[-Mario-]

Kijiji Kijiji:

BEWARE FRAUD "NEW Nikon D200 Camera"

Beware of this Fraud. These guys are running what is known as a TNT scam. Once in a while they change their ad's text, but the email reply is always the same... "Hi, First time i want to tell you that right now i`m out of town, i`m in London (UK) as i recently moved here with my work. The product is brand new, in the original box, with warranty. It`s bought from Canada. Let me know and i will send you more details." Look out, don't fall in their trap! For more information look up TNT scam on Google.

My wife is looking at buying a Nikon D80 DSLR and a lens.
Yesterday, she saw a D200 DSLR retailling at a retail price of $1800 for $520.
The following are the exchanges between her and the scammer.

From: Wife secret email address
Sent: January 28, 2008 8:05 PM
To: adam hilton [mailto:[email protected]]
Subject: Re: Reply to your "NEW Nikon D200 Camera" Ad on Kijiji

Hello,

Just wondering if this camera is still available.

Thanks,



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: adam hilton [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: January 28, 2008 8:10 PM
To: Wife secret email address
Subject: Re: Reply to your "NEW Nikon D200 Camera" Ad on Kijiji


Hi,


Yes it is available.


Let me know

Thanks



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 1/28/08, P wrote:

I'm definitely interested, but I'd like to see it first. I live in the Valley, but would be willing to go to Halifax. Where are you located?


Does this come with everything normally included in the box (cables, charger, batteries, manual, etc)?


Thanks,





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: adam hilton [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: January 29, 2008 8:33 AM
To: Wife secret email address
Subject: Re: Reply to your "NEW Nikon D200 Camera" Ad on Kijiji



First time i want to tell you that right now i`m out of town, i`m in London (UK) as i recently moved here with my work.


The product is brand new, in the original box, with warranty. It`s bought from Canada.



Let me know and i will send you more details.


Thanks


From: Wife secret email address
Sent: January 29, 2008 8:33 AM
To: Me at work
Subject: Re: Reply to your "NEW Nikon D200 Camera" Ad on Kijiji


Hooo boy.

[Blue_Nose]

Yeah pretty obvious - the broken english is usually the giveaway.

Kijiji is usually pretty good - I've purchased a lot of things from it, everything from a couch set to a 32" LCD television.

The TV purchase was the most sketchy of them all - first of all, it was out in Spryfield, which is one of the more... ahem... "rundown" areas in the Halifax area. I ignored that and travelled out there with my girlfriend's brother-in-law to a low-rent apartment building, where I met the seller - lets just say she looked like she belonged in Spryfield, right down to the snaggletooth.

Nevertheless, the TV works fine, she had the manual and packaging, and looked like it was actually on her wall for some length of time. Her boyfriend seemed to be a technology junkie, because he said they were selling it to make room for a 42".

[-Mario-]

I've purchased and sold a few items thru Kijiji. It is an excelent site. I always met them somewhere. Kijiji is local so I take full advantage of it.

The same problem happened to a friend of mine. He saw a recent Dodge Truck with a HEMI engine for 1/3 of the price. After a couple exchanges, the seller said he was out of province but was gonna ship it for $2K. Those scams are recent. Its all buyers beware.

One more think, is the seller want's to do transaction thru Western Union. and only thru Western Union, chances that he isn't legit.

my 2 cents

-Mario-

[N_Fiddledog]

That scam's pretty fascinating.

You know those spam scams you see where some bot registers at a message board and spams every forum at the board with electronics for sale? I always think of them as Nokia spams, because that's the name I see most often, although not the only one.

Anyway I always wondered the technical details of how those scams worked. I guess, now I now, eh? I hear those message board, Nokia, spam scams are Nigerian.

[Blue_Nose]

There was a guy here a while ago asking people to send him a free laptop or something - I played along and this is what he sent me:

$1:

Thank you so much Blue_Nose.

My Address is as follows:

Michael Oghenevwerhee Okogho.
Block 27 Aswan Street,
Zone 3 Wuse,
Abuja (Federal Capital Territory)
Nigeria.
West Africa.

Thank you so much. I will really appreciate it if you do this favor for me. I do not mind even if it has been used for the past Ten years. But I know you are a nice person and God will bless you abundantly. Amen!

Thank you Blue_Nose

Your friend,
Michael

[dino_bobba_renno]

Have you looked at the D40? My wife just got one for Christmas and loves it. I’m not sure what your wife does or what she uses her camera for but if it’s not for professional use the 40 is pretty comparable to the 80 in many respects at half the price.

[sellmyride]

I run a small/new free classified site and I have to say it just amazes me how many scammers and spammers there are out there. I personally delete approximately 100 ads a day that I know are scams.
I also ban their IP's (mostly Nigeria IP's). I do this just so no one gets scammed.

My site is small and relatively unknown so I can only imagine how much bigger sites like kijiji or craigslist tend to this problem. My philosophy is that if it looks and sounds too good then it probably is so I delete their ads and ban them. I'm more interested in my visitors experience with my site than i am if I tick off a Nigerian, know what I mean?

