I was almost the victim of a scam..I think [Need Opinions]

in this post i will include all details to ensure i get a correct response. Keep in mind that during the whole time i was involved in this i was being careful with the exception that i gave the person my addres....something she could have obtained on her own anyway. i have never given any account numbers (i dont have a bank account/credit card) or social security number or anything. This person really seemed to care about personal aspects of my life. I am still torn on what to do because i really need a legit job working from home....at he same time i trust people too much sometimes.

Warning: this is a long post, but i hope everyone can find it in their heart to read it and give some feedback.




I apologize for the length of this but i hope you take the time to read and give a genuine opinion. I am really at a loss here and not sure what to do. i believe my future depends on this. i really need this job, its perfect....but i am just...not...sure....i will try to make this short and easy to read:

I spoke with a lady recently from yahoo chat. I was in a room and we were all talking about working from home and i mentioned in the room that i was looking to work from home.

She sends me a message and asks me to view a link. The link was of a printer, ( http://www.g7ps.com/scripts/instantcheckssolution.asp )a printer that is capable of printing checks. She offers to buy it for me and ship it to me.

She asks me if i want to be her employee and, after a while of talking she tells me that i will be printing payroll checks for customers and sending them off via UPS next day air.

She said she has ordered the printer for me and it is already on its way to my house. She showed me (in text) a copy of the UPS shipping report. Anyhow, the next thing she asked me to do and keeps asking me to do is get 100 - 200 UPS next day air shipping labels and the envelopes that go with it.

She told me i could go to a UPS store and get about 10 - 20 of them and then go to another store and so on.....well, i went to the only local store within 30 miles and she only had 5...she kind of looked at me like i was crazy and was asking questions....

The ups lady asked me "whats the company name?" Thats when i realized something is up. after a few days of talking to the lady from the chatroom, she never told me the company name.

ups lady asked me if i had a UPS account, and repeated that i MUST have a UPS account in order to get that many supplies in that amount.

i basically told her the story here and she called her supervisor. he came down and told me he would have a sales rep call me.

welll, the sales rep called me and basically said that i have to have an account (UPS accounts require a credit card, and i do not have one.)

I told the lady from the chatroom about this and she said "I have always gotten them free, i have never needed to give a company name or UPS account number"

she basically danced around the questions:

"what is the company name?"
"what is YOUR UPS account number?"
"Won't i need the company name//UPS account information anyways to ship out these checks??"
"What about the w-4?"
"how can i file my taxes next year if i dont have all this information?"

in the end she told me the company name was named after her since she started the business.
she said the w4 would have to wait until she expanded bigger
she gave me an invalid UPS account number registered to someone in amarillo. (when i was speaking with the sales rep, he knows all of this i am telling you here today, and he said its possibly a scam, that people use the blank ASD's [overnight mail stickers] to pull off fake-check scams, and he has seen recent activity of this. He asked that i continue with caution as long as she does not ask me for money, so that he may report anything like her personal UPS account number - linked to a credit card...possibly stolen, or if its her, they can catch her)

I have not brought the last part up to her yet because she just keeps telling me to go to the UPS offices and get these ASD's and envelopes, i kept telling her they wont let me do it without an account number.

i am just going to wait and see if the printer actually arrives before i start doing anything major.

as far as she told me, i would be paid once a month $1000 after taxes
She has not sent any software for me to view.

