How do Nigerians commit fraud?

[baazee-superstore]

Hi everybody I have one doubt and I would like to ask you guys if you can help me, See almost every day I receive these Orders where the Buyer wants the shipping in Nigeria or say Africa and all of them promise to pay by BID PAY OF WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER now I have heard a lot about these Orders being Fraud by eBay has never told us how and exactly what will be the fraud like, Like say for e.g. if some seller is going to ship any order on eBay he only does after receiving the full payment from the Buyer so even in this case he seller is only going to ship the Item after the full credit of he WESTERN UNION CHEQUE gets credited in his account so here I am little confused that if the seller gets the full payment then how can he be defrauded.

I want EBay and my fellow sellers who have been the victim of this fraud please explain me and the other sellers about their experience with these orders so that the picture becomes 100% clear on the minds of eBay sellers

Regards
Madhu Uppal

[ajitkumarspatil_in1]

Hi, baazee-superstore
I understand your problem, to make it very easy for you to understand the whole issue, I have just pasted couple of mail sent to me from those fraud people.

1st mail releated to the eBay.in transcation.

Hello.,
I'm the Winner of the Item. I will like to send the item to my friend in NIgeria as a Birthday Gift, so tell me how much it will cost to ship the item to my friend. At the moment i'm not in the country. I will be responisble for any additonal cost.

There are shipping informations.
City:Benin City
State:Edo State
Country:Ngieria

Have a nice day



My reply to this mail
As requested by you, shipment to Nigeria will cost you 1,200/-, and the package will be sent through DTDC courier service.
So the total price will be 7,999.00 + 1,200.00 = 9,199/-
Please pay the above amount through online transaction/pay paisa etc and the remaining through Online fund transfer or as per your convenience.
Product will be sent immediately after payment realization.

2nd mail.

Hello Seller.,
Thanks for the mail. I will refer you use Fedex as the Courier, and when replying me with our much it will cost provide these infomations.
Name.................................
Address...............................
City................................
State...............................
Pincode........................

For payment with Western Union. And I will advice when telling them (FEDEX), tell them you are sending the item as a gift to your friend, that way they will not ask for much document.
Thanks and have a nice weekend.


My reply

Hi, Buyer
It will cost you 2,175/- instead of 1,200/- to ship the product through FedEx, following are the information you asked for.

<<<<My address>>>>

please revert back for any clarification.

Regards,

3rd Mail

Thans.
payment will be make and you will be nofity as soon as it is made.
Have a nice day.

My reply
Alright, thanks and kind regards,

After about a day or two I got two mails from "Western Union Bidpay" with the e-mail address as "bidpay@western-unionbidpayonline.com"(one with pending approval and second Order approved)

Following are the mails I received.

1st one

Dear Seller,

Western Union® Auction Payments has received your email address from << to inform you of the order to have Rs. 10,136.00(233.011 USD) Western Union Money Order sent to you for:

Auction Site:Ebay
Auction item:<<
Auction item:#6419400605

Please verify that the following address (as entered by the buyer) is
correct.

<<

This order is PENDING approval. Most orders are approved within hours of being placed; however, there may be exceptions. Some items may be considered high risk because of the item cost or description. These types of orders are subject to additional verification and may take longer to approve. You will receive an Order Approved email from us when this order is APPROVED. You SHOULD NOT send this item to the buyer until you receive the confirmation email informing you that the order has been approved before you can ship. If your address information is correct and you do not wish to register, this will in no way affect the delivery of your payment once the order is approved. It may take up to 2-3 weeks for this status to reflect in newly registered seller' account but will not in any way affect the delivery of your money order if APPROVED.

Thank you for using Western Union® Auction Payments. We look forward serving your online auction payment needs in the future.

Sincerely,

Western Union® Auction Payments

BidPay

After about an hour I get another mail as follows.

Dear Seller,

A Rs. 10,136.00 (233.011 USD) Money Order has been approved. << has chosen to use Western Union® Auction Payments for the speed of an online payment service from a name you can trust.


