by Cornloaf
Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:36 pm
This is a cross post from 419eater. I'd like to find out what we can do to help this person :
My employer recently got a quote request through our website for a bunch of highend Cisco equipment. Fortunately, the IP address was captured in the web form so I knew it was from Nigeria and my coworkers had me "take over".
Right away the level of sophistication was surprising. The scammer actually got a real company in Fremont, CA and registered a variation of their domain name. He has the domain parked at hotmail.com so he use the custom domain. The real company is optoplex.com and his domain is optoplex-corp.com. He took the real name of one of the officers of the company. My quote was for $70k or so and he sent me his credit reference sheet. He used real companies in the same area as references and he had the Fed ID and other information for the real company. I was impressed.
I told him that we would check the references and prepare his shipment. He sent me a PO and asked me to ship the goods to a private address in Washington state.
While all of this was going on, I was attempting to contact the company in Fremont that he was impersonating. The receptionist heard something was going on with a scam and thanked me. There was a bit of a language barrier. I left a voicemail for the guy that they were impersonating and sent him a message via Facebook. No reply.
I kept stringing the scammer along while waiting for a reply from either the real company or the FBI. Today the FBI called me back and said that I should file a complaint on the website. I used the website 13 days ago to complain about a fake Tsunami/Earthquake donation site and they never replied so I had the site taken down myself. I asked if there was anyone I could talk to about it and they suggested the FTC.
Contacted the FTC and they had a laugh about scambaiting. The agent that took my report actually knew this site! So I give all the information and then ask what to do next. They suggested I call the local police in the city that I was supposed to ship the goods to.
I called the police in Shoreline, WA and told them the whole story and they told me to shit in a hat. I think the exact terminology was that they don't warn people about scams.
I then tried to track down the individual and had no luck. I did get a number to her apartment complex and called the manager. It turns out they are a public housing complex for seniors and people with various disabilities. It's for people with extra needs, but not bad enough to be in assisted care.
I explained the whole story to the manager and they seemed to think that this person could be scammed. They asked if it would be possible to have her call me so I could explain it all.
She called me about an hour later and I told her what was going on. She told me that the only person that has shipments sent to her is her fiance in Germany. He works with some organization that is building schools around the world and she gets shipments of DVD players, books, computers, etc. She then volunteers information that she has a bunch of checks to cash and send out via Western Union. She told me that her fiance is coming to the US to marry her next year. I tried to tell her it is a scam, but she is just too simple to grasp that concept.
I called the manager back and told her what is going on. She said there is no way to get a court order since the victim is classified as independent.
I called the FTC back to report what is going on and they suggested that I call the California Attorney General's office. I called them and the agent I talked to was weird. He thought that maybe the Nigerians had infiltrated the FBI and that is why they did not want to help. Suggested I write a letter to the President... weirdo
What do I do now? The scammer is still active, he messaged me just minutes ago asking for the tracking number. He's obviously scamming other companies and this individual in Washington. NOBODY seems to care that this handicapped person is being taken advantage of.
Normally I would say screw it and tell the scammer I shipped the goods and make up excuses about the non-delivery, etc. Make it look like his recipient handling the shipment lost it or whatever but this is more complicated than that. The company in CA that is getting impersonated, their officer, the FBI, the FTC, CA AG, local police, etc do not care.
Please help!
My employer recently got a quote request through our website for a bunch of highend Cisco equipment. Fortunately, the IP address was captured in the web form so I knew it was from Nigeria and my coworkers had me "take over".
Right away the level of sophistication was surprising. The scammer actually got a real company in Fremont, CA and registered a variation of their domain name. He has the domain parked at hotmail.com so he use the custom domain. The real company is optoplex.com and his domain is optoplex-corp.com. He took the real name of one of the officers of the company. My quote was for $70k or so and he sent me his credit reference sheet. He used real companies in the same area as references and he had the Fed ID and other information for the real company. I was impressed.
I told him that we would check the references and prepare his shipment. He sent me a PO and asked me to ship the goods to a private address in Washington state.
While all of this was going on, I was attempting to contact the company in Fremont that he was impersonating. The receptionist heard something was going on with a scam and thanked me. There was a bit of a language barrier. I left a voicemail for the guy that they were impersonating and sent him a message via Facebook. No reply.
I kept stringing the scammer along while waiting for a reply from either the real company or the FBI. Today the FBI called me back and said that I should file a complaint on the website. I used the website 13 days ago to complain about a fake Tsunami/Earthquake donation site and they never replied so I had the site taken down myself. I asked if there was anyone I could talk to about it and they suggested the FTC.
Contacted the FTC and they had a laugh about scambaiting. The agent that took my report actually knew this site! So I give all the information and then ask what to do next. They suggested I call the local police in the city that I was supposed to ship the goods to.
I called the police in Shoreline, WA and told them the whole story and they told me to shit in a hat. I think the exact terminology was that they don't warn people about scams.
I then tried to track down the individual and had no luck. I did get a number to her apartment complex and called the manager. It turns out they are a public housing complex for seniors and people with various disabilities. It's for people with extra needs, but not bad enough to be in assisted care.
I explained the whole story to the manager and they seemed to think that this person could be scammed. They asked if it would be possible to have her call me so I could explain it all.
She called me about an hour later and I told her what was going on. She told me that the only person that has shipments sent to her is her fiance in Germany. He works with some organization that is building schools around the world and she gets shipments of DVD players, books, computers, etc. She then volunteers information that she has a bunch of checks to cash and send out via Western Union. She told me that her fiance is coming to the US to marry her next year. I tried to tell her it is a scam, but she is just too simple to grasp that concept.
I called the manager back and told her what is going on. She said there is no way to get a court order since the victim is classified as independent.
I called the FTC back to report what is going on and they suggested that I call the California Attorney General's office. I called them and the agent I talked to was weird. He thought that maybe the Nigerians had infiltrated the FBI and that is why they did not want to help. Suggested I write a letter to the President... weirdo
What do I do now? The scammer is still active, he messaged me just minutes ago asking for the tracking number. He's obviously scamming other companies and this individual in Washington. NOBODY seems to care that this handicapped person is being taken advantage of.
Normally I would say screw it and tell the scammer I shipped the goods and make up excuses about the non-delivery, etc. Make it look like his recipient handling the shipment lost it or whatever but this is more complicated than that. The company in CA that is getting impersonated, their officer, the FBI, the FTC, CA AG, local police, etc do not care.
Please help!
