Internet fraud

StevieC · July 5, 2010

A friend of my mum's has been done over by an internet scam but I want to see if I can report the scam to any relevant parties and if possible highlight what's been done and prevent it happening to anyone else.

He's an old guy so not exactly a techno wiz but he wanted to buy a Yamaha organ and looked up the model on the net, and sure enough found many bulletin boards and ads offering the product. He made an enquiry and got an email back (from this f*cking hotmail address: productsockstation@hotmail.com which is all over the internet in various languages and seems to be registered in the US judging by reverse lookup).

The 'vendor' confirmed the organ was in stock and posed as a 'Jerimiah Cole' with a company registered as Britten's Musical Instruments Ltd. Later on in the dialogue a companies house certificate was produced for this 'company' but its bogus although a company of that name does actually exist.

The vendor (now writing in pidgeon English as 'Timba') subsequently asked for monies to be transferred by Western Union (it gets worse...) before the product could be shipped.

Then, the fraudulent little c*nt wrote to say 'CEO company policy says a minimum of 3 items must be shipped' and amazingly enough 2 more organs were subsequently paid for. Warming to the theme, a massive customs and excise quote (from a 'legit' source) was then produced which had to paid prior to shipment.

Finally smelling a rat, the old guy refused to pay more and was then offered various free gifts for the extra hassle but he had to pay ASAP to ensure the organs arrived and no refund was possible as they were waiting to be shipped....

Now, as idiotic as he's been (and now realizes) this type of thing really p*sses me off. There's no recourse to getting any money back from Western Union or even tracking the account down, and the police are unlikely to care even if a report has to be made to them for any other action to be taken.

So, is there any other body or action that can be taken to at least prevent someone else from getting swindled by c*nts like this? Is there any other investigation or reporting procedure? I sent the dodgy certificate to companies house to check if the name of the purported company had been used in this manner before (there is something very dodgy about the actual company that is named as well- almost as if it is a front of some sort) but I'm sure there's more that can be done.

At the end of the day, he's been a mug but I'd love to at least make this f*cker's life a little more difficult.

Hassony · July 5, 2010

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