Nigerian Scam aided by Western Union & Alibaba.com

Nigeria Scam aided by Western Union & Alibaba.com

First there was the Nigerian scam with the spam letters that
promised you a percentage of a huge inheritance from
their uncle or family member who just passed away.

I get these daily in my email as spam, I've learned to tune
them out, yet, people still get caught by them.

Recently, a more elaborate scam from Nigeria has evolved,
and one that I fell victim of, and lost $1200 U.S.

I was using the site Alibaba.com to find potential suppliers
to purchase goods from. I wanted to test purchasing some
Macbook Pro's, so that I could resell them and make money.

I'm mainly interested in dealing with suppliers from Hong Kong.

Since anyone can open up a free account, and post items for sale, I fell
victim to finding these scammers as a potential supplier to purchase from.

To make a long story short, we spoke on Yahoo messenger for about
10 days, before I finally felt comfortable with the arrangements to get the
goods delivered, they sent me pictures of the laptops, etc.

They agreed that I could hide the MTCN, while the goods were delivered
to me. In my mind I thought since they don't have the MTCN, they won't
be getting the money if they didn't deliver the items to me.

Boy was I wrong with Western Union!

Western Union is helping these scammers because they delivered
the money to them, WITHOUT the need for the MTCN. I hope
anyone reading this really brings up the issue at Western Union, because
Western Union is aiding these scammers.

Yes I know, how is that possible?

A fellow named Jonathan Aaron Mensah from Hong Kong,
either works at Western Union, or knows someone who
works there that is aiding this scam to receive the funds.

These guys received the money WITHOUT the MTCN,
when I called Western Union, the guy on the phone was
very rude, not helpful, and actually blamed me and said
that I should not have purchased goods on the Internet,
and it was my fault I was scammed.

I was under the impression that Western Union would NOT
release the funds unless they had the MTCN.
At least, that's what the lady told me when I purchased it,
and they had a big sign at the Money Mart window, that said
Western Union's new policies required an MTCN and proper ID,
before releasing the funds to the recipient.

Of course, there's much more to this story, but there's only
so much I can cover here. Bottom line is, I was scammed
out of $1200, Western Union delivered the funds to the scammers
WITHOUT the need for the MTCN.

Here's the key info to avoid from these scammers.

Their Phone # in Nigeria is +2348087208883, if anyone
can trace these scammers with the phone #, it'd be great!

They use the name Bestshop Sellers LTD.,
email [email protected]

The Alibaba Company Info is below:

Name: Mr Mike Benjamin
Company: Dedexsales Rem Limted
Address: 8921 Franklin Street
Country: United States
Phone: 1-1-9876095532
Fax: 1-1-5645783

The scammer receiving the funds is:

Jonathan Aaron Mensah
30 Fue yeng street
Tai su, Kowloon
Hong Kong
1218

Of course, these are scammers we're dealing with,
so they'll likely change the company name, email, etc.

My advice is, DO NOT do business with anyone from Nigeria, PERIOD.

I have heard nothing but bad things from anyone that has dealt
with Nigerians, these people are heartless, they have no souls,
they actually laugh about it when I called requesting my money back.

If you deal with anyone from Alibaba, deal with Trust Pass members ONLY!

I know I've learned my $1200 lesson

Carlos Garcia

Sorry to hear your story. The rules surrounding Western Union seem to be very confusing, many times in the past I have heard disagreements on how people can collect from Western Union with people being told different stories from Western Union employees and agents.

Take the question of can you collect without an MTCN

These guys say yes you can
http://www.trustbank.gm/westernunion.html

1. Do we need to provide the 10 digit number (known as the MTCN) to collect our money?

No, the MTCN is optional but providing it will help facilitate payment.

These guys say you can't in the UK at least

http://www.ukmoneytransfer.com/

Important Service News
It is now mandatory for customers to have the MTCN when receiving money in the UK. Money will not be paid out without a MTCN.

It seems there are regional differences and differences of opinion amongst certain agencies when it comes to how someone can collect. I once heard that a Western Union payment could be picked up anywhere in the world without an MTCN except for Africa so long as the reciever had ID.

The best thing to do when dealing with people you don't know personally as you so rightly point out is never send anything by Western Union.

This story also should serve as a warning to anyone who finds themselves being asked to pay via WU or Moneygram. While these services have their purposes, very few legitimate transactions should need to be done this way. Rather, credit card, personal check or other means of electronic funds transfer are not only safer, but much more reliable.

Welcome to ScamWarners, Carlos.

I am very sorry to hear that you lost $1,200 to the scammers, but I am very grateful to you for posting up your account of it. It's especially helpful as it highlights the very questionable position on the MCTN, which is useful for other people to know.

The phone number you posted is a mobile phone number from Nigerian provider VMobile. The name and address for the receiver of the money may well be either a complete fake or a victim of the scammer who is being used as a mule. Western Union does not demand id for every pick-up of funds, so the name of the receiver can easily be faked without hampering collection. The US numbers are coming back as invalid for the US, so I suspect they are completely fabricated; the fax number is certainly too short.

I am afraid that there is no chance of getting the money back; if anyone approaches you to offer to do that for a fee, they are scammers, running what we call the money recovery scam, on which we have more information here.