Go ahead to send the item to the buyer while your money order is on its way to you, the buyer's shipping information is provided below. Your money order will be sent by the close of the next business day after you receive this email. First Class mail is typically delivered within 5-8 business days.
Once the item has been shipped the tracking number should be mailed to us. DO NOT email the tracking number to the buyer until we verify that the item is on transit and you have your money on the way because we have to protect both you and the buyer against Fraud.NOTE THAT, THE MONEY ORDER ATTACHED IN THIS MAIL IS THE PRINTED COPY OF YOUR PAYMENT, AND IT WILL NOT DISPATCH OUR OFFICE UNTIL WE VERIFTY TRACKING NUMBER FROM YOU. YOU MUST NOTIFY THE BUYER AS SOON AS YOU DISPATCH.
Shipping information for the delivery of the item are as follow:-

James Osas
206 Upper Mission road,
New Benin,
Benin city.
Edo State.
Nigeria.




Sincerely,
Western Union® Auction Payments

Please the below link to see some examples of the money order.

http://k.domaindlx.com/mybaazee/MoneyOrder.jpg

Now after all these, any new seller on eBay.in will definetely be fooled easily, so be cafeful.

DO NOT SHIP THE ITEM UNTIL AND UNLESS YOU GET YOUR PAYMENT

[near_the_pits]

Never accept an email as confirmation of payment as so many are faked as the previous poster has shown.

Western Union give information about receiving emails that are supposed to be from them on their site: http://www.westernunion.com/info/faqSecurity.asp

[bal_tan]

Same case happened with me, but I realised fraud and did not send the item.But Why Ebay site is not taking action against those similar type of frauds from years?

[sapana@ebay.com]

Hi,

If you as a seller are facing this issue, I will strongly advice you to start the SMS based verification filter for listings. Such Buyers normally target high value products, so you can have the fileter selectively for high value products only.

More infromation on the above is as follows:

Ebay has a very powerful tool that enables you to decide the kind of buyers who can bid/purchase your products. This tool is called the “Buyer Requirement Tool”, which enables you to select the criteria of buyers.

Currently you can block buyers who do NOT meet all or any of the below criteria:

•Buyers in countries to which you don’t ship
•Buyers with a negative feedback score
•Buyers with Unpaid Item strikes

You can also ask your bidder to verify himself before he bids/purchases your product.

To set your buyer Requirements, follow the instructions below:

a)Log into “ My Ebay Page”
b)Under “ My Account”, click on Preferences
c)Under Buyer Requirements, click on “ Edit” & select your criteria’s

I would strongly urge you to go through these tools in details which may help you reduce number of unsuccessful transactions.

To know more about this, click on the link below
http://pages.ebay.in/help/sell/buyer-requirements.html

Regards,
Sapana

[indranishop]

I got the e-mail like that:
Hello Seller Am Mrs Mary Stefan from UK, I went through your advert at eBay, I found it and i have checked all the spefication of the laptop and i ill like to buy this laptop for my son of mine who has just transfer to live and work for his christmas holidays in Nigeria. I will offer you 1500 USD for the laptop and shipping via UPS OR DHL to my son address in Nigeria. I will make the payment via Bank Transfer, So i want you to send me your Full Name and your Bank Information so as for me to make the payment as fast as possible Add me to msn : marystefan777@hotmail.com waiting for yuor mail. thanks and regards Mary Stefan

Next Message once I have agree to sell.

Hello
Thanks for your message about the laptop, i am very happy about your message, but one thing is still happening, i cannot bid now wait till the end of the bid due to the urgent needed if the laptop, so if you are reayd to sell the laptop, I will make the total money for the shipment to 1700 USD, so if it is ok for you, I will like you to send me your full name and your full bank information so as for me to make the payment.
Plse send me a mail with your private email address.

Waiitng for your mail

Mary

Can any u suggest me what to do in that case.

Indra