Nigerian Scammer Gets A Laptop From Me
After switching to a Mac recently, I decided to put my old laptop up for sale to help recoup a little of the Mac cost. I received an email almost immediately from a girl named Rebecca and we had this email exchange…
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From: Rebecca Nemanova (ramstar08@gmail.com) To: Brad Carter Date: Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 9:25 PM Subject: Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop – 500 gig HD, 2 gig RAM – $350 (Albany, OR) i love this item is it available for sell?kindly get back to asap.. |
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From: Brad Carter To: Rebecca Nemanova Date: Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 11:23 PM Subject: Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop – 500 gig HD, 2 gig RAM – $350 (Albany, OR) Yep, it’s still available. If you’d like to come by, just let me know when. Brad |
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From: Rebecca Nemanova (ramstar08@gmail.com) To: Brad Carter Date: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 6:48 AM Subject: Re: Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop – 500 gig HD, 2 gig RAM – $350 (Albany, OR) Thanks for the mail….what is the present condition of this it $400 Thanks |
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From: Brad Carter To: Rebecca Nemanova Date: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 9:29 AM Subject: Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop – 500 gig HD, 2 gig RAM – $350 (Albany, OR) It’s 3 years old so it has normal wear and tear on it. It’s in fine |
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From: Rebecca Nemanova (ramstar08@gmail.com) To: Brad Carter Date: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 6:48 AM Subject: Re: Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop – 500 gig HD, 2 gig RAM – $350 (Albany, OR) Thanks for the mail….what is the present condition of this it $400 Thanks |
After letting Becca (I can call her that cause we’re tight) know my PayPal email address, she immediately sent me the payment. But, as I expected, this was a Nigerian scam. The payment emailed looked very real, although the color scheme was a little off. Just to be sure, I checked my PayPal account to make sure there really wasn’t an extra $500 in it. There wasn’t. My dreams of receiving a bonus $100 for my old laptop were crushed.
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From: Brad Carter To: Rebecca Nemanova Date: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 10:05 AM Subject: Re: Notification of Instant Payment Received from Rebecca Nemanova (Transaction ID: 5Y758872CS5628811) Thanks for your payment! I’m heading to the post office right now so I’ll get this shipped to you immediately. Thanks for the extra $100 too! It’s nice to see that you’re made of money and are willing to just throw extra $100 at people all willy nilly like. I will have this shipped to you in the fastest way possible. God bless, |
The next day, I found an email from the FBI waiting for me. Except that it was another very obviously fake email.
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From: postageconfirmationteam@representative.com To: Brad Carter Date: Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 7:22 AM Subject: *** Collaboration Complaint From PayPal To FBI **Message From FBI Department***
We believed you entered into buying agreement by requesting money through PayPal, and by non response to the payment confirmation made to your account you have violate PayPal agreement. However the buyer has already contacted us in other to make report about your non response. We are ensuring to make PayPal a safer place, therefore we need to set confidence on our users. Therefore, your Money has been credit into your Account, that means the item must have been shipped to the Buyer. From IC3 we give you 24hours(1day) to ship the package to the Delivery Address given to you by your buyer, and also send the Shipment Tracking Number immediately to us to verify the shipment.Immediately we confirm the shipping.You will receive a confirmation e-mail that your account has been credited. We use proprietary technology and constantly innovate to help ensure your transactions are safe. In addition, Pay Pal has over 20,000 staffs worldwide dedicated to keeping Pay Pal accounts safe, and stopping online criminals. And we work with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) worldwide to shut off fraudulent websites as soon as possible. Pay Pal ‘s Fraud Investigation Team is highly experienced in fraud prevention. Several members of the team were former law enforcement officials with extensive experience in fighting online fraud. Pay Pal’s fraud investigation team focuses on: Identifying and preventing fraud before it occurs, Detecting fraud in process Mitigating loss, if fraud does occur, Delivering information to law enforcement around the world to help stop those committing online fraud. NOTE: New York Field Office Thanks for your co-operation. |
Stuff like this puts me on the side of the Nigerian scammers. If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that look fake, the absence of a payment in their account, fake emails from PayPal’s FBI department or just Nigerians in general, then they deserve to have their money taken from them. If I hadn’t noticed this was a scam already, then this email would have let me know. I couldn’t believe they’d try to draw attention to themselves like this when a person otherwise might have gone ahead and mailed the laptop out.
