[meteorite-list] Scam Alert

From: meteoritehunter_at_comcast.net <meteoritehunter_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun Oct 23 07:32:55 2005
Message-ID: <102320051132.963.435B74E300040D99000003C322007348309D0A9B029A080A9B079D010A9B0A03_at_comcast.net>

This is q very common and old scam.
If something seems odd, strange, out of place, or illegal, it probably is.
Usually the scam involves the person wanting you to keep extra money, and only sending pqrt to them, that is to get you to overlook the facts and play on your greed so you quickly cash the check and send them money.
Mike Farmer


> Dear IMCA and List Members,
>
> I was approached by a fellow calling himself Tim Trepagnier who claimed he
> was representing a client who was interested in one of my specimens that did
> not sell on ebay. He stipulated that the client would send me a money order
> in an amount greater than the asking price. The excess amount was supposed
> to be his commission and he wanted me to wire the difference to him
> immediately after cashing the check. This raised some suspicion with me but
> I did not want to think the worse. I have been involved in some pretty
> awkward international transactions before so I gave the benefit of the doubt
> to the deal until the money orders arrived.
>
> The first thing I noticed was that the envelope came from Spain and that no
> return address was on it. I opened the envelope and found that instead of a
> single money order, there were four totaling $3,600.00. The cost of the item
> he was pretending to be interested in was only $449.00 so I suspected he was
> trying to launder money through me. I called Travelers Express Company, the
> bank in which the money orders were drawn and waited on hold for 40 minutes.
> The scam artist(s) thought that most people would not tolerate the long hold
> times and assumed victims would think the checks were good since a real
> phone number was on the back of the check. After waiting on hold I found
> that the checks were counterfeits and that unbelievably several people have
> fallen for this scam.
>
> The way the scam was supposed to work is that I would have gone to my bank
> and received cash for the excess amount ($3,151.00) thinking the checks were
> good and then send it Western Union to the scam artist. He would get the
> good money right away realizing that my bank would latter find out the
> checks were counterfeit. I would have been out the full $3,600.00 and
> suffered the humiliation it would have caused. Not only that, I would have
> sent the specimen to a bogus address, maybe never getting it back.
>
> It would seem pretty obvious to most that a scam was about to be perpetrated
> in these circumstances but most like to think the best of people and might
> have fallen for it. This is what the scam artist(s) is counting on and I
> hate to see somebody get burned.
>
> Take Care,
>
> ------------------------------------
> Adam Hupe
> The Hupe Collection
> Team LunarRock
> IMCA 2185
> raremeteorites_at_comcast.net
>
>
>
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Received on Sun 23 Oct 2005 07:32:51 AM PDT