I wanted to speak with her or call her and she said she was in paris for a conference meeting.... i told her that yahoo has a calling feature and she said her computer does not support audio and she does not have a webcam.
she said she is from Fresno California.

please post any questions you might have or know of someone that also does this for a living or if you know for sure its a scam.

oh i almost forgot! she said i have to have the UPS slips because she is going to tell me how to fill them out. i told her i was able to get one and asked her "well how do i fill it out?" she danced around that too and just kept telling me to get the supplies. >.< very frustrating. she is not being very clear, being vague with pretty much everything.....and about how i was supposed to file my taxes without company name and how she can claim taxes without my info......her exact words (copy-paste from the convo>) "well think think think ...you should be able to figure these things out on your own without my help..."


speaking of conversations, i have been archiving the messages in yahoo messenger, and yahoo messenger screwed up and sometimes only recorded her part of the conversation, and at the end, was only my part of the above conversation. i will try to piece it together and the times are off, something screwed up with yahoo messenger and i am disappointed, anyways...you can stop here if you like but i think you should see some of what she has said to me.
*****************************Conversation removed ********************************
anyways theres part of it and she ended up talking a bit more to me and asking if i had any dogs and digging in my life really. let me know what you all think of all this and get back to me.

EDIT: i color coded the convo for easy reading, red is her side....like i said i pieced this together the best i could considering yahoo was recording the conversations wrong. and the dates are off, my fiancee said its because she is overseas in another time zone.

Welcome to Scamwarners evixen.

What you have described in your post is a certain scam.

Note this link http://crimene.ws/2008/11/18/payroll-job-scam/

And here http://419emails.blogspot.com/2008/12/payroll-assistant-is-needed-urgently.html

An adviser will be happy to answer any questions or any concerns you have ASAP.

I would strongly suggest you cease contact with and send no money or further information to this scammer.

I will also include our basic guide here also. It covers advice and guidence.

As The Enchantress says, have nothing to do with this. The checks will be worthless and you'll be sending them to other scam victims. They will appear to clear and the victims will send some of the money on via Western Union. Then the checks bounce. Guess who the police will come after?
I was under the impression that these scammers had you buy the printer. They don't like spending their own money. If he really has bought you one, it will be with a stolen credit card. Again leaving you in the firing line.
If one turns up, I suggest you refer the matter to the police. They're more likely to treat you as a victim if you don't wait fo them to coe after you.
Usally, you wouldn't be in trouble at this stage of a scam, but the promise of a check printer worries me.

Hi Evixan, Welcome to Scamwarners. Yes this is definitely a scam, as Enchantress pointed out. Thank you very much for posting the information, as it can help prevent others from becoming a victim.

You should edit the post to take out your Yahoo chat name. You can cut and paste it into Word or some other word processor and do a Find and Replace with something like the word "me". Also search the document for your name and xxxx that out. (you can make the font smaller too, to save space here.)

Please post up any other identifying information you have on "her". I say "her" in quotes because it is probably a group of men, not one single woman. Your fiancee is correct, the times and dates being off is probably due to time zone differences, but I think they are probably in Nigeria, not Paris. While the spelling and grammar is not all that bad, there are some things that point to a style that is typical of scammers from West Africa.

Can you post up any other identifying information they are using? You posted the name Sussana James, do you have an email address? Did they give you a telephone number? What chat room did they approach you in? Please post up that kind of information in case some other potential victim does a search and your post will serve as a warning.

Since they have your personal information, you should just drop all contact with them. Do not bother confronting them that you suspect a scam. They may try to contact you, but will give up after a few days.

I am sure some of the admins here will be along shortly to give you additional advice.

Hi Evixian,

All I can say is *WELL DONE* for not getting more involved before checking in!

Harvest Moon is very experienced on this front, and any extra details you can get her will help her confirm the location of the scammers (although it's almost certainly Nigeria). If "she" really was based in the US, she'd take calls, she'd ship you the UPS forms, etc. If "she" really was in business, can you think of the last computer capable of running a business you saw in the US without a sound card?

So much doesn't add up, it made you suspicious - you were right to check up here, I'm pleased you stopped this in time before you became an (unwitting) player in the scamming of thousands of your fellow Americans.

Cliff

i really want to accept the printer and sell it, i hope i can find out if the package was purchansed by a stolen credit card. how can i find out what ground service she is using and find out ahead of time?

