This sounds fishy -

Here is the email:

Hello,
> How're you?I want to place an international order from your company to our
> store in Australia.I want to know if you can ship internationally and accept
> credit card as a form of payment?We're opening new shops in remote part of
> the country and restocking our inventories and opening new branch and also
> planning to open in other part of the world soon.Eagerly await to read back
> from you and we can proceed.Thank you and God bless you.Yours Mr and Mrs
> Bianca Tuckfield
MY ADDRESS FOR THE SHIPPING QUOTE..
450 Anzac Parade ,Kingsford,
Sydney
NSW 2032,
Australia
Hope to read back from you with the total cost and we can proceed and finalized my order.
God bless you
Mr and Mrs Tuckfield

It is fishy. The writing is typical African scammer. This will evolve into a credit card scam, where they try to pay with a fake or stolen credit card, and then either try to get a refund of the cash, or have you charge extra to the card and forward the overpayment by wire transfer to the "shipper."

The end result is they want to use you to turn stolen credit cards into cash.

The street address has been used in "room for rent" scams as well, though it actually appears to be a bus station newstand.

Edit to add: Can you post the email address this scammer is using?

Good on you - you've caught a scammer who wants to pay with stolen credit card details!
Usually they are not interested in what you are selling, they are just looking for someone to launder their money.
There are a lot of them around - see here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3454

They want you to contact their shipping company - which is the scammer's accomplice or his other identity - and you are supposed to cash a huge amount, deduct your money and send the rest to the shipment company.

Please post the details of the scammer, it will help other victims.

Thank you!

EDIT: Dotti, you are so fast!

Hello taojonz!

Yes it sounds like a courier scam to me. Typically the scammer contacts you wanting to pay for the goods with credit cards. The credit cards are stollen numbers. The scammer ask you to pay a third party courier usually via Western Union the shipping fees. He tells you that the courier cannot accept credit card payments so he will over pay you via the stollen credit cards the shipment amount. Eventually the bank will notify you the cards were stollen and the charges will be reversed out of your account. By this time the scammer will have made off with the shipping charges you sent the courier (who is just the scammer playing another character) and it would be impossible to recoup the funds.

Can you please post his email address so others searching can find this thread?

Justin

Edit should have hit refresh!

email address:

[email protected]

Beware!

Hi taojonz

Well done for listening to your instincts and asking for advice. I'm glad that you won't become a victim of the scammer and that by posting his details, you have helped other victims/potential victims.

Thanks for posting his email address. If possible, please could you also post the headers for the email - some of us are also scambaiters and over on our sister site http://www.419eater.com, we would enjoy very much replying to the scammer and seeing if he is interested in our products.

Megan

I got one like this too, and they are crazy, I also asked for the name of the company as i will only do wholesale orders to reputable companies/stores. Nothing was given, but they did give me an address which lead to here. What they wanted was almost $3000 in merchandise, yeah right! Glad that I found this board!!

I'm glad you found us too!

Thank you for posting, we received the following message which seem to a cut and paste.

Full Name: Bianca Tuckfield
Email Address: [email protected]
Hello,
How're you?I want to place an international order from your company to our store in Australia.I want to know if you can ship internationally and accept credit card as a form of payment?We're opening new shops in remote part of the country and restocking our inventories and opening new branch and also planning to open in other part of the world soon.
Eagerly await to read back from you and we can proceed.
Thank you and God bless you
Yours
Mr and Mrs Bianca Tuckfield

Was then referred to the following shipper for freight who gave quote roughly 4X more than UPS or DHL for the same shipment. This prompted me to do a search and viola, your site same us a big hassle.

Hi,
Thanks for your email,i really appreciate you getting back to me with the cost of my order plus shipping.
I have experienced lots of difficulties when it comes to getting my items to my address here in Australia, I will want you to contact my shipper which i uses every time i purchased order worldwide via the below e-mail about my order [[email protected]),with the weight and dimension inclusive the value for insurance quoting my customer ID# QP34572955J. They will come pick my order up at your location. I will need you to obtain a quote and tell them that i want to Insure the package and I will like you to get back to me with overall cost of the items including the shipping cost via my shipper.

