I'd be careful.

Anyone angry enough to kill you by using your own family must somehow be familiar with your wife.

Really? I use regards all the time as a work thing and it now spills over to my personal emails. Seems like a polite but impersonal salutation to me.

Tell h to send the check and then do not let h pick it up. I did this and the guy threatened to kill me and my family. Unjust gave him my address and what time I would be home. There would not be anything for 911 to pick up

Did not find any "God bless, my friend"

So i think you're good to go

Never trust a man with two first names.

I string them along for awhile the give them a mailing address for local law enforcement. Thinking I should switch to:

United States Secret Service,
Financial Crimes Division,
419 Task Force
950 H Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20001-4518

(Leaving out the first 3 lines, of course)

Here's one I got. A "Samsgun Touch" sounds like a cool device. Love the name too. Post your scam e-mails, these things are a riot...

------

You ? continue to poses the product for purchase? Im genuinely interested.

Sincerely,

Catrice Scaglione

Directed with my Samsgun Touch

Every few weeks at work we get an inquiry that are clearly a scam, with all the classic 'gentlemen' and 'yours truly' the best part is they ask about pricing on our product, but don't describe the product correctly, which is pretty much the clincher. They always ask about other products and pricing and that they will pay by 'credit card'. I'll often ask them specific, meaningless questions, that have nothing to do with the product, but give them multiple choice, just to string them along, and to get a good laugh. Ultimately the scam moves towards them wanting to have their shipper pick it up, and they will pay us, and then we will pay his shipper cash when he comes to pick up the stuff. If things are slow, I usually string them along, and eventually will ask them for the address, saying I need it for tax purposes. That address is always some fraud address, often a vacant lot or something, which I then point out to them and at that point I will call them out on the fraud and drop it. The sad thing is, I know the company fell for it the first time this came up, as some salesperson seeing a big commission ignored all the signs of fraud.

That is hilarious.

I actually told him I was elderly and couldn't figure out my phone's email, and had him resend his message a few times. He got pissed and told me that I was "so poor. why don't you sell your car and go buy a new phone."

I eventually told him that the $1000 price tag had some fluctuations. It was now $5000 if he wanted to pay through paypal, but only $50 if he wanted to pay in cash.

That's when he said he was going to "kill me with my family."

FYI - Kenneth Roy - the scammer that "Dtown" was approached from regarding his Fireball is back on the prowl and wanting to purchase my Genie. He does not appear clever enough to have changed his name or email address!! He does now claim to reside in North Carolina.

[email protected] Kenneth Roy.
Trying to scam me on my Bronco pinball I had advertised on Mr Pinball. He sent a check for $1600 more than my asking price.
Here is part of his Email:
Hi,
Thanks for the mail,my shipper is already on standby and waiting for the balance funds to be sent to him,you have to send the balance funds to him through western union transfer before he can come for the pick up. I sent you his western union transfer details in my previous mail,please revert and get back to me.
Thanks and Regards,
Kenneth Roy.
and more:
Okay here is the shipper's western union details where to send the balance funds to immediately so the shipper can make the pick up schedule :
First Name: Michael
Middle Name: Lawrence
Last Name: Pena
City: Albuquerque
State: New Mexico
Zipcode: 87109
Do not for get to deduct the western union transfer charges from the shipper's funds,and email me with the transfer details such as the MTCN (usually 10 digits) and the actual amount sent,I expect to read from you soon.
Thanks and Regards,
Ken.

Kind of disturbing that he's still in action like that: suggests he must have the occasional success...

I expect to read from you soon. That's all you needed.

Was surprised the responses were being taken seriously in the first place...

I am falling for this machine

I want to believe that this is worth the offer

it shows you are a man of your principle

I will count on your words and buy this from you

It's a good thing these scammers are mostly dingbats and don't really know how to imitate a sincere buyer...

They do that on purpose.

The scammer **could** get a native English speaker to write their scrips, but they don't want to waste time fishing somebody along for a few days, and then have the person wise-up at the last minute.

The scam emails are written so that only the dumbest people in the world would reply to them.

Think of it as a pre-approval of sorts.

they're after the kind of person who is greedier than they are smart. a person so eager to take advantage of someone else that they don't realize they're being taken advantage of.

it's one of the oldest cons. make the mark think they are the one pulling one over on you.

It's a good point, but I think it may be more of a lucky coincidence for them that it works out that way. I think you may be giving them too much credit?

No, this sucker pre-approval process has been studied, in detail, many times:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-nigerian-scammers-say-they-are-from-nigeria/

I make a offer to pay more that what the seller was asking on a game, because I thought his asking price was to low, and I was willing to pay a little extra to have him ship. Hindsight he thought it was a scam. and I can't blame him. you can never be 100% sure without sometimes digging deeper.

I guess I don't like to see them as being even that smart or sophisticated, but it makes sense. What's the best thing to do to dissuade their business? String them along? I hate to waste time on these guys, but also hate that they're fooling some people.

It costs $$$ to overnight a check, so keep telling them that the check was damaged or got wet in the mail.

Let them keep sending checks until they give up.

So I'm buying an arcade main board on KLOV. The seller wants to send me the board first and then when I get it, mail him back a USPS money order.

Scam?

It can't be because I'm sending money till after I receive the item but specifically requesting the money order is throwing me.

Thoughts?

Maybe he doesn't have a checking account? If he is sending board first you can test it out and I don't see how he could mess with you if he sends board first and asks for money later.

More or less the same thing has happened to me a couple times. Not a scam--the person just didn't use paypal. So when you get the board, make sure you pay the guy--he's putting a lot of trust in you that you will remember to pay him.