Evixen: Unfortunately, if your lad purchased a printer, the chances of it not being purchased with a stolen credit card or paypal account are less than 1 in 100. This scammer doesn't know you, and he can't guarantee you will ultimately produce a dime for him--you could back out, get caught on the first check, or take the money and run. Scammers don't like to spend their own money, and on the rare occasion they do so, it will be on something with a more predictable outcome.

Plus, if your lad is in Africa, he likely doesn't have credit cards of his own. Credit cards are much less common in western Africa than in the US (in fact, many lads don't have bank accounts, but have access to a common shared account for scamming purposes)--in the unlikely event your lad has a major credit card of his own, he is not going to place an order that traces back to him.

ok thanks everyone i know what i need to do. refuse the package and have them trace it, and drop contact.

Hi Evixen

Welcome to Scamwarners

It seems I am a little late to this party but wanted to say how glad I am that you realised something was amiss before you got too involved

There is every chance the company sending the printer will realise the card used is fake before sending, if not they will eventually be sending the police to your door.

Dont delete any of the emails from the scammer, keep them safe as you may need them, by being up front with the local police you will remove any risk to yourself of being prosecuted.

You have done nothing wrong and will not have a problem so long as your honest about it.

I am a little undecided on whether to accept the package and take it unopened to the police or refuse the delivery, if you do refuse the delivery there is a chance the printer may end up in somebody elses hands and you wont have any proof of that.

Either way, cease all contact with the scammer, he will leave you alone once he realises you will not be printing any cheques for him.

People who have been further involved in this scam actually have ended up in jail so it could have been much worse for you

Well thank you ralph for your input on this, i am not sure what to do either...the UPS man involved in this may be able to do somehting for me, i will call him on monday and ask him if he can trace any packages coming to my door anytime soon. if its not coming via UPS then i will call fedex, i don't know who else to call at this point. someone said attorney general, but i am having a hard time finding that number, and i can't try any numbers till monday.

any other suggestions are welcome, thanks guys!

Just out of curiosity, you didn't get a tracking number did you

I figure you would have mentioned if you did but thought I should ask, scammers just love their tracking numbers

Just out of curiosity, you didn't get a tracking number did you

I figure you would have mentioned if you did but thought I should ask, scammers just love their tracking numbers

nope, i even asked her for it so i could see "oh oh when will it arrive i am so excited"
she said she would tell me on monday where the package is
i even asked is it fedex or UPS
bitch is smart. she wont let me talk to her but for about 10 - 20 minutes per day, sometimes less.

So you actually spoke to her on the phone?

You refer to "she", that is unusual in itself, most scammers are male, was there an accent?

Edited to add
Just going through your post again in a little more detail, I am presuming the printer was ordered from the store she mentioned, have you tried contacting them, their contact us page is here http://support.g7ps.com/support_central/contactus.aspx

yes in fact after my post here i sent them an e-mail through their support system asking them for a name and to turn in the Credit card to the police i told them i dont want anythingto do with her and i do not want the printer, to not send it at all. but they may not recieve that till monday, i will try and find a number to call them.


EDIT: no phone number but i did see in their 'privacy policy' this:

11. Credit Card Policies for new customers
We desire to protect customers from fraudulent transactions; therefore, all orders placed within 45 business days of setting up an account need to be shipped to the address recorded with your credit card company.

G7 verifies billing and shipping addresses and contact phone numbers with credit card companies on all new accounts. If the billing or shipping address or phone number on your G7PS.com account differs from your credit card records, your order could be declined. Therefore, please verify that your account information with G7 and your credit card company is correct.

Additionally, a first time order over the amount of $500.00 is subject to our verification procedures and may delay the processing of your order.

As an additional service, G7's Customer Service Department may contact you within two business days via e-mail and/or phone to verify your order.

if she is a new customer, she just scrwed herself.
if she is an old customer, this company sucks.
or she could be still lying to me about shipping it all together and plans to ask me for money to send it. LOL

i can't wait to find out from g7ps if they actually tried sending it.

Good idea

Also a good idea to check your Gmail account