**ALERT** Con Man In Marketplace!

[t_danker]

I recently put up an ad on Mudah.my to sell my car. I only provided my name and handphone number should a buyer be interested to contact me. The very next day, I received an SMS, but this SMS looked a bit strange. It wasn't from a mobile number, but from SendMassage.com, one of those websites offering free SMSes to mobile numbers. The message wrote:

"Hi, I am Norsiah. I am interested in your car. Can you provide me with information regarding the car's condition and price? Email me at ahpiea (at) yahoo (dot) com. Thank you"

So I thought, maybe 'she' don't have credit or something. I then sent 'her' an email at [email protected] stating the car's final price and condition.

Then, things got pretty strange.

'She' replied my email. The email left me with total confusion. Have a look for yourself:

"Am presently in united kingdom so I can not come to test the vehicle
but if you are very sure the vehicle is in good condition tell me the
final price you want to sell the vehicle because am sending the car to
my husband who is based in iran, so I will arrange a pick up agent to
collect the vehicle from you after you have received the payment made
to you. And the pick up agent fee will be included in the payment made
to your account so that you can pay them for the service when they
come to collect the vehicle from you also the pick up agent will
prepare all documents regards the change of ownership and shipping the
vehicle to the new owner as all these fees will be included in the
pick up agent fees made to you, so I want you to get back to me with
the final price of the vehicle then we can proceed with the
transaction. Thanks hope to hear from you soon.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN"


After reading the email, i knew instantly that this fella was a fraud. I mean, there were so many signs! Let me point some of them out to you:

1. A serious buyer won't send an SMS. If they do send, it's normally with a mobile number, not with a free SMS website. You hiding something, bro?
2. A serious buyer won't arrange a deposit, or even worst, a total payment, before even viewing the car physically! That's just outright stupid.
3. She's in the UK. She's buying a car in Malaysia for her husband in Iran. WTF? Who does that!? Please note, I am not selling a McLaren F1 or anything close to it, just a normal everyday vehicle. Why go through so much hassle to buy a car overseas and send it over? Don't they have cars in Iran?
4. The final sentence, "Sent from my Blackberry wireless device from MTN". I did a simple Google search on MTN. Guess what I found..the MTN Group is Africa's leading telecommunications provider!. Africa? Wait, I thought 'she' said she was from the UK? Am I missing out something here?




I'm writing this thread to warn all ZTH-ians and all forumers alike on the existence of these con men. They have many tactics; some are genius, some are outright stupid like this one. I want to be angry but I find 'her' stupidity rather amusing.

Be safe when surfing.

p.s. Should I report this to the proper authority?



Cheers.:wavey:

 

[ckteck9898]

damm stupid con man.... thanx for the alert bro...

 

[autocrosser]

Well, it is good that you posted this to make us all aware of this sort of thing. I encountered one such case a couple of weeks ago with a Integra posted here and on Mudah.
Strangely enough, i posted here that this car is posted on Mudah with a price half that on ZTH and the seller never commented back.

It was on Mudah that i ran into the dubious deal. The car is supposedly in a container on Langakawi and, just like you, i was to just send money to a transport company and it will be shipped to East Malaysia. Best of all, it was half the price of any other similiar car as Langkawi is duty-free.

I may be crazy about hot rides but i am not stupid, at least not that stupid! Who is stupid enough to wire RM50K without seeing the car first?

The difference here is that you are supposed to get money while i was to blow money. If you have time to burn, you can go to the cop shop but i think this post here is good enough. My two cents.

 

[vh-101]

I received exactly same email contents from them. They emailed me about my car posted in mudah as well.

 

[shah5755]

stupid never finish....lucky u guys got think of it nicely and not end up being conned like some ppl who can't even control themself when receiving email stating tat they won big money!!!!!their eyes being blurred by the amount of money e.g "you had win $1,000,000.00" please give us your details to get the money"

 

[DanzEterna]

could be those african syndicates located in Msia...

 

[kumar22mostwanted]

OMG i received the exact same thing about my car posted in MUDAH as well and i received the sms about 5 minutes after my ad went up in MUDAH just yesterday

 

[kayy]

received same email and dealing method..down to the "," and "."
...traced the number its from algeria..
plus some sms come in malay language..but u can see it direct translation from google..hahah

 

[D7zul]

Malaysia has the highest tax for car in the world..

why would anybody wanna buy cars from this country???

but we malaysian have no choice

 

[Izso]

You guys should see the cons these conmen do to those single lonely ladies. Cons can go up to a few hundred thousand aussie bucks and these two never even meet. I think I saw a youtube clip from ABC news that caught the buggers red handed.

Then there's the single-lady-be-my-gf con in Singapore that has resulted in a few Singaporean ladies being jailed for ridiculous amount of years in that foreign country on smuggling charges. All con victims.

 

[knight81]

I faced the same con man as well, at first i thought she is a genuine buyer and so i replied her mail. she then request for my bank details,it seems to be too good to be true, so i gave her my debit card account number as this account is no longer valid, the next day i received e-mail from Royal Bank of Canada, it's a online confirmation of transfer. The bank name itself seems suspicious and so i refer to my uncle who works in bank, he advised this is a scam and not to believe. then i sent her a e-mail stating that i am not willing to sell my car to her, after couple of hour i received e-mail from her disputing that she already transfer the amount and i need to send the car to shipment company so that they will able to release the money to my account.
and for next few days she keep on sending me e-mails trying to persuade me to deliver the car, i just choose to ignore her. This con person even try to con my friends who post his handphone in mudah.com, i guess this conman getting desperate.

 

[nappx]

he he he
take money first..but don't give acc number..ask them to COD.

Play her back.

 

[MetalMic]

Ya man, should play along with them, bring them go merry go round or if can straight into the polis hand..

Can almost smell the modus operandi here...if you agree to sell to her, then she will arrange some awang hitams to pretend to be the pick up agents to meet you and then demand money from you for the so call payment fee, since she claimed that the fee is already included into the money transferred to you..

 

[facegreen]

That is very normal bro, watch out with those sent u email saying "Im a doctor who base in the UK, got no time to BLA BLA BLA....."
please provide me ur bank details....
then u will fucked up.
just beware. cheers

 

[t_danker]

Unfortunately, I don't have time to lure them out. Will definitely do it if I can. With so many of them around and with their modus operandi being more and more obvious, I'm surprised our local authority ain't closing in on them fast enough..