Topic awaiting preservation: Need Help With Some Weird E-Mail...

hello inmates!
been a while, hope everyone is doing well
i'm here because i need some advice: something strange happened to my mom the other day. she's asked me for help, but i'm not quite sure what to say.
here is what has happened:
my mom was trying to sell a sofa on an austrian ebay-like website. the website is well known and has a good and serious reputation in austria. (you can have a look at it here: http://www.willhaben.at )

however, after a short amount of time, a woman responded: (in english...which is strange)

quote:

---

My name is Kirstie Campbell I am interested in the buying of your above advertised Furniture for my daughter.
Please kindly get back to me with the following details.
1)is it still available for sale?
3)How long have you owned it?
4)How much is your last price offer in euro?

I will appreciate a quick response and if you can send me some recent picture for viewing purpose.

waiting for your email with the last price you will offer me in euro and if it is still available for sale.

Thank you.

Kirstie Campbell

---

my mom didnt smell anything strange, so she gave her all the details mentioned above.
here is the 2nd response she got:

quote:

---

Hello,

Thank you for the email, i am so happy that the furniture is still available for sale,i am sorry for the late reply, i have told my 22 years old daughter and she is so happy because she love furnitures and she have been looking for this type and make of furniture, she has already prepared a room and a bed where the furniture will stay when the furniture arrive our home in Italy, i am moving from U.K to Italy in 2 weeks when i return from Haiti. so we are waiting to receive the furniture when my shipping agent comes to pick it up and have it delivered after you get the payment check i will be sending to you. please take off the advert from the internet because i am making payment immediately ok.

I am currently not in Europe, i am in Haiti working for a Red cross organization to help people who are affected and wounded by the Haitian earthquake. My work is Risky but is service for humanity. in any case i will be coming back to Europe soon..

i will instruct my Boss In Europe who owe me to Issue you a cash cheque from a big U.K bank for the payment, My boss will add extra money to the payment for the shipping of the furniture and the shipping of other goods i bought for my daughter in Germany.. the shipping will be done by a professional because i don't want anything to happen to the furniture during the shipping ok, the shipper will come to your house address to pick up the furniture..

When you get the cash cheque, deduct your payment, also deduct extra 80 euro after deducting your payment so that you can use this extra 80 euro for express cashing and exchange rate at your bank

The rest money will be use for the shipping ok. i will give you all the details regarding the shipping after you get the money.

i need you to please send me the below information and you will get the payment in 5 days.
kindly email me the following details for the payment:

name.............
adnituredress..........
post code.........
city..............
country............
Phone number......
Email.............
price..............


Note: waiting for your email with your address so that my boss can send the cheque as soon as possible ok.urgent response will highly appreciated.

my regards to your family.

Rita Milla
Via de' Tornabuoni, 19
50100 Florence - Italy

---

i think this is a little weird, isnt it?....kirstie is suddenly called rita? and why is she sharing all this information? and why does a women located in haiti, who is actually from the UK, now moving to italy with a daughter located in germany (maybe her daughter found the sofa because she speaks german?), look for sofas on austrian websites?!?
is this spam? if yes, what or where is the trap? this is confusing, i just don't get the point? me a n00b?
anyone have an idea? much appreciated!

The Space Between Us | My Blog: lukas.grumet.at

(Edited by mas on 02-23-2010 21:26)

Hmmm...it does sound strange. I don't get it either. I don't see where the scam really is. They are not asking for money to be sent to them and they are not asking for any type of account information. Just an address, which I most certainly would not give out.

I would like to know why one person is named Kirstie Campbell and another is Rita Milla. I would email back and ask that actually. If there is some reason for all this weirdness, then I would certainly :

1. Get a PO Box if you have that in Australia (sorry not real familiar with postal services in other countries). That way you don't give out your actual address. Have her send the check there.

2. Get the name of the moving company and arrange it yourself. Just to make sure it's a legit company. I would hate to send someone over to my mom's house that was some weirdo murderer or something.

However, I would may just drop it but I've been called "way too paranoid" may times ;-)

Let us know if anything comes of it.

Later,

C:\

Aint Rita Milla whoopi off the movie Ghost

Scam.

The headers might be amusing, if those are actual emails and not messages handled by the site.

This made me laugh.

On a serious note though, tell your mum to cease any further communications with them - if they pester her, she need only tell them the furniture is unavailable. It would be best to simply block any more emails along these lines. Might be a good idea to report them to the auction site or ISP.

(Edited by White Hawk on 02-24-2010 23:46)

Agreed with reisio and WH, drop contact with them and sell it legit through the auction site if they want it.

--

Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.

Oh my, if she works with the Red Cross in Haiti she must be a humanitarian, a good christian, someone you can fully trust.