I also got another email from Rebecca, accusing me of being a scammer.
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From: Rebecca Nemanova (ramstar08@gmail.com) To: Brad Carter Date: Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 10:28 AM Subject: WHY SILENT????????????????????????? Hello, |
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From: Brad Carter To: Rebecca Nemanova Date: Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 4:28 PM Subject: Re: WHY SILENT????????????????????????? Hi Rebecca. I’m not being silent. I sent you two emails yesterday to Thanks, |
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From: Rebecca Nemanova (ramstar08@gmail.com) To: Brad Carter Date: Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 6:52 PM Subject: WHY SILENT????????????????????????? so get back to me with the tracking number so i verify it |
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From: Brad Carter To: Rebecca Nemanova Date: Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 9:13 PM Subject: Re: WHY SILENT????????????????????????? There is no tracking number. You should have told me you wanted one |
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From: Rebecca Nemanova (ramstar08@gmail.com) To: Brad Carter Date: Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 9:14 PM Subject: WHY SILENT????????????????????????? what about the scan receipt. |
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From: Rebecca Nemanova (ramstar08@gmail.com) To: Brad Carter Date: Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 9:53 PM Subject: WHY SILENT????????????????????????? what is the meaning of all this are you trying you scammed me or what? |
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From: Brad Carter To: Rebecca Nemanova Date: Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 9:54 PM Subject: Re: WHY SILENT????????????????????????? I’m sorry, but I ran out of toilet paper so I ended up using the |
At some point during this exchange, someone gave me the idea to mail them a fake laptop for my fake payment. It seemed only fair. I think it was Angela that came up with this, but it’s been so long (over a month!) that I don’t remember. Instead of doing it myself, I told my kids all about Nigerian scammers and asked if they would make me a fake laptop to mail to this guy. Er, I mean girl, because I’m sure she wasn’t lying to me about that.
I cut out pieces of cardboard, using my real laptop to make them the right size. Then Emily and Payton began drawing a laptop on the pieces. Emily quickly got bored with it, but Payton finished it all up, even copying the vents and screw holes on the bottom.
The last picture shows the top of the closed cardboard laptop. For hinges we used black electrical tape. It was Payton’s idea to make the screen show the Google homepage, but I had him write “Nigerian scammers” into the search box.
I shipped it the next morning at the cost of around $9.00, which almost made me feel bad about all the extra money she sent me for shipping. On the customs form, I put the value at $500 and the description said “cardboard art.” I’m not completely sure of this, but I think Nigerians have to pay a small percentage of the value to customs, so putting a high price on the customs form hopefully cost them a little money. Although the post office promised me that it would arrive in about 10 days, I didn’t hear back from Becca until this morning. As I was eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes, she begins messaging me.
9:25 AM: rebecca: you are stupid for what you did
9:26 AM: rebecca: you are crazy
9:27 AM: me: why do you think that?
9:27 AM: rebecca: what did you ship to my boss
9:28 AM: me: a Dell laptop, just like you ordered
9:28 AM: rebecca: is that a laptop
9:28 AM: me: of course
9:29 AM: rebecca: ypou are crazy
9:30 AM: me: what are you talking about? did the laptop not work?
9:32 AM: me: please tell me what’s wrong with it
9:35 AM: rebecca: suck my divck
9:35 AM: me: what’s a divck?
10:08 AM: me: please don’t be mad at me
10:18 AM: me: helllloooo?
10:18 AM: me: talk to me rebecca!
Soon after that chat, she tried to voice chat with me on Google, but I couldn’t do that since I was on the phone. I’ve tried talking to her a few more times, but she refuses to answer me now.
3:30 PM: me: sorry i can’t voice chat with you. i don’t have a microphone
3:32 PM: me: i really would like to work out any problems you might have with the laptop though
3:33 PM: me: maybe you could turn it on and i could help you troubleshoot from here
3:37 PM: me: let me know when you’re there and we’ll get started
3:48 PM: me: are you ready to troubleshoot yet, rebecca?
