". The program was designed to select different alphabets automatically and join them together and then this same program selects an Internet Provider / E-mail Provider and then if the alphabets put together form an e-mail address, the owner of the e-mail address will automatically win the sum of $5,500,000.00 USD.

The Lottery Company in Nigeria refused to contact you in regards to the fact that your e-mail address LEGALLY won the competition as it was advertised on their local Nigerian websites, radio stations and even TV stations. Our Monitoring System picked up the signal and then decided to trace/investigate towards this matter. We found this out and decided to take Legal Actions against them, they were therefore forced to transfer the funds into a dormant account held with a bank "First Trust Bank".

Presently, the funds have been deposited at First Trust Bank in USA and the funds are verifiable as you can access the account via the Telephone Banking system. However, you are presently unable to Transfer Funds / Withdraw funds as you will require a PIN Code in order to do so. The pin code required to transfer your funds has been held by the Federal Ministry of Finance in Nigeria, they require that you procure an International Money Transfer Clearance Bond before it will be released to you. The Federal Ministry of Finance in Nigeria requires that the sum of $800 US Dollars will be required before the IMT Clearance Bond with your Transfer PIN Code can be released as it has NOT been paid for. The required fee of $800 is MANDATORY and compulsory and should be sent to their agent via ONLY Western Union Money Transfer.

Once the IMT Clearance Bond has been procured, it will be mailed/shipped to your home address for privacy reasons it will NOT be sent via e-mail. You are therefore required to take the following steps:


(1) Verify / Confirm your account balance at First Trust Bank via Telephone Banking. Kindly follow the instructions below:

Bank Name: First Trust Bank
Telephone Banking Number: +1 (206) 438-9355
Account Number: 4 5 0 2 3 8 9 9
Account PIN Number: 4 9 2 6

Dial your Telephone Banking number: +1-206 438-9355. Then Press (2), you will then be requested to enter an account number. Your account number is: 45023899 then you will be asked again to press (1) to confirm, afterwards you will be asked to enter your Account pin which is: 4926 then wait, and you will be ask to press (1) to confirm. After pressing 1 to confirm the PIN, wait to listen to your account balance. You will listen to your account balance and also hear the Transfer feature, do NOT attempt to transfer funds as you will be required to enter a Transfer PIN number which you do NOT have.

(2) You will be required to immediately contact the ONLY authorized agent "Mr. Andrew Kelly" with the following information:

FULL NAME:
ADDRESS:
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP CODE:
PHONE NUMBER:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE SENDING THE ABOVE INFORMATION IN TO ENSURE THAT YOUR CLEARANCE BOND IN WHICH SHALL CONTAIN YOUR TRANSFER PIN CODE IS NOT SENT TO THE WRONG ADDRESS. YOU ARE HEREBY ADVISED TO STOP COMMUNICATION WITH OTHER INDIVIDUALS AND ALSO KEEP THIS TRANSACTION FULLY CONFIDENTIAL. YOU SHOULD SEND THE SUM OF $800 ONLY TO MR. DAVID GREEN, CONTACT HIM WITH THE REQUESTED INFORMATION ABOVE AND ALSO REQUEST INFORMATION ON HOW YOU CAN PAY THE REQUESTED FEE OF $800 TO THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE IN NIGERIA. HIS CONTACT INFORMATION IS BELOW:

AUTHORIZED AGENT NAME: DAVID GREENY
AGENT E-MAIL ADDRESS: mrdavidgreen001@gala.net
AGENT PHONE NUMBER: +234802-7373529

YOUR SAFETY HAS BEEN GUARANTEED AS THIS TRANSACTION IS COMPLETELY LEGITIMATE AND HAS BEEN VERIFIED.


FBI DIRECTOR,

ROBERT S. MUELLER III.

-----------------------------------------------------------


now they pose as FBI even.

my wife's cousin (female) was conned by nigerian guy out of love, to go UK to meet him, then he slipped 5kg of heroin into her bag when she was heading back to SG. but she got caught in UK (thankfully) , and now she's imprisoned for about 9 years...
if she was caught in SG = hang.

guys pls take this scams seriously.

-ron

 

[RyanZ]

I have received a few emails from Nigerians before. From church pastor to bank officers. Just be careful and do not be blinded by the huge amount of money they claimed you have won.

 

[balloons]

They want to do trade with me,they have to do it here in singapore,and give me cash if not i won't fall for all this scams.

 

[milkmesto]

well, since we're on the topic of nigerian scams... here's an interesting site about nigerian scammers: http://www.419eater.com/

not suggesting that you do it of course, but if you are possessed of sufficient moral fiber, righteousness and creativity... who knows. just remember to share your results with us, hurhur.

 

[opposite_youth]

theres a lot of these niggers along the mustafa center when im going to lcube for jamming practice. Jammers please beware when going along this road. They may approached you.

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

the doings of some people from that country bascially just exposed how hostile we can be.

Anyway, leave the swearing and stereotyping out, the doing of some people doesnt represent all. Dont make ourself look dumb with the names calling and stuff.