Once I have these details, I will get back to you with my credit card details immediately for payment .
God Bless you (Amen).
Kind Regards
Bianca

From: MARK MCKENZIE <[email protected]>
Subject: SHIPPING COST,INSURANCE,CUSTOM AND HANDLING CHARGES
Date: July 28, 2011 6:47:32 PM CDT
To: Fermín

Dear Client,
Thank you for contacting Cargo Solution Ltd., for your service.WE're a private shipping agent with private affiliate all over the world.We ran into our data base on the location you provided and also rectified the customer id number (QP34572955J) ad later got to discover that we have shipped some Merchandise to Mrs Bianca Tuckfield in the past.We are located in United Kingdom but help private customers in pick up like this and have got affiliate all over the globe.So getting your shipment to your client won't be a problem.

For a shipment moving from Austin, Texas 78734 to AUSTRALIA with the total Total weight and dimension you provide, below is the Standard and Express Shipment Air Freight quote.

customer id number (QP34572955J)
Express Shipment (2 to 3 days) $2100.00
Standard Shipment (3 to 7 days) $1900.98
The freight costs includes:
Collection from your Yard
Customs clearance
Duties & taxes
Inland transit to Australia
Insurance
Door To Door Delivery

Pick Up Address
Austin, Texas 78734


Pick up will be made by our agent in the states from your address after payment is confirmed.We will need you to provide us with an estimate pick up date and time so that we can schedule a date and time for you,before the the goods are ready for picked up as we normally have a lot of shipment request.As soon as we got payment confirmed,we invoice your shipment and scan it to you to print out and paste on the shipment.

As soon as we receive all necessary information from you we will proceed on the pick up at your location,Also i will like to inform you that we only accept Money Gram/Western Union Money Transfer for now prior to pick up and collection of package which will be paid as soon as the order is ready for pick up.You would have to send us the amount to which the weight of the goods weight via western union/wire transfer so that we can do the pick up and settle the necessary tax and custom duties,this price includes insurance and all duties,then we will get back to you with the necessary details.We have greatly reduce the price of your shipment. For further information don't hesitate to contact us.
Looking forward to be of more service to you.

Yours Sincerely,

Mark Mckenzie

Hope this help others avoid the scam.

It is FISHY!!! Here's TWO emails we got from the same scam artist, and we suspected it right from the first email they sent. Here's the first one:

-----Original Message-----
From: Jennet Bishop [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 12:02 PM
To:
Subject: Re: International Shipping

Hello,
Thanks for your reply back.I can't wait to have your lovely products in our store for my customers.
below is the items i want to order for and will want you to get back to me with total cost +shipping cost and i can provide you my credit card for you to charge and have my order ready and i can carry your product in our new inventory for our numerous customers.

MY ADDRESS FOR THE SHIPPING QUOTE..
230,Collins Street,
Melbourne, 3000
Australia

Hope to read back from you with the total cost and we can proceed and finalized my order.
God bless you
jennet bishop.

And here's the second one, but it didn't matter. We already suspected the creep was up to no good!

-----Original Message-----
From: Jennet Bishop [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 6:18 AM
To:
Subject: CONTACT MY SHIPPER

Hello,
Thanks for your email,i really appreciate you getting back to me with the cost of my order plus shipping.
I have experienced lots of difficulties when it comes to getting my items to my address here in Australia, I will want you to contact my shipper which i uses every time i purchased order worldwide via the below e-mail about my order [[email protected]),with the weight and dimension inclusive the value for insurance quoting my customer ID# QP34572955J. They will come pick my order up at your location. I will need you to obtain a quote and tell them that i want to Insure the package and I will like you to get back to me with overall cost of the items including the shipping cost via my shipper.

Once I have these details, I will get back to you with my credit card details immediately for payment .
God Bless you (Amen).
Kind Regards
jennet

What I plan on doing is having the "headers" from the email scrutinized as to original source, and turn it over to the state attorney general. These people are certainly scum, and they're quite dumb! So is anyone who would fall for this crap!

Hello justacafe!

