Slashdot Mirror
Newest Scam: Fake Escrow Accounts
MImeKillEr writes "MSNBC is running an article warning about the latest auction site scam: Fake escrow accounts. The article claims scam artists are tricking Net users into wiring thousands of dollars to fraudulent bank accounts. The criminals do this by setting up a trap auction and when the winner asks how to make a payment, the criminal tells them to pay into an escrow account. One legit escrow account who had a criminal mimic their site said that as many as 50 users had lost and average of $10,000 with at least one being conned out of $30,000 in such a way. There are reportedly at least 150 fake escrow accounts. The FBI is currently investigating the matter."
Fake escrow site scam widens
Being that the editors didn't provide one... I don't know if this is the same article, as it's dated July 3, but it's from MSNBC and relevant.
Link
Do they mean Accounts or Sites? I'm currently being "scammed" by a chap in france, who wants to buy 30 mobile phones off me. He insists we use www.golden-escrow.co.uk for "safety" and I'm playing along.
:)
;) )
I'm seeing if I can get him to wire me a £30 admin charge before we do business, after all, that's a drop in the ocean for him!
I'm actually quite impressed with the fake escrow site, the registration and setup process seems to work quite well. A few things give it away though, no real contact details, lack of SSL even though privacy policy mentions ecryption, and the fact the the scammer insists I use it of course.
I can see this as being so very dangerous for non-technical people. The scammers must be making thousands. The only thing we can do is to warn people.
A few tips:
* See if you can contact your trading partner on the phone or whatever BEFORE you do business
* DON'T send money outside your own country (especially not to Indonesia
* Only buy from people with positive feedback
* NEVER ship goods before you have Actual Money in your pocket
* Be suspicious of EVERYONE
I'll post a follow-up if I hear back from my scammer chap today!
Who saved the Slashdot editors time by not even posting a link to the article! Brilliant!
For those who actually want to RTFA:
Fake escrow site scam widens
Hint: Google News is our friend
It's a bank account associated with an escrow service, which is a service which holds a buyer's money in trust, until they have received the item from the seller, and then forwards the money on to the seller. This protects the buyer, but not the seller. The account is the one which the buyer pays in to.
I never understood why escrows weren't 2-way things - ie. the seller also sends the item to the escrow, and when the escrow has received both parties' payment, they forward them along. I guess it's just a bit harder/more expensive to do.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Heres some more info about this scan in case you're interested:
:)
Sos4auctions.com - Technical details about the scam.
Another Article - in case you DON'T want to support M$ by reading MSNBC.
The company supposedly running the scam - Hehehe... they use a Win2K server... lets see how fast it gets slashdotted
Thats all for now, good night everyone!
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
A smart escrow service designed to handle auction payments would: 1). Require the shipper to ship using a specific shipping service(such as UPS) that provides tracking information for the package. 2). Refuse to accept payment into the escrow account until the item has been shipped and a valid tracking # has been provided 3). Refuse to release the payment from escrow to either party until the package has arrived as per the sale agreement. Essentially, collaboration between the shipping service and the escrow service could provide more protection for the seller. This, of course, would rely upon the validity and consistancy of the shipping service's tracking data.
Hi, I'm Catalin Braescu, I'm from Romania. Maybe I can help - I dislike Romanian scammers twice: first for what they are doing and second because the reputation they build for my country prevents me to do as much business as I can.
My e-mail address is CATALIN at EDISON.RO
Best regards,
Catalin
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
Any escrow worth its salt will accept the buyer's payment via credit card. Why is this safer? Because if you don't get the goods, you can call the credit card company for a charge-back. If the escrow is just a scam, they'll be charged-back so many times that Visa and Mastercard will stop working with them, rendering the site useless. Wiring to a bank account, especially an overseas bank account, opens you up to this kind of trouble. If the scammer is completely outside of the USA, there is nothing American law enforcement can do, and third-world countries usually have enough problems that enforcing laws about "don't scam Americans" are not high on their list.
Another version of this scam which got posted to the escrow boards on eBay scams the seller. It goes like this:
When the escrow site gets the buyers payment, they send an email to the seller saying it is okay to ship. However, we all know how easy it is to fake an email. One buyer faked an email that looked like it came from escrow.com and the seller shipped the item (out of the country). Good bye!
Never, ever, ever trust an email from eBay or escrow.com. They will be the first to tell you this. Both have links on most of their pages alerting you to this. Login into the site manually and confirm status before continuing the transaction.
This message is mostly for the net-clueless and not the typical slashdot reader.