So that’s about it. Tee hee! Interesting that she said she has a boss. Guess she’s just a minion that does the scamming since she’s so good with her people skills and it gets sent to the boss. Kind of like a pimp/ho relationship. I’ll keep trying to chat with her and append anything else that happens to this post, but I doubt she’ll say anything more to me.
2 years later update: Jesus, people, I know this scammer was from Nigeria because I SENT THE PACKAGE TO NIGERIA. Quit accusing me of being racist and hating all Nigerians and teaching my kids to stereotype.
As one with a sense of justice
I appreciate what You have done
However I have to stress that not all nigerians are scammers
Scammers who are nigerians are a minority who allow greed overule the honesty nigerians are taught as a culture
Someone has spoken of hitler and osama bin ladin and warned about stereotyping people
bernie madoff is an american and a. Scamer but this does not make all americans cheats or. Crooks
Thus i urge that nigerians be not seen as merely scammers who are a minority
But as hardworking people
It is such stereotyping that got ambassodor. Chris stevens killed in libya because some one thinks all americans. Are satan
Once again I commend your wit but disagree with your description. Of nigerians
God bless nigeria
God bless america
How do you know this Becca is from Nigeria?
I’m a nigerian living in Nigeria, I was hoping you will post the address you shipped the laptop to.
If you would want (Becca) arrested, you can actually post the address and I’m sure I can direct Nigeria’s EFCC to your blog. i.e if Becca is not reading your blog also.
I can’t help but notice the Free Geek sticker…
I get emails from all kinds of Nigerian’s whose relatives who happen to be a Minister in Parliment in the government (Nigeria must have 10,000 MIPs) and who want me to help them get a few million dollars out of the country for them. All I need to do is give them my bank account number so they can deposit the money. And since I’m such an honest person I’ll cut the a check for a portion of the money and send it back to them. yeah right!
Well being a kind haerted person I try to help them out. I always forward an email from one MIP relative to another MIP relative. I figure that way they can work together and help each other get the money out of the country.
Anyway, Brad’s scam to the SCAM is great! I’ll put that in my back pocket for future reference. I’ll do some research to see how much customs will need to be paid on a cardbord laptop valued at $500. If they have to pay to get my recycled materials it may have an impact.
Good job Brad!
Aren’t you concerned that these scammers might be dangerous?
R
Brilliant! Well done you and the kids. That’s a very novel way to educate your offspring with a bit of street smarts, or should that be web smarts?
That’s pretty awesome. I also like how you got your kids in on it, too.
Great job ! Well done !
Hahaha great and fun way to give the scammers a taste of their own medicine.
I wasnt as creative as you and your kids, but I did manage to get some of them to mail me physical (bogus) checks..which cost them money
KUDOS! Very funny and creative
This is awesome. Same thing happened years ago and in this particular case there were people at the delivery location in Nigeria reporting the delivery of the fake laptop. Read all about it here – http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/p-p-p-powerbook
good day online readers my name is john parker,If you’ve lost
money gram or western union because
of a scam,report it to
Anti Fraud network, the worldwide fraud reporting centre.
You can report the scam.You can also forward scam emails to
them.
You will need to provide as much information as
possible, for example any names or other
information about the scammer, dates and details
about how the money has been lost I recovered my money
through laying my
complain to the email lostfinancecontro42l@gmail.com or call
+1
305-209-4621 on how you
were threatened.
If you’ve been threatened with physical violence on
your doorstep, you can report this to the police.
regards
john parker
This literally happened to be yesterday but I haven’t actually gotten the money and it was sent to Nigeria ! What do I do
As a Nigerian,i did not in support or happy with this scammer…however am happy if they scammed this Americans, British,and other Europeans,,why?especially the so called colonial master BRITAIN,,,very bad Government they have…directly or indirectly encouraging all this Nigerian government looters to dump their loots in their respective countries in the western world for their own greedy as well,,by this the scammer which is predominantly are youths think the best trick to use is to engaged in this scamming method of millions of money to be deposited in their account and lure them into those scam,,since them also believe that is the Nigerian ways of defrauding their government by so doing accompanying them the Nigerians to carry out their evil deeds. that’s it.ALL including the scammer and the victims are criminals…