going...going...

Got the check for my Z today. Now I have to cash it. I'm seriously going to miss this car.

Build a better mousetrap...

Well, I finally decided to drop this thing. Well, I tracked down his location(don't do your scamming from a fixed IP kids). Hes in lagos. I asked him if he knew how the weather was. Needless to say, I got a little profanity in swahili or something like that. I'm not going to post it here, since it doesn't really make any sense. Either way, the car is pretty much sold. I'm happy.

Ever see a baby pigeon?

Well, I figured I'd mess with him some more. I think that this is kind of funny now. I think he actually thinks this is going to work somehow.

hi,
i will like u to know i will be sending u the amount for the car which i havent known the price of it yet.......................also the wire transfer will be on wesfergo account.........also as i have told u i will be sending the money too for the pick up agent ok.
Ok. I will need to know what bank it is coming from, the amount you are
transferring.

WTF is a WESFERGO? Apparently you can only transfer from one wellsfargo account to another. I'm still wondering about this pickup agent thing. I'm not sure hes even sure.

Cover all your bases

I got another one. Looks like he realized that wireing me money isn't going to work:

hello,
am realy sorry to tell u that my charity supervisor said he could not issue out the large amount of money on a cheque that he will prefer it if u could make it a wire transfer that he will do asap.

Dang, I was hoping to have a scan of a check or something.

Why we fight

I am starting to wonder if he actually thinks this is going to work. I'm also starting to wonder what country this guy is really from, since his english is TERRIBLE:

the car will be shipped to uk and pick up so u will have to pay them the funds given to u ok

So I reply, again. I bet you're all wondering why I'm still messing with this guy, well, I figure if hes doing this to me, its better than him actually doing it to someone else and actually wind up stealing some poor kid's car. So as usual, I reply:

Wonderful. I look forward to the cheque getting here. Can you tell me from where the check is being drawn?

Lets see what he does now....

Two for one

I got two mails in succession from him this time:

hi,
the payment will be sent to you asap ok.also the payment fpr the pickup will also be send with the funds of the car ok.
tahnks,


followed by:

my supervisor said i should take ur phone number ............also the information of the pick up will be sent to u asap u get the payment ok
Wonderful. Thank you.

Not a chance in hell hes getting my phone number. I made up some story about the wind knocking down the phonelines here. I think he bought it....

they call me captain obvious

So he responds, and he seems pretty excited:

hi,

i tought i told you i was going to buy the car..................but u said u dont want wire transfer and we agreed to make it a chiers cheque which i told u that my charity supervisor will be sending u the payment as soon as the donation is made to him ...which he will also send the payment for the pick up with the cars own......all i need for u know is your address and phone number so it will be sent to u asap ok........also with your name in ful so it will be issued on your name ok.have a nice day kruuth.

best,

So I send him the name and address and whatnot. Not that it matters, I live in a gated community and the closest thing he can get to me is my postbox. Oh no, not that.

a fool and his money

He still hasn't caught on. My mates in Kent have assured me that buying it, and shipping it to the British Isles is more expensive that buying the Z in England, not to mention it doesn't have the steering wheel on the proper side. Well, he responded, here it is:

how are you?ok,buti will let u know wheniwillbesendinguthepayment........also i will like to know how much i will be sending to you ok.kruuth i will also send you the payment for the pickup agent,which u will help me pay to them.i will be waiting your reply.have a nice day.
best,

I'm starting to wonder how much longer I can keep this up. Mates in Kent assure me that as soon as this guy makes himself known they're going to spring on him...whatever that means.

So after a few days, I start to get nervous and spring this on him:

Are you there? I need to sell soon. I hope that a cheque is OK. If not, we can do wire.

And another one

hello,
how are u doing?as we have said earlier on u said u will like me to pay u through wire transfer ....................and am waiting on u to give me the necessary information to wire it to......like ur account name,bank address,name on the account also the ur phone number and the banks phone number too also ur acount number too............iu can send me all that i will issue ur funds to u soon a ok ........which u will also help me with the payment of the pick up agent and i will also be sending that to u ok.have a nice day .
regards,

Odd, I never mentioned a wire transfer anywhere. Fat chance I'm going to either. Worst thing is that hes QUOTING himself in these and never mentioned it either. Time for another email. I write back:

My Credit Union here in USA is United Federal. You an look up online. Is there any way that you can send a cashier check for funds instead? It would be easier for both since we have no tax.