My guess would be one of the next emails would be about getting your mom's bank name or bank account number so they can make a direct deposit of the funds. Of course they will give you another $100 Euros or more for your trouble.

But given she is a missionary it will be ok to give the account number. And her address indicates she is very wealthy, only the rich could afford to live there.

Once they have they account number they will then transfer all of mom's hard earned money out.

Scam all the way.

The address she gives belongs to a boutique in a shopping area of Firenze (Florence)

The Erboristeria Inglese  on Via de' Tornabuoni dispenses natural remedies and tisanes, and stocks natural beauty products, perfumes and gifts.

http://www.florence.net.au/Shops_Markets.htm

Erboristeria Inglese
Via de' Tornabuoni 19.
Tel. 055 21 06 28

Nature & Travel Photography
Main Entrance

(Edited by SleepingWolf on 02-28-2010 03:56)

Scam like others have said. Specifically, it sounds like some form of cashier check scam, see e.g. http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/cashier.asp

(Edited by HZR on 02-28-2010 18:23)

Hello, I got this answer from my ad in www.carweb24.net where I actually are selling my used car:

---------------------------------------------------------

Hello seller,

My name is Kirstie Campbell,I saw your car advert above and am interested in buying it for my daughter.Can you please get back to me with the following information.
1) is it still available?
2) Is it in good health condition?
3) How long have you owned it?
4) How much is your last offer price in euro?

please get back to me soon with the last price so we can arrange payment and shipping.

KIrstie Campbell

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I answered shortly and got this new e-mail:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

Thank you for the email, i am so happy that the car is still available for sale,i am sorry for the late reply, i have told my 22 years old daughter and she is so happy because she love car and she have been looking for this type and make of car, she is very eager to receive it in our new home in Spain, i am moving from U.K to Spain in 2 weeks when i return from Haiti. so we are waiting to receive the car when my transportation agent comes to pick it up and have it delivered after you get the payment check i will be sending to you. please take off the advert from the internet because i am making payment immediately ok.

I am currently not in Europe, i am in Haiti working for a Red cross organization to help people who are affected and wounded by the Haitian earthquake. My work is risky but is service for humanity. In any case i will be coming back to Europe soon..

I will instruct my Boss In Europe who owe me to issue you a cash cheque from his bank for the payment, My boss will add extra money to the payment for the transportation of the car and the transportation of other goods i bought for my daughter in Germany and Austria.. the transportation will be done by a professional because i don't want anything to happen to the car during the transportation ok, the shipper will come to your house address to pick it up soon as you confirm getting the money from the check.

When you get the cash cheque, deduct your payment, also deduct extra 80 euro after deducting your payment so that you can use this extra 80 euro for express cashing and exchange rate at your bank.

The rest money will be used for the transportation ok. I will give you all the details regarding the transportation after you get the money.

I need you to please send me the below information and you will get the payment in 5 days.
kindly email me the following details for the payment:

name.............
address..........
post code.........
city..............
country............
Phone number......
Email.............
price..............


Note: waiting for your email with your address so that my boss can send the cheque as soon as possible ok.urgent response will highly appreciated.

my regards to your family.

---------

I suppose it is a scam like others where I got e-mail from strange people.
Paranoia or not - it's better to leave our fingers away if we have any doubt.

Anyway, wish you all good luck
Richard

There comes a point with this sort of thing where my sense of humour gives way to the fruitless urge to hunt down and kill these people, just because.

I satisfy myself by wasting their time as much as possible, encouraging further communication while deliberately (but slyly) insulting them as much as possible.

In fact, it gives me greater pleasure than I could possibly admit when I get 'politely' confused responses to emails calling strongly suggesting that their parents are related, etc, etc. On one occasion I even received a kindly worded response refusing to part-exchange one of their family members - even though I'd promised them a comfortable position in the sex industry, and a daily salary in double figures. Despite my many lewd and offensive suggestions, they will still try to complete the deal, seemingly unaware that I'm taking the absolutely piss out of them.

I haven't had quite so much fun since junk filters got better at their job.

well i m laughing for about 5 min reading all this and the comments
ha ha ha

ERwin

Maybe you can have the directory for extraction stored in a file? And then have the batch file read that file and put the directory into a variable to be passed to the 7z command? Like I said, I'm not a batch file guy but there are some here that are. Hopefully they will chime in and help out with that.

I am actually working on a Python program using 7zip which is funny that you pop in and ask a question about it

(Edited by alice on 09-22-2010 07:00)

Alice, I think you have posted in the wrong thread...hehe.

And over in the other thread you meant to post the above in, you posted your answer to in here!



Classic!

WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles

scams are the worst things eva... it's just like spongebob squarepants... floating out of water like we float out of space.

Personally, i do not think it is a spamming email.
Maybe someone registered this account just for fraud.
It is made by human being rather then the machine.

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