Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You
Click for ZooMed
Click here to visit Classifieds

New Africa Scam???

RussBates Oct 09, 2007 04:55 PM

Got this one yesterday...tell me what you think. It's much better than most of the scam emails I've recieved in the past. In fact, the only part that tipped me off is the " what's the final price" and " I'll take care of shipping". Two key ingredients in previous scams.
________________________________________________________________

Hi.
My name is --------,I take care of reptiles am planning to setup a zoo and i want your snake to be in my zoo in western part of africa. Am interested in your { Mexicana Thayeri } what is your final asking price and what is the current condition? I can assure you your reptile will be happy with our zoo. I'll take care of the shipping.

Greetings.

-----------

________________________________________________________________

Curious to know if others have received the same email.
Thanks,
Russ

Edited on October 9, 2007 at 19:05:28 by PHGinger.

Replies (15)

CrimsonKing Oct 09, 2007 05:55 PM

Though I haven't received this one, I have others that were similar.
If a guy doesn't know or say the country and/or city where he's from, that's a flag to me.
Also grammar and spelling of a supposed Dr. I hold to a higher standard.
:Mark
-----
Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

RussBates Oct 09, 2007 06:39 PM

Mark,
Just to have some fun I sent him another email back telling him "I'll give you the snake for free". That should blow his entire check scam out of the water.
Russ

Aaron Oct 09, 2007 11:26 PM

I tell them it is currently on hold for David Hasselhoff but if they send me some potatoes I think I could get them in the next Baywatch movie.

APLAXAR Oct 09, 2007 07:07 PM

Hey Russ, a little while back i got an inquiry on some sand boas i had for sale from a "bruce Parker" the english was horrible and it seemed like he thought he was buying a car. he asked "any accidents?" it was pretty stupid, plus with a very english name you would think that the spelling and such would be better, i just responded with "your not dealing with a sucker" and never got a responce back

Adam
-----
Positive Thoughts Equal Positive Results

Nokturnel Tom Oct 09, 2007 07:41 PM

I got the same exact email Russ. You'd think they'd of asked about the White Wall Specks as opposed to Hypo Brooksi if they were looking to rip me off LOL!
Did you get the other one with several pics of guys holding Crocs and parrots with a few geckos too?
Tom Stevens
-----
TomsSnakes.com

Bluerosy Oct 09, 2007 07:50 PM

"what is your final asking price and what is the current condition?"

Dead giveaway when they use common scam phrases like this.
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

MikeRusso Oct 09, 2007 09:25 PM

Scammers contact me at least twice a week.. They are so bad I really cannot believe anyone is silly enough to fall for it..

~ Mike

RussBates Oct 10, 2007 04:21 AM

Mike, I'm with you. IT's way to obvious.

ChristopherD Oct 10, 2007 06:54 AM

i got the same reply from a guy whos screen name that ended with auto and his/her message was pasted to all my ads on KS corns,kings etc.asking about the condition i cant believe they forgot to ask the mileage.C

FunkyRes Oct 10, 2007 11:07 AM

Have them make the check out to:

Peter D. Keisler
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

I bet a lot of them would ... not that it would do anything to stop them, but it would be funny. Well, I think so anyway.
-----
x.y L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
x.y L. getula nigrita (MBK)
x.y L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
x.y Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus (W Hognose)
x.y.z Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

waspinator421 Oct 11, 2007 12:48 AM

I got that exact e-mail just the other day. I thought it was silly that the scammer was "inquiring" about such a low priced snake.

I responded:

------------------------

******,

I am sorry, but I cannot ship overseas at this time.

Aubrey R.

------------------------

Then I got a very 'polite' response:

------------------------

Dont i will take care of that...just make sure you pay attention to my instruction.

------------------------

I knew from the beginning that this was a scam, but I thought instead of just ignoring it just for fun I'd respond and be very polite about it. I wrote this back to him, and haven't heard a thing since! LOL!

------------------------

******,

I don't mean to be rude, but this sounds an awful lot
like a scam e-mail. Can you convince me otherwise?

Aubrey R.

------------------------

It is so funny that they make themselves so obvious about these things. I would be amazed if anybody falls for these, especially with all the warnings out there nowadays.
-----
Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

ROC Oct 11, 2007 10:31 AM

I've never heard of these, how do people try and scam y'all?

GabooNx Oct 11, 2007 10:37 AM

>>Got this one yesterday...tell me what you think. It's much better than most of the scam emails I've recieved in the past. In fact, the only part that tipped me off is the " what's the final price" and " I'll take care of shipping". Two key ingredients in previous scams.
>>________________________________________________________________
>>
>>Hi.
>> My name is --------,I take care of reptiles am planning to setup a zoo and i want your snake to be in my zoo in western part of africa. Am interested in your { Mexicana Thayeri } what is your final asking price and what is the current condition? I can assure you your reptile will be happy with our zoo. I'll take care of the shipping.
>>
>>Greetings.
>>
>>-----------
>>
>>________________________________________________________________
>>
>>Curious to know if others have received the same email.
>>Thanks,
>>Russ
>>
>>Edited on October 9, 2007 at 19:05:28 by PHGinger.

One thing that you should be aware of in these "email scams" is that sometimes all they are trying to do is to get a valid email, because to the spammers a valid email is worth money and something they will sell. Because of this you may get even more spam. So when you respond with something it validates your email is a working personal email. My suggestion since you will need to respond to some of these emails is to create an email account via gmail or hotmail that you might use as spam collection. Normally it isn't a person sitting behind a computer sending you these emails but a computer setup to spam 1,000s of accounts at once with the same broken English emails. The point is if it looks like spam then it is, if you must respond to it use another account setup to collect spam as the reply address. Of course you will need to check this "spam account" but it wont clutter up your personal inbox and something you might only need to check once daily.

A link to read about email phishing,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

Hopes this helps..

-----
Jason A.
"Long time Herper, first year Breeder `07."

snakesdjf Oct 11, 2007 10:59 PM

Check out this link about this guy that toys around with the Nigerian scammers its funny.

http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

waspinator421 Oct 11, 2007 11:52 PM

This is GREAT!! Thank for sharing the link.
-----
Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Site Tools