BTW, thats not where I do banking. I just figured that it sounded important enough to be believable.

Build a better mousetrap....

I figured I had heard the last of him in my last mailing, since I didn't reply to him. Well, look what I had in my mailbox this morning:

hello,
AM VERY SORRY FOR NOT ANSWEING U EARLY I WAS BUSY MAKINGRESERVATION WITH MY PICK UP AGENT.....AS IN THE THE RITE WHEELS I WILLCHANGE IT TO THE PROPER ONE AS SOON AS IT GETS HERE,kruuth I LOVE TO GET UR NISSAN COSI LIKE THE MODEL AS I HAVE TOLD U EARLYER.ALL I NEED NOW IS THE INFORMATIONS TOWIRE UR MONEY TO U COS WE HAVE A VERY BIG CHARITY ORGANISATION WITH WILL LOVE TO TAKE UR HELP.HAVE A NICE DAY .
REGARDS,

Ok, now I'm going to screw with him. Fortunately, some of my dear mom's family live in Kent, England. I rang them up, as I normally do every few weeks and drop this on them. We all had a good laugh and pretty much all agreed it was a scam and decided that the best course of action was to screw with him some more. That being said, I send this email to him....

How are you going to be paying? I need some form of pay soon because there are buyers here in USA but because you contacted me first I will sell to you.

The story continues...

Well, if you read my past post, you know someone is trying to rip me off, well, here we go. After a few days, the guy responds:

hello,
i realy want to get the car for myself cos i have already sold the one am using .........i dont think u will ever answer me in that way cos i dont understabd u by saying do i think u are stupid,kruuth i will love it if u could sell the nissan to me cos i love the model of it and also will like u to tell me thye condition the car is in ok


I'm wondering to myself how this guy got a driver's license with these amazing english skills.

Internet Fraud Comes home

Well, I got a neat mail the other day... heres what it says:

hello,
how are u doing?i saw ur advert on classifieds .com and i am realy intrested in buying ur
2004 Nissan 350z ,i am julian brown from uk and i will like to know if u will be willing to sell it to me............... cos i will be paying for the shippment and it will be coming down to uk which i will give u the address to send it to when u have accepted with my requirements and also u can mail me on how u will be wanting ur payment to be sent down to u .................so if u are willing to sell the 2004 Nisan 350z to me pls try and mail me back as soon as possilble cos i will soon be going on a charity tour .......i will be so glad to hear from u ok .
regards
<----------->

Ok. A quick internet check says this is a fraud. It screams fraud. So, what do I do? I send him a reply...

how stupid do you think I am?

Laptop here finally.

Got the laptop. The GT MBA program insists that every student have a laptop. This is the first laptop that I have had in over 14 years. The last one I had was a giant Tandy 1400LT with CGA and a 10 meg hard drive, mouse port, and a 2400 baud modem. It ran a 7.16 mhz.

This unit has a wide screen lcd, 60gb of hard disc space, a dvd recorder, wireless wthernet, yadda, yadda random crap. I got this unit because it has extra long battery life. Thats it. It runs at an amazing 1.8 ghz.

The first one was a 286 monster that weighed nearly 20 pounds. This one is featherweight compared to that. The thing runs about 250 times faster than the old one. Heres some pics:

This is my shiny new Dell.

This is a pic of the old Tandy I had back in 1991.

I kind of was expecting more, but its ok. I already threw a bunch of software on this thing. Nothing fancy, office, photoshop, etc. I love academic discounts. I wound up going with a dell because it was cheap. I can't get unix going on it properly yet, the wireless is screwy. However, I got a good deal. The laptop was like $1100-$1200 but then I got a whole bunch of discounts and crap. Not a bad unit.

I'm not gone yet

I'm still working in my department despite my tendering my resignation five months in advance. People keep walking up to me and asking me why I was still there. Apparently someone sent a memo out telling everyone that I was leaving immediately. At this point I'm making up things when I get asked so far I'm:

Going to Rabbinical school.
Joining the peace corps.
Going into witness protection.
Going back to Israel(I'm not Israeli).
Going on tour with Foghat.
Joining the Broadway cast of Rent.

The really sad thing is that most people seem to actually buy into this crap.