Hilarious!! Isn't it amzing that people actually get caught by these
scams? They must be successful or they would not have remained around
so long. I remember getting similar (although not quite as inventive)
scam letters via the post office in the pre-email era.
If any of you do any online selling - watch out for this similar scam
that happened to us. We sell antiques via ebay and via an online
"antique mall". We recieved an order from a "gentleman" in England - or
at least that's where he said he was from. It was for a $1500 antique
toy fire-pumper. We set the toy aside and were and were expecting his
check to arrive via Fed-Ex. A few hours before the check arrived, we
got an email from "Mario" saying "By now you have recieved my check for
$10,000. Please ship out the fire-pumper. You should cash the check,
deduct the $1500 for the toy and then please send a check for the
difference ($8,500) to my financier immediately. He then gave us an
address in Rome, Italy. Yeah, right!! When Fed Ex arrived at our door,
we wrote refused on the envelope. It was interesting to see that the
envelope matched the tracking number he gave us - but the return address
was from somewhere in Maryland and had a different address than any
address the scammer had given us. We then took copies of all our emails
to the local state police. We talked to the man in charge of online
scams. This turned out to be a new twist on these ubiguitous "Nigerian"
scams. We got several follow up emails from the crook wondering why we
were not responding to him, which we forwrded to the state police. But
these things are almost impossible to stop. It is yet another reason to
teach our students to be skeptical of what they read online. These
things would die out if PT Barnum's assessment of human nature wasn's so
darn accurate!
Jacquie
"The Librarian, whose job is to heal ignorance, to keep life safe for
poetry and to put knowledge smack dab in the middle of the American
way."
From The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9-20-03
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jacquie Henry, MLS
Ruben A. Cirillo High School (GHS)
Gananda Central School District
3195 Wiedrick Road
Walworth, NY 14568
jhenry@gananda.org
http://www.gananda.org/library/mshslibrary/indexgcl.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------
All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation.
LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/
Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/el-announce/
LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LM_NET
Mailing List Home