I googled on "Royal Mail" -- not on 'royalmail' -- and a got completely different site. There was also an opportunity to report fraud to the police in the UK, and I sent a copy of the reply to them. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
This is one big scam, I have looked at other cities on Craigslist an find the same add for the same equipment word for word. Below is a e-mail sent from the man selling the equipment. I ask him to send it to someone state side and he said that the Royal Mail is the only safe way.
Obviously we need a safe way to complete this deal that will allow us to make sure we receive what we are after.I have found a way for us to complete the deal fast (3 days) and easy. The solution is Royalmail. Royalmail is the UK's national mail carrier ( such as USPS in the United States) and they will provide assistance in handling the payment and delivery of the items .With this process you will be able to check the items before I receive the payment.Let me know if you agree with this!
Here is a link where the process is described: http://www.royalpost-international.com/transactions/
Randy Nicholas
Aintree Complex, Longmoor Lane,
Liverpool, Merseyside L9 7LN
United Kingdom
Ph: 07031890636
GCasey wrote:
The URL given looks authentic, for example. Googling on "Royal Mail" might be interesting.
George
Ask yourself, if an organization that's nearly 500 years old and has a turnover of over $20 billion would have such an amateurish looking web site...
Oh,. wait a minute, the Royal Mail actually does have a really amateurish looking web site. I can see how people get fooled.
Seriously, do a quick search on Whois and you'll see your bogus website is owned by a guy in San Jose. It even has his phone number, so you can ring him up and give him hell
I got a similar email but this one came from Karol Whitlow from [email protected]
This was in regards to a Macbook for $600 ridiculously priced....i know it was too good to be true.
Be low you can read her first email:
Hi there,
I still have the MacBook. But the thing is that i'm in the U.K. for my school ( i have the machine with me), if you're still interested in the sale please let me know and maybe we can work something out . So drop me a line if you're up for grabbs!
Thank you!
Karol Whitlow
22-23
Pownall Square
Liverpool
Merseyside L3 6AD
United Kingdom
Ph: 44 20 3014 7453
Then Second Email:
I`ll be back to US in 4 months from now but i m in a hurry with the sale due the personal reasons.
Obviously we need a safe way to complete this deal that will allow us to make sure we receive what we are after.I have found a way for us to complete the deal fast (3 days) and easy. The solution is Royalmail. Royalmail is the UK's national mail carrier and they will provide assistance in handling the payment and delivery of the items .With this process you will be able to check the items before I receive the payment.Let me know if you agree with this!
Here is a link where the process is described:www.royalpost-international.com/transactions
I bet that last email rings a bell....anyways also wanted to point out that there is also a Karol Whitlow out there...buyers beware....
By the way this item was found on Craigslist in Chicago!
As you can see from an earlier post I notified the police in the UK. At least, I hope so. I googled on "Royal Mail" to get on their web site, then poked around a bit before I found a way to report a scam to the police. I don't recall the exact steps. If enough of us complain to the police, surely some action can be taken there.
The ad I found was in Columbus, Ohio. I tried to find some way to send a note to Craigslist. The one option was to "flag" it.
OK my Father works for Royal Mail here in England. Royal mail is our national postal delivery service. Royal Mail DO offer International Tracked delivery to almost anywhere in the World. It may not be a scam!
Amesy wrote:
OK my Father works for Royal Mail here in England. Royal mail is our national postal delivery service. Royal Mail DO offer International Tracked delivery to almost anywhere in the World. It may not be a scam!
Thanks for the clarification. The initial response showed royalmail as part of the e-mail address. I googled "Royal Mail" and found Royal Mail's official website. It is quite different!
Amesay, the explanatory note said that Royal Mail would ask that I could ask for a refund if the merchandise was not as described. The funds would come from the seller's trust fund. Is this service provided by Royal Mail?
I just googled "Police liverpool United Kingdom," got on the web site of the Merseyside police, and found a way to send a message to them. I explained the circumstances and sent an e-mail to them, including the quote from Randy Nicholas and this site which shows responses of several people besides myself. Their site is: http://www.merseyside.police.uk/
If enough of us notify the police in Merseyside, surely there will be some way for them to investigate and shut down the operation. coyotl1234 reported the ad was in the Chicago Craigslist. I saw it in Columbus, Ohio, and sent an e-mail to the 100-plus members of our local camera club (westbridgecc.com).
I hope this will work! I'm glad to see others getting involved.
Craigslist is great, I buy and sell stuff on it all the time. But the point of it is that it's local. I'd never send money to someone in the hopes that they'd send me the goods! CL is FULL of scams. If you can't put your hands on it and deal in cash, don't do the transaction.