Anyways, I just wanted to say that people like me who run a site all by themselves or even big companies like the before mentioned do their best to weed out the bad ads but some seem to float through. I guess that's we all have a "report ad" or "report abuse" button so people who visit and have heard about or even know about these ads can report these scammers.

Thanks for the warning. I'll look out for these types of ads on my site!

Richard

[N_Fiddledog]

Somebody should come out with something for webmasters that bans all Nigerian IPs by default.

Nigeria's not going to do anything about their culture of thievery, so why should anybody care what they think.

[sellmyride]

I've looked into this and it seems I can ban Nigeria and bunch of other countries through an .htaccess file but that doesn't stop them from using something like an IP spoofer or even a web proxy to keep coming back.

I guess all I can do is to keep deleting their ads and banning the IPs their using and hope they finally get the hint. These spammers sure are a persistant bunch though aren't they? LOL!!

[patience17]

sellmyride sellmyride:

I've looked into this and it seems I can ban Nigeria and bunch of other countries through an .htaccess file but that doesn't stop them from using something like an IP spoofer or even a web proxy to keep coming back.

I guess all I can do is to keep deleting their ads and banning the IPs their using and hope they finally get the hint. These spammers sure are a persistant bunch though aren't they? LOL!!

spammers sure do suck.

[squirly]

Hi,
I have a couple things up for sale on kijiji and I've recieved emails on both items from people claiming to be out of state or away in Paris.
Here is the email from one:

- Hello,
I am interested in purchasing your item. I will like to know your last asking price and your preferred mode of payment as I intend to pay using money orders.
Thank you.
*My asking price on this chair is $500. Money order would be fine for method of payment.
Please email me back if you are interested.
Thank you.
-Hi,thanks for your mail,if it fits me perfectly,I'll love to pay with cash and do the pick-up myself, but i'm presently out of the country (in paris) but will be back in a few weeks, that's why i will like to pay using money orders.
I'll also include my shipper's fee,so after receiving the payment and getting it cashed,you'll deduct your amount for the item and send the rest money to my shipper,who i've already arranged with to come and do the pick-up of the item from your residence for onward
delivery to my home.
I'll like you to provide your contact address details to enable me issue out the payment to you Asap.
I await your contact address details.

I just want to know how this works out to be a scam?
I did look up possible scams to be wary of on kijiji but if they send me the money order and I get paid then how is it that this might turn against me?
Just want to be careful thanks.

[ASLplease]

squirly squirly:

Hi,
I have a couple things up for sale on kijiji and I've recieved emails on both items from people claiming to be out of state or away in Paris.
Here is the email from one:

- Hello,
I am interested in purchasing your item. I will like to know your last asking price and your preferred mode of payment as I intend to pay using money orders.
Thank you.
*My asking price on this chair is $500. Money order would be fine for method of payment.
Please email me back if you are interested.
Thank you.
-Hi,thanks for your mail,if it fits me perfectly,I'll love to pay with cash and do the pick-up myself, but i'm presently out of the country (in paris) but will be back in a few weeks, that's why i will like to pay using money orders.
I'll also include my shipper's fee,so after receiving the payment and getting it cashed,you'll deduct your amount for the item and send the rest money to my shipper,who i've already arranged with to come and do the pick-up of the item from your residence for onward
delivery to my home.
I'll like you to provide your contact address details to enable me issue out the payment to you Asap.
I await your contact address details.

I just want to know how this works out to be a scam?
I did look up possible scams to be wary of on kijiji but if they send me the money order and I get paid then how is it that this might turn against me?
Just want to be careful thanks.

ultimately you have to spend money that he hasn't given you. the international money order wont clear for awhile, meanwhile your cheque has. The shipping company is bogus, they are probably gonna fence or dump your product locally.

[Brenda]

I had a scam once too, like that.
Please send the money after you cash this cheque to "whatever the name was" via Western Union to this person in the UK.

So what happens is, that you go to the bank, they cash your cheque and you get X. You go to Western Union, send what you are supposed to to "whatever the name was", and they collect that again. Their money is laundered, and the bank comes to you to get the money back they gave you when it turns out the cheque was a fake. Bu-bye money.

[ASLplease]

I'm Calgary based, I was approached with a UK scam that claimed the trailer was in Halifax. I spotted for what it was, so I responded "Thats perfect! I have a brother in law in Halifax. I can send him to you with cash, and he can pick up the trailer while he's there."

I never heard from him again.

[Choban]

I tried to sell a camcorder on Kijiji and they tried to get me with the old money order scam, I went along with it until I received the money order (apparently form a guy in paris), I wanted 100 bucks and they sent me 2500, that's when the final alarm went off (I was pretty sure it was a scam before hand).
This one is as old as classified ads are, don't fall for it, buying or selling online use paypal or some other legitimate form of payment. The money order I had I turned into the cops, a pretty dam good forgery according to them.