We’ve discussed this before, but it’s probably a good idea to bring it up from time-to-time. Mary at Fake Warriors sent us an email exchange someone sent to her over the purchase of a motorcycle and a car that was listed on Craigslist in which the seller purported to be a servicemember fixing to deploy to Afghanistan, but obviously there was no car or bike. Stars & Stripes did an article about the practice the other day;
[Cpl. S.A. Hatten of the West Virginia State Police] recently received a complaint from a Charleston teenager who purchased a Nissan Altima for $1,700 on Craiglist. He sent the money but never received the car.
Some scammers claim to be military personnel who are being deployed overseas in the near future and need to sell off some of their belongings.
Hatten said many of these scams involve cars, but she recently received a complaint from a pair of Charleston residents who wired $540 to someone claiming to be a soldier who said he was about to be deployed and needed to give away his two English bulldog puppies.
After receiving the money, the scammer wrote back to ask for another $300 to purchase a special crate to ship the dogs.
The animals never showed up, and the money vanished without a trace.
My mother was almost scammed by someone called her claiming to be my son who said he was being held in an Ecuadoran jail and needed money for bail. At the time, my Air Force son was in Beijing on a tour, so we put an end to that. But the police wouldn’t do anything about it because my mother hadn’t sent them any money.
I guess my point is that this stuff is more common than you might think. A couple times a week, I check AKO for folks who think they’re being scammed by impersonators, at that usually turns out to be true. So, be careful out there.
Comments
8 responses to “Online scammers use military titles”
I’m not that computer savvy, but is there a way to search the internet to see if any of your pictures are being used? I know I have a couple on my facebook page and I would hate to find out that they are being used for nefarious purposes.
Twist @ 1
Here is a reference to start with: http://www.flickr.com/groups/friendsofphoebeandzeus/discuss/72157626957878339/
I work for a company that provides classified ads for newspapers. I wear several hats, but one of them is battling the constant scam ads we get.
For classified ads, you should never wire money to someone in another state, purchase from someone locally and meet them in person in a public place.
Never buy an animal that has to be shipped to you. Always visit the breeder and check out the living conditions for the animals. A breeder who doesn’t allow this is probably trying to sell sick animals. Yorkies and English Bulldogs are the most common breeds for scam ads.
You probably don’t want to buy a used car you’ve never seen or driven. Don’t buy one that has to be shipped and that’s not local.
A lot of scammers place many ads on lots of sites. Google the title of the ad you’re interested in to see how many ads are out there. We have 200+ newspapers and I get scammers that will place the same ad 30 times at 30 different papers.
If the seller has a phone number, verify that it matches the location of the item for sale. You can check using http://www.whitepages.com/reverse_phone.
Lastly, make sure your BullShit Detector is on high. Some ads just have a bad vibe, they’re poorly written, have obvious cut and paste mistakes, and weird punctuation.
Yeah, watch out for them Navy SEAL SGTS and Majors trying to sell you puppies .
We were looking online at Craigslist for a used car for our teenage daughter earlier this year. We came up against this exact situation–“I’m deploying and need to sell the car. Send money and it will be delivered by my agent.” Luckily my husband and I called b.s. as soon as we saw it. Knowing enough about the military we were able to call them out and remind these morons that impersonating military for profit is illegal. It got downright fun to screw with thm after a while. We ended up getting a car from a local dealer that my husband got his first car back in 1991.
Scams on Craigslist? Unpossible!
@ 4 Devtun, are you sure there are no Sgts. in the Navy? My daughter met one a few years ago. She was introduced to a guy at party who claimed to have served in the Navy. She mentioned her dad was in the Marines that her dad was a Sgt. She said he claimed to have been a Sgt. too! She said she walked away laughing and a few minutes later the guy left.
Yat Yas @7 : I guess technically there are if your talking Dept of the Navy. Man, your daughter doesn’t suffer fools…