Thanks for the clarification. The initial response showed royalmail as part of the e-mail address. I googled "Royal Mail" and found Royal Mail's official website. It is quite different!
Amesay, the explanatory note said that Royal Mail would ask that I could ask for a refund if the merchandise was not as described. The funds would come from the seller's trust fund. Is this service provided by Royal Mail?
I just googled "Police liverpool United Kingdom," got on the web site of the Merseyside police, and found a way to send a message to them. I explained the circumstances and sent an e-mail to them, including the quote from Randy Nicholas and this site which shows responses of several people besides myself. Their site is: http://www.merseyside.police.uk/
If enough of us notify the police in Merseyside, surely there will be some way for them to investigate and shut down the operation. coyotl1234 reported the ad was in the Chicago Craigslist. I saw it in Columbus, Ohio, and sent an e-mail to the 100-plus members of our local camera club (westbridgecc.com).
I hope this will work! I'm glad to see others getting involved.
George
Edited by GCasey on Aug 06, 2008 at 10:40 PM GMT...Show more →
I will certainly find out for you. I'm not sure as that is the case though as that is something that paypal do. eitherway i'll have an answer on that by tomorrow.
There is no doubt about it that this is an appalling SCAM. They haven't even been careful to make it look genuine. Keep bombarding the Merseyside Police with your emails. If they get a number of complaints they will act upon it.... hopefully.
This is a SCAM pure and simple. They make you feel secure about it, but then want you to give them money first. As many have posted, the URL they include has NOTHING to do with the true Royal Mail. Email 101 tells us to never EVER click on a URL inside an email.
Here's the lowdown. I noticed that he mentions Royal MAIL, but his link was RoyalPOST-International. So naturally i launched my own browser and looked up Royal Mail. Simultaneously i went to the link he included in his email. They look similar but heres what I noticed.
* Every page visited on Royal Mails official website has a Title that dynamically changes to reference the page visited (look at the very top of the window - the title bar) - RANDY's DOESN'T
* Every offical Royal Mail page has a FAVICO (this is the neat little graphic that appears next to the url in the address bar). - RANDY's DOESN'T
* And the most GLARING oversight of all, is that Randy's page has 2007 as the copyright date at the bottom.
Just a suggestion - most likely this has NOTHING to do with the UK. The best course of action is to find out where this royalpost-international.com is originating from as some of you have suggested - either by a WHOIS or some sort of an IP lookup tool.
The owner of the website is in San Jose, California.
I found the address of the San Jose Police Department, called their information desk and was instantly told to call the national Federal Trade Commission, who then told me there would be a long wait before anyone could talk with me. I don't have the time this afternoon and will call another time. The San Jose police also gave me a website: fraud.com to report it. I'll do so.
I also sent a brief outline of the circumstances to the Columbus Dispatch. They just reported a major internet scam involving credit cards. I hope they will get involved in this one.
The saga continues. I intend to keep "pushing buttons" until I find someone who can help prevent this sort of scam happening to others. I did not send any money and do not intend to.
Interestingly enough, once I realized this was a scam i thought I would toy with them a bit and act interested.
Like GCasey, i want to do everything i can to stop this kind of BS. Just the thought that there are some really nice, naive people out there getting stung makes me SO mad.
Nevertheless, I emailed "Randy" back and basically told him that I wanted to do the deal and that I was sending him the money. I told him that I didnt trust 3rd party websites even if it WAS Royal Mail. I asked him to send me his address and that I would just send him a check.
Lo and behold I very quickly received a response from him that said "Below is my address!"
Randy Nicholas
Aintree Complex, Longmoor Lane,
Liverpool, Merseyside L9 7LN
United Kingdom
Ph: 07031890636
So.....SOMEBODY is picking up mail at this address.
Here is info on the Merseyside police. I sent an email to them this morning and explained the scam. No response yet. I also sent the story to our newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, and suggested they get involved. So far, no response.
Daniel Turner provided the name/address of the owner of the scam web site, which is in San Jose, California. I called the San Jose police station, and the lady told me to call the Federal Trade Commission or report it to fraud.com. I was put on hold at the FTC and have not yet used fraud.com, but will.
This beats the dinner theater mysteries -- for me, at least! It's a mystery that I would love to resolve and prevent a lot of people from losing their hard-earned money.
You know, if nothin else i want this creep to get busted because when i got all excited about it he/she made me take a tongue lashing from my wife about the money i spend on "toys".....
