Now thats a friggin eye opeaner

When we were the owners of The SalsaKing Fine Southwestern Foods, we received these types of scams all the time. They get your site address from various publications, ie. Fiery Foods, Chile, NASFT etc. Also just from doing web searches it seems. We had a standard reply, send certified funds only, when those clear bank after 14 days we ship product. Did get one customer from Iberia once. But scammers are not isolated to the African continent, they came at us from Australia, South America, PI, Togo, most of Eastern Europe, and New York. Sorry, we got some weird requests from NYC. Our biggest problem came from some guy in Indonesia that began what he called a business, he would optain credit card numbers then use our website to test them to see if they were live. Sometimes doing 4 to 5 hundred charges a day for one item and going to a fictitious name and address. Very frustrating for us.
Roy Marshall former SalsaKing

When I sell stuff online, I only deal with customers in the USA. Dealing with international shipping is too much of a hassle. Not to mention my total lack of familiarity with international trade law or the local law of Whoknowswhereistan. My mother regularly buys tea from China and Taiwan and Japan, but these are businesses that are specifically set up for international transactions. Mom & Pop stores should be very wary, and seek professional assistance if they want to branch out, outside the USA.

I am always weary of an email starting with “Dear Sir” … that seems to be one of the trademarks of an email scam.
Thanks for the warning !

One of the advantages to being small I guess I do quite a bit of international & the only problem I have is not recovering shipping costs.

I actually replied to one of these scams one time just to see what the ‘hook’ was ’cause for the life of me I couldn’t see the downside. With both eyes open, I corresponded back & forth a bit & they kept changing what they wanted (add a laptop & some other non-chile big ticket items). That’s when I found out about the stolen credit card numbers & I would have been on the hook for the product when the CC companies would have come back on me. Nothing worse than a thief. He knew the game was up when I requested a $4-1-9 fee from him up front. 419 refers to the section of the Nigerian penal code that supposedly makes it illegal for them to do this stuff.

THT was lucky enough to get a warning phone call soon after The Fiery Foods show from another manufacturer who was “this close” to making a HUGE mistake with these guys. Luckily he knew enough from past transactions made with companies in South Africa to set off the red flag. After some investigation of his own he found nothing but fake cell phone numbers and bank accounts. Thanks for the head up!

kristi on 6/12/2007 at 9:29 pm said:

THT was lucky enough to get a warning phone call soon after The Fiery Foods show from another manufacturer who was “this close” to making a HUGE mistake with these guys. Luckily he knew enough from past transactions made with companies in South Africa to set off the red flag. After some investigation of his own he found nothing but fake cell phone numbers and bank accounts. Thanks for the head up!

kristi not sure how many come from South Africa. Only ones we see are from Africa.We get about 10 a week at JJ’s. Are PC gurus at work have fun with them sometime with help of others they track them down and send nasty stuff back to them. And mess up there PC real bad. I think are guys get off on that kind of stuff.

Bret, what a cool idea!! I think that sending them a virus as an attachment and say it is a product list of some such would be fun. If it ever comes to me again in our new biz will do just that!
Roy

Bret on 6/12/2007 at 9:46 pm said:

kristi not sure how many come from South Africa. Only ones we see are from Africa.We get about 10 a week at JJ’s. Are PC gurus at work have fun with them sometime with help of others they track them down and send nasty stuff back to them. And mess up there PC real bad. I think are guys get off on that kind of stuff.

STOP YELLING AT ME BRET!!!!!!!! LOL

You are correct, it was Africa and BTW I love that little devilish side of you that knows when good ole retaliation is in order for a situation!

kristi on 6/13/2007 at 6:58 am said:

STOP YELLING AT ME BRET!!!!!!!! LOL

You are correct, it was Africa and BTW I love that little devilish side of you that knows when good ole retaliation is in order for a situation!

WHO LOVES YOU BABY. Can’t wait tell AUG. Hell my Sister can’t wait to meet you all. She should fit in with you 3 ladys I mean 4 sorry Laura.

these people should have their throats slit.

Bret on 6/12/2007 at 9:46 pm said:

kristi not sure how many come from South Africa. Only ones we see are from Africa.We get about 10 a week at JJ’s. Are PC gurus at work have fun with them sometime with help of others they track them down and send nasty stuff back to them. And mess up there PC real bad. I think are guys get off on that kind of stuff.

If they are having fun with these scammers, perhaps they should consider checking out http://forum.419eater.com .

I usually mess around with Nigerian eBay scammers … always with good results. Two weeks ago, I forced my last scammer to shell out nearly $8600 to cover C.O.D. Shipping Fees and Ghana Import Excise. He won one of my honeypot eBay auctions for 10 Sony VAIO UX computers and paid me with a faked PayPal receipt. I in turn shipped a metal box full of gravel and flagstones with a declared value of $41900. He emailed me three days ago and was cursing and threatening to send hitmen after me! *lol*

Alcathiax on 6/17/2007 at 3:14 am said:

If they are having fun with these scammers, perhaps they should consider checking out http://forum.419eater.com .

I usually mess around with Nigerian eBay scammers … always with good results. Two weeks ago, I forced my last scammer to shell out nearly $8600 to cover C.O.D. Shipping Fees and Ghana Import Excise. He won one of my honeypot eBay auctions for 10 Sony VAIO UX computers and paid me with a faked PayPal receipt. I in turn shipped a metal box full of gravel and flagstones with a declared value of $41900. He emailed me three days ago and was cursing and threatening to send hitmen after me! *lol*

Love it

Alcathiax on 6/17/2007 at 3:14 am said:

If they are having fun with these scammers, perhaps they should consider checking out http://forum.419eater.com .

I usually mess around with Nigerian eBay scammers … always with good results. Two weeks ago, I forced my last scammer to shell out nearly $8600 to cover C.O.D. Shipping Fees and Ghana Import Excise. He won one of my honeypot eBay auctions for 10 Sony VAIO UX computers and paid me with a faked PayPal receipt. I in turn shipped a metal box full of gravel and flagstones with a declared value of $41900. He emailed me three days ago and was cursing and threatening to send hitmen after me! *lol*

Now thats freakin awesome!!!!

Penobscot McCrum has also been approached by Peter Chekwas, Ultimate Tradinig Co. Ltd. for 20,000 cases of potatoes. Thank you for the head’s up.

Johanne Grout
Penobscot McCrum. LLC