Guntrader sales con

[colin jalland]

Morning People
I recently put one of my rifles up for sale on Guntrader and as per usual got an offer from some gentleman calling himself Jarvis Atkinson and at first in all seamed ok usual back and forth . After 3 or 4 messages he said he wanted to pay by cheque which is a little strange but not unheard of as by he emails the language he used made me think he is quite old he also
mentioned he would have the rifle collected by a dealer !!!!!!.So 10 days go by and low a behold the cheque drops through my door but instead of the agreed amount it's 4 times as much and from a bank in Paris !!! So alarm bells start to ring so guess what he is saying now ? My accountant made a mistake and sent the wrong amount so deposit it and when it clears can you send the remaining balance to another person as this was for a purchase of a wheelchair for my farther !! I emailed him and said the rifle has to go through the UK system for export he came back with my dealer will handle all of that !!!
Well the rifle is still in my cabinet and staying there .

 

[pjkaz]

Did You Bank the cheque

 

[simgre]

It’s a variation of the Cheque Overpayment Fraud. Do not pay it into your bank. Contact Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.

 

[Klenchblaize]

So, the purchaser now has your home address or did you have the cheque sent somewhere else?

K

 

[colin jalland]

So, the purchaser now has your home address or did you have the cheque sent somewhere else?

K

Yep this is the problem

 

[B&W FOX]

I put a rifle and shotgun on last month, and before the ink was dry on both adverts I had enquiries for them.

When I asked the prospective buyers to WhatsApp me a photo of their tickets showing the authorization.

It suddenly went very quiet.

A sale is not going to happen unless I've seen a ticket and an address before hand.

 

[Klenchblaize]

Off Topic so apologies to the Op.

My three most hated words in the English dictionary:

"Image Coming Soon"

!
K

 

[downwind]

It’s a variation of the Cheque Overpayment Fraud. Do not pay it into your bank. Contact Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.

Useful number for future reference (hopefully not needed)
Thanks @simgre

 

[Len the dog]

Yep this is the problem

I wouldn’t worry about that, they were never interested in your firearms anyway, it doesn’t matter whether the enquiry was about a rifle, a car or anything else, they just want the money out of your account.

 

[bbrc]

I had a very similar experience advertising on Gun trader however, the purchaser wanted to send a cheque and when the cheque cleared, send a courier to collect the Gun
I pointed out that they would have to be an Rfd to do that and it would have to be Parcelforce so they emailed me with a copy of an Rfd. Fortunately,, I knew the person whose Rfd it was, I rang them to discuss and it turned out It wasn’t them who had emailed me. Someone had obtained a copy of the Rfd by nefarious means.
This was all reported to West Yorkshire police who put me in touch with serious crimes and cyber crimes. I forwarded the emails to them to investigate.
Whilst awaiting response from the police, I received two more emails with the exact same wording and requests from different email addresses both, at my request, sent copies of RFd’s which again had been obtained by the various means.
Finally, the police contacted me with their conclusions, which was it was a monetary scam and their emails could be linked to email addresses in Nigeria and there was no further action they could take

 

[Pedro]

And thereby is the problem. The great majority of scammers reside in Africa (Nigeria mostly), India and other territories where they can't be reached by law enforcement. So as much a you report them to the police, Action Fraud or whoever, the only thing that's ever going to happen to the scammers is a big fat nothing.

So whilst we try to educate ourselves to be in a position to not fall for these scams, if a scam is discovered, it costs the scammers absolutely nothing and they simply move on to the next victim.

 

[wildrover77]

Useful number for future reference (hopefully not needed)
Thanks @simgre

Action Fraud is completely useless; don't waste your time ringing them for any purpose. They all exist as a 'marketing' exercise to reassure the public that they are actually doing something about fraud

 

[Donkey Basher]

Action Fraud is completely useless; don't waste your time ringing them for any purpose. They all exist as a 'marketing' exercise to reassure the public that they are actually doing something about fraud

Can’t disagree with that. Was involved in trying to get back a significant five figure sum of money that had fraudulently been removed from a club account a few years back. All reported to Action Fraud but there certainly wasn’t any action on their part! Money was recovered by ‘other means’ after some pretty basic sleuthing.

 

[Deerkeeper2]

Action Fraud is completely useless; don't waste your time ringing them for any purpose. They all exist as a 'marketing' exercise to reassure the public that they are actually doing something about fraud

Agreed, I was involved in a scam a few years ago and the Police, Bank and ‘Action Fraud’ were a waste of time. If anything they actually sided with the scammer.

 

[long_range_rob]

Money laundering pure and simple. Report it asap