Thanks again for sharing the warning with everyone here.

In my experience the MTCN is needed if the person does not have a valid ID card then the MTCN and test question takes place of the ID card. I think when lads want the MTCN iit is for ease to check online if the payment has been made.

I am sorry to hear of your loss these scammers keep coming up with new modalities and their scams are very well put together, they work in the way to build your confidence up with them so you trust them whole heartily. their usual setup is with a couple different characters (usually the same person) so when you get suspicious of one of the 'businessman' the one thats serves as the 'trusted one' is always there and will claim to help you get the 'bad guys'. If only they could use their powers of persuasion for a honest line of work.

I am sorry you lost so much money. I made the same assumption and lost close to $2,000.

It appears that the local Western Union told me that in Nigeria the only real proof required to pick up the money is to know who the money was sent by and who it is being sent to. Wow! Here in the States, they require blood to get anything.

Feisty, welcome to ScamWarners. I am sorry it's under sad circumstances, though.

You might want to change your email address; your current one is going to get filled up with all sorts of dodgy scams and phishing attempts, so please be alert and delete anything you're not sure of. And if you gave any bank account information to the scammer, I suggest that you tell your bank and get a new account number.

If you haven't already, you can report the scam online at www.IC3.gov or to your local law enforcement. Reporting it is unlikely to lead to an arresat, I am afraid, but it does enable the authorities to get a clearer picture of how prevalent scams are. If you would like us to do so, we can track down victim support services in your area, and we are happy to answer any questions that you may have. The most important thing is not to beat yourself up about this. These scumbags are professional liars, and know all the loopholes and ways to abuse payment systems. Spread the word to your friends and family, and maybe you'll save one of them.

Hi Feisty!!!
Great to see that you found the website.

Have a good look around and read as much as you can.
Do that and you'll soon be sniffing out those scammers from miles away.

Carlos. Sorry you've discovered the hard way how these scams work. As you already know, Western Union is a favoured method of payment used by the scammers, but the other one that everyone should be aware of is Moneygram.
If somebody who you don't personally know asks to be paid by either method, always treat them with extreme caution.

Hi Carlos

I can sympathize with you about WU. It wasn't a scam but I lost $1,000 to them myself. They aren't aiding the scammers but their business practices don't tend to help out the customer any. Their intent is to make money and that's what they do. If that makes it easy for scammers to steal from people then as long as WU isn't legally liable they have no intent to change their practices.

I sent $1,000 to a relative whom I owned money. I purchased a WU money order and mailed it. My relative moved to a different apartment in the same complex and apparently the mail didn't get forwarded to him.

WU provides a number to check on the status of money orders. I've called that repeatedly and the money order has not been cashed. It's still in the WU system but all attempts to retrieve it has failed. I even consulted a lawyer and he said that there is little I can do beyond jumping through the hoops WU places between you and your money.

I filled out the forms and sent them in over a year ago and WU still hasn't responded. I can't find a number where I can talk to a person. All I can get is an automated system where I can check on my money order and get instructions on how to cancel it but following those instructions have resulted in nothing.

While they aren't complicit in the scams, to me WU doesn't seem to be much better than the scammers. Look at how long it has taken for WU offices to post warnings about these scammers at their offices.

Western Union Payment Office
West African Zonal Headquarter
Lagos Nigeria
E-mail : #############@gmail.com


We have just send the first US$10,000,00 to you right now due to your
inability to receive the total funds from bank to bank transfer. Down here is the payment information except Question and answer. You can track the payment online with sender's name and MTCN on this website below to see the availability of the $10,000.00 .


Click or copy here and paste: https://wumt.westernunion.com/asp/order ... try=global


Sender's First Name:...... ####

Sender's Last Name:....... #######

Control-MTCN:........... **********

Amount sent:........ $10,000.00


The total funds on your name here is $600,000.00 .Quickly get back to us to enable us give you the question and answers so that you can pickup the available funds .

Sincerely Regards

MR.PAUL TURNER.
Phone : +234**********
Western Union Payment Officer


I RECEIVED THIS, WESTERN UNION SHOWS THAT IT IS READY FOR COLLECTION. I HAVE NO IDEA OF ANY NIGERIAN BEING A FRIEND OF MINE STILL I WILL HEAD OVER TO WESTERN UNION AND INQUIRE THEY SHOULD ADVICE.

This is an increasingly common variant of the scam. It works like this:

1) Scammer sends a small amount (usually just a few dollars, the minimum for WU) by Western Union (or just takes the MTCN from money a victim has sent).
2) He sends this same email to dozens, if not hundreds, of people (targets). This email contains enough information for the target to verify that the MTCN is real--but the target cannot see the dollar amount, and he/she does not have enough information to actually pick up the money. His hope is that the target will believe that since the MTCN is real, he must be telling the truth--so the target will believe that he/she has $10,000.00 coming.
3) When the target contacts the scammer for the q & a needed to pick up the money, he will be informed that he must pay fees or taxes that must be paid in order to get it.
4) If the target pays the money, more excuses will be given, and more money demanded.
5) The scammer will collect the original MTCN himself (unless someone has managed to circumvent the system and pick up the money), or will just continue to use that number on new victims.

In the end, the only person who will be collecting any money is the scammer.