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Link Logger
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-29
Calgary, AB
 ·Shaw
| [Scam] Accessory to Scammers (ie how Walmart helps scammers)
We listed a car online and one of the 'buyers' wants to buy the car and then have it shipped to wherever. Now this really doesn't make any sense given the car is like $1000 (79 Honda Civic, yes I realize it’s almost a classic but really come on lets think about this for a moment OK), and shipping is likely to be way more than the cost of the car.
As it turns out the buyer is sending a UPS package with his cheque and wants us to get a Walmart money order to give to his shipper. Now this is starting to seriously sound like the classic Walmart Money Order scam, where the sender (in this case the buyer) sends you a bogus money order, but the company to whom the money order is drawn from (ie Walmart) can NOT instantly validate as being bogus so they cash it, give you the money, you give it to the shipper and then whoever the money order is drawn from, then claims its bogus and wants their money back, hence the scam. The shipper has the cash, you thought the buyer was providing and you have to pay the funds for the bogus money order and good luck finding the original buyer.
Now we are not going to accept the UPS letter, so this scam attempt dies on our doorstep, no problem, but there is a real problem here besides the dirtball scammers that ultimately allow them to operate that needs to be fixed.
So why can a money order be cashed but the company to whom the order was drawn then later claim it was bogus and then wants to be paid back (and in fact you could be charged with fraud or an accessory to fraud). If they accept it as being legitimate and give you the money and then later claim it was bogus, then why can't they validate the money order at the time of cashing? If they could do that then this whole scam technique takes a huge hit (won't stop it completely but certainly puts a huge dent into it), as then people wouldn't be thinking everything was OK while sending real money to the third party. So while I hate scammer, I think that these crappy money order outfits have to be dealt with and either shutdown (my personal choice) or they have to be able to reasonable validate a money order at time of cashing. I find it absolutely ridiculous that we allow companies to operate like this.
Now if I could find a law enforcement type that was interested in following this though and pressing charges, then I'd follow it though, however law enforcement just doesn't have time or resources etc to take this on, so the scammers operate with almost complete impunity so people are really left to their own devices and wisdom which means scammers will be successful enough time to make it a very profitable business thanks to crappy money order companies.
Blake
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Vendor: Author of Link Logger which is a traffic analysis and firewall logging tool | |
nwrickert
sand groper
Premium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
 ·AT&T Midwest
| So why can a money order be cashed but the company to whom the order was drawn then later claim it was bogus and then wants to be paid back (and in fact you could be charged with fraud or an accessory to fraud). Because they are bigger than you, and can hire the lawyers with big bucks and pay lobbyists to wine and dine congress critters.
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AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.14 | |
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