Thank you posting the emails! I agree that theses scammers are scumbags however I do not think it is wise to think they are stupid. They are unfortunately good at what they do as this scam works on many victims. Not stupid victims I might add. People from all walks of life are susceptible to scams like this. I've seen CEO of companies get involved with this type of scam. It's not that the victims are stupid they are just uneducated about the scam. That's what makes posting them here so important!

You can copy and paste the header here to get an originating country for the IP http://iptrackeronline.com/header.php

The results may or may not be correct as some scammers use proxy servers. I would be willing to bet the scammer is in Nigeria or Ghana.

Justin

Welcome to Scamwarners.

What I plan on doing is having the "headers" from the email scrutinized as to original source, and turn it over to the state attorney general. These people are certainly scum, and they're quite dumb! So is anyone who would fall for this crap!

There's not much point I'm afraid. The wording tells me he's West African, and your local law enforcement won't be interested in investigating, especially as you haven't been scammed. They don't have the resources to start investigations with no chance of success.
As they send out scam emails by the thousands, the chances of defrauding at least one person are quite high. And a few hundred dollars goes a long way in Nigeria.

^^^^ but nonetheless -

Please feel free to post a copy of the FULL HEADERS (just remove your own details first) - I'm sure that we can save you time by us having a look to see if we can't work out where the mail originally came from.

Just out of interest

here is the info on what sounds like the same scammer. This is no the first time I have been contacted.

Hi,
Thanks for your email,i really appreciate you getting back to me with the cost of my order plus shipping.
I have experienced lots of difficulties when it comes to getting my items to my address here in Australia, I will want you to contact my shipper which i uses every time i purchased order worldwide via the below e-mail about my order [[email protected]),with the weight and dimension inclusive the value for insurance quoting my customer ID# QP34572955J. They will come pick my order up at your location. I will need you to obtain a quote and tell them that i want to Insure the package and I will like you to get back to me with overall cost of the items including the shipping cost via my shipper.

Once I have these details, I will get back to you with my credit card details immediately for payment .
God Bless you (Amen).
Kind Regards
Marta

Hello,
Thanks for your reply back.I can't wait to have your lovely products in our store for my customers.
below is the items i want to order for and will want you to get back to me with total cost +shipping cost and i can provide you my credit card for you to charge and have my order ready and i can carry your product in our new inventory for our numerous customers.
MY ORDER....
Christmas Tree Candle 13.5 oz.
Dreamsicle Candle 13.5 oz.
Fresh Rain Candle13.5 oz
Holiday Spirit Candle 13.5 oz.
Autumn Spice Candle 13.5 oz.
Gardenia 21 oz. Triple Scented Bright Bouquet Jars
Mistletoe 21 oz. Triple Scented Bright Bouquet Jars
Lavender 21 oz. Triple Scented Bright Bouquet Jars
Mango 21 oz. Triple Scented Bright Bouquet Jars
Ocean Mist 21 oz. Triple Scented Bright Bouquet Jars
20 in quantities for each items
MY ADDRESS FOR THE SHIPPING QUOTE..
450 Anzac Parade ,Kingsford,
Sydney
NSW 2032,
Australia
Hope to read back from you with the total cost and we can proceed and finalized my order.
God bless you
Marta Smith

o: "Marta Smith" <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, August 15, 2011, 6:39 PM

Hello, for international orders we accept PayPal. Go to our site and send me an email with the items you want and I will send you a PayPal invoice which will include shipping. For wholesale pricing please fill out this form, otherwise it will be regular retail pricing. Thanks
> Hello,
> How're you?I want to place an international order from your company to our
> store in Australia.I want to know if you can ship internationally and
> accept credit card as a form of payment?I'd love you to reply me back and
> we can proceed further.
> Eagerly await to read back from you and we can proceed.
> Thank you and God bless you.
> Yours
> Marta Smith

Welcome organic,
and thank you for this warning.
This is the catch:

I will send you a PayPal invoice which will include shipping

The scammer will create an email address that looks similar to the real PayPal. He will tell you to use his phished credit card detail and to also take an amount to forward to his "shipper" via Western Union. He is not interested in your goods, just in this overpayment.