ScamVictimsUnited.com

Sweet.
Whats funny is I just called that number of his, and it rang a bit longer than normal. 5 minutes later he calls back and asked what i wanted. I told him I was looking for him. He says hes in San Diego. It came from the 619 number.
I have a feeling he was thinking I was someone else.

Not sure how bright he is. But he does linger for a while for more money.
IP's are tricky. If he's emailing you from a different servers its almost impossible to track where he is.
The best thing is, I think, is to red flag it, or make him pick it up somewhere else.
Tell him you sent it, and give him a fake routing number. See if he bites.
I am thinking alternative ways to trip it.


nothing more than interesting....
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... 35c49be176

its fun playing investigator. have you tried a reverse phone lookup?

I am in Arizona, where are you located? Are you able to go track him down if I did give a fake routing number to somewhere else? he has some strange goth chicks sending him messages. i bet that guy wuold crap his pants if you showed up at money wiring place and confronted him.

did that today actually. I'm waiting for their findings.

I'll let you know.
I'm out for now. I'll be back in a couple hours. I'll be thinking of ways to find him. Totally cool if you're willing to sleuth too.

i did a person lookup. they want the money sent to a:

Boris Garth
Huntsville, AL
35802
256-722-0352

I looked him up and this person exists....and you can get his number from the White Pages. not sure what this would do for us...but who knows. where did you wire your money to?

That would be a real name Im assuming?
And a real number.

I wired it to a Marcus Dobson. Does that mean he really exists though?
Can I do a people search on him?

What I've learned is:

Western Union or MoneyGram transfers can be picked up any place in the world with the correct information. So sending money to "Boris Garth", as long as the criminal has that name, they can claim the money. This was instituted because some real people lose their ID and get stranded with no funds. Criminals have just learned how to use the system.

Addresses don't mean a lot to these criminals. The use other victim's information to look legitimate to the next victim. So if this scammer has any real life information about you he/she will probably use it on another victim down the road. And be shipping checks from 3,000 miles away. Then want you to send money to AL. Must be doing well on their frequent flyer accounts!

619 is a San Diego area code. (If the receiving number had caller ID someone now has YOUR phone number.) You may have called a previous victim or a random number the scammer made up or looked up.

415 is the area code for the San Francisco area. Strange that a person would have phone numbers at opposite ends of a State.

An IP will give you an area, but not a direct physical address (unless it is a company based email system). It would be interesting to know if the IP resolves to the USA at all. Likely not... . Let me know if you want to know how to look up the IP.

My IP is dynamic (as are most) and resolves to over 300 miles away from where I live! It wouldn't really tell you much about me, except what country and which probable State or Provence I am in. This could be useful to contact a State's legal system.

According to Western Union, the receiver of the money wire needs to show photo ID of the person named on the wire receipt.
I have talked to WU, and they have put a flag on the two names in question, meaning when and if someone tries to wire money to them, WU is to question the sender to ensure that this transaction isn't a scam in the making.
We'll see.

According to Ghost, the scammer called him from the 619 number. I did a reverse lookup, and I got the name JOHN, which correlates with his name Mike John. Not sure if this is legitimately connected or just planned by him.

The only IP I have is from his emails, which aren't being consistant.
Not sure if I'm taking the IP from his emails seriously. Ghost says he tried to IM him.

Heres how I read the couple I have from him.

Received: from [83.243.22.250] by ws5-3.us4.outblaze.com with http for
mike9000_5@operamail.com; Sun, 10 Dec 2006 14:58:19 +0100
X-Originating-Ip: 83.243.22.250
X-Originating-Server: ws5-3.us4.outblaze.com
Message-Id: <20061210135819.CA8112472B@ws5-3.us4.outblaze.com>
X-MW-BTID: 092325000020063445032800015
X-MW-CTIME: 1165759113
X-MW-SENDING-MTA: 205.158.62.67


Sending IP is 205.158.0.0 is XO Communications
Originating IP is 83.243.22.250 is RIPE Networks Amsterdam

If the person recieiving the wire has the money transfer control number they need not show id, they can also answer a "secret question" set up when the money is sent. Many times the reason a person may be receiving money is becaiuse they have lost their ID and need the emergency money.

this guy knows that the police are involved. he has since stopped emailing me. the fact that he called me from the 619 number means something. you can try on yahoo messenger to talk to cliffordsmith00@yahoo.com i dont really know what else to say or do. sounds like you got a lot of information already. i will continue to help any way i can. i still have the check he sent me and such just in case. i will keep checking for updates on this stuff, if i have any more input i will be sure to leave it.

Hi there... I was a victim of the same scam. I would like to exchange some info, but don't want to do it on the blog, in case they are reading it, too. Please contact me at operations23@gmail.com thanks

FYI, not that a bunch of people don't already know this, BUT, you should 99.9% of the time NEVER send 'cash back' to a buyer!!

These same people tried to get me also in Nov/Dec '06. There were elaborate, non-form letter, emails back and forth between I and the buyer. Naturally, the 'buyer' had absolutely horrible written english.
I tried to call their bluff via email but they insisted it was a legit buy.

So, I waited, and finally today the UPS envelope arrived with a "check" inside!! Woohooo!
The check even looks fairly legit.

It's an elaborate scheme, but, they still have too many inconsistancies.

For your reference, here are some highlights of their scheme to me:

They were buying some car parts I had listed on a car-talk board.

The price was fixed at $250, they sent me a check for $3,200.75. (C'mon, seventy-five cents?!?!?!!? Stupid)

The bank name on the check and the business name on the check are both cut off by a few characters. (Bill Joplin's Compressor and First National Bank of Van....)

So, the phone number for the bank (on the check) is NO GOOD.
Bill Joplin's business has NO ONE named Eric Groves at their business. He signed the check!

This is easy stuff to see and check out. It's obviously a scam!

Also, the letter that came with the check has some obvious inconsistancies with names, email id's, etc.

scam artists!

Oh yeah, my email contact was with some tool named Shola Dinha


cheers.

The send you the change on the checks because the bank investigators are looking for round numbers.