Am I in trouble?

Hi all,

I think I have done something really stupid.

I had a costa coffee scam email and sent back a silly reply saying using a fictional character etc with a fake address.

They fell for and sent there money to the address (i can see this via the UPS tracking no.).

Now I guess they are going to be annoyed. The problem is im in the UK and replied from my work email address. I didn't realise this was organised crime (I thought it was some guy in an internet cafe).

What is the likelyhood they will track me down for wasting there airmail money and time? I am honestly really worried!

Please advise.

Many thanks

Hey there, Worried
I would say that you don't have much to be worried about. Just drop them completely, and do not respond to their emails. Do not send them a final email saying that you were just playing or anything like that. Its best if you simply block them from your email boxes. They will keep trying for awhile, then move on.

Scammers are used to victims twigging to the scam, and simply giving them a fakey addy to send a cheque to isn't really a big deal. You would have to cause them a lot more trouble and cost them a lot more money before they would even really get annoyed, let alone come round your workplace looking for you. Scammers in general are lazy, and won't do anything that a) doesn't pay and b) might bring them to the attention of the authorities. That said, most of these scammers wouldn't know an IP if it was tattooed on their forehead, so the chances of them even being able to track you from an email to your workplace are pretty much nil.

If you want to play with the scammers and do so safely, take a look at the forum on our sister site: http://forum.419eater.com/forum to learn the tips and tricks of safe baiting. The stories on that site will show you just how far scammers have been pushed, and what it takes to get them REALLY annoyed.

Like SF said above, they will go away as they don't want to spend money and time going after dead ends. You'd have to do much more to make them truly angry enough such that they would eat into their profits to seek revenge.

You are, however, going to get a lot more emails from now on. If your employer can change your email address slightly, it might be worth it, however you are now a "live box" and even if you don't ever respond again, you can expect some scammer traffic for the forseeable future. Just ignore it and any follow-ups by the scammer in question. If they have your phone number, just delete. If by some chance you should answer their call, just act as if it's the wrong number.

They will go away.

Another echo.

The Costa Coffee scam is a busy one at the moment. The scammers are mass-mailing it out like crazy. One check that isn't cashed and sent back is not going to make any waves with them. There are also probably lots of other people that have done exactly the same thing as you have (received a check and not sent any cash back) so your scammer simply wouldn't have the time to go around kicking people's butts. He will be much more interested in those people he can continue to scam.

If he emails you again, just throw the email in the trash without replying to it.
Colin is absolutely right though - your email address is probably fried and is going to get inundated with scams.

Hi all,

Many thanks for your replys.