Hypnotists: Beware Of Scam

This has happened before to me.

I received an inquiry from a man in Australia who want to buy some of my online products. He asks if they are in stock, can I ship to Australia, do I take credit cards & can I ship fast?

Here is one of the emails from 'Chris Matt':

Thanks for the total quote of my order our website is under upgrading .The total cost of my order is quite correct and okay by me and I'm ready to pay the bills send me an invoice via email and i will email you my Credit Card . Also want you to help me Charge another $300 to a shipping agent who is going to pick up my ordered items from you. The $300 that will be sent to the shipping agent is for the shipping which will be deduct from my credit card.Also, I'm compensating you with the sum of $100USD for the transfer fee and for your efforts. Please note that i should have given the shipping agency my credit card for him to deduct the shipping funds but he told me that he doesn't have the facilities to charge or debit credit card ,so that's why i bring my vote of confidence in you and i don't want you to betray the vote of confidence i put in you, so i want you to transfer the funds to him after you have make the charges and the money charged from my credit card is in your account,then you can now make the transfer to the agent via western union.i will have love to do this my self but there no western union here around me,So the charges you'll make on my credit card will be:

Order Fee ( $650.00 US )
Agent fee with shipping fare ($300)
Transfer Fee plus Your Compensation ($100)
Total:($1050)

Note that my credit card will be charged for the amounts above . Please do get back to me if you are in the office right now so that i can forward my credit card details to you , then you can charge full amount and transfer the agent funds to him via western union.

I await your email

Chris

___________________

This is a SCAM. I asked if he is a hypnotherapist and no answer. I asked him to call me & he did. He sounded like he was from Nigeria, although I am not sure where he was or is. He had a strong accent. I think he wanted his guy to pick up products at my office & I was to give him cash too! I am not sure if the credit charge bounces back after he is long gone?

It smelled fishy. Hypnotists beware.

Tommy Vee

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Permalink Reply by Richard Nongard - NLPBoard.com on February 9, 2010 at 6:49pm

John and I got esentially the same request a few months back. They actually sent it to John, but since I do the shipping he gave it to me to handle. My answer was simple - it's a scam. Just like you realize Tommy.

Clues:
1.) The English in the email sucked. Australians speak perfect English, the same as the USA and the UK.
2.) In our email there was the name of some store. I googled it. It didn;t exist. Any real store in Australia would have a website.
3.) Same thing, wanted to have his "agent" pick up or arrange something, blah, blah, blah...
They are praying on the greed here, of making an extra $100.

Here is how to avoid getting scammed....
1.) Never ship anything through a shipping company THEY arrange. Or transfer to some "agent". People do not use "agents" for a $300 order. Not even a $3000 order. Real simple, you want my product, pay me and I will ship it priority mail to Australia or wherever, and I will just add the shipping to the charges.

I get alot of these book purchase scams from Hong Kong and Singapore also. "Hey we want to know discounts to include you in our catalog..." Yet the never mention which product.

Yes Tommy this is correct, " I think he wanted his guy to pick up products at my office & I was to give him cash too! I am not sure if the credit charge bounces back after he is long gone?"
It is really the same as they guy who calls to buy your $1000 car, but sends you a Cashiers check for $3K .... same variation, same scam... they get cash, the product and you get a bad check or a chargeback...

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Permalink Reply by Roy Hunter on February 9, 2010 at 8:27pm

I had one several years back that seemed very legitimate...a quantity order from Indonesia. While I will not go into details, the bottom line is that I was cheated out of over $1000 of products for which I never received one dime.

Roy Hunter

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Permalink Reply by Hugh Cole on February 9, 2010 at 8:34pm

It;s a variation of the ebay money order Scam. They send you a bunch of money orders (counterfiet) and over pay to get you to put the MO in your account then write a valid MO from your account to the "agent" who takes your stuff and your valid MO. By the time the MO arrives at the issuing Bank to be redeemed, They are long gone. Once the MO is determined counterfiet, the bank reverses out your deposit and you are "holding the Bag" sans merchandise. They tried to pull that on us with some very expensive used pumps we sold in our chemical business. We turned it over to the postal inspector because it was mail fraud. I am continually amazed that folks fall for these "nigerian" scams. The agent dude who came to pick up our pumps is in the Texarkana federal boarding house last I heard.

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Permalink Reply by Henxy on February 10, 2010 at 2:09am

And there goes credibility...
The language uses are so different that I think they should have different names!

Adrian Tannock said:

Richard Nongard - HypnosisGurus.com said:
Australians speak perfect English, the same as the USA and the UK.

Heh heh, Aussies (and Americans!) speaking perfect English... Heh heh heh...

[/endSnark]

;-)

Cheers,

Adrian

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Permalink Reply by Leshem Yosef on February 10, 2010 at 2:27am

Hi mate
No worries no drama
in Aussiesland

Adrian Tannock said:

Richard Nongard - HypnosisGurus.com said:
Australians speak perfect English, the same as the USA and the UK.

Heh heh, Aussies (and Americans!) speaking perfect English... Heh heh heh...

[/endSnark]

;-)

Cheers,

Adrian

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Permalink Reply by Henxy on February 10, 2010 at 4:00am

That's almost a quote from 'Pygmalion', but not quite!

(And be careful about adding an 'l' and removing a circumflex and an 'e' from the French; they're not that keen on us already!).

Adrian Tannock said:

Henxy said:
And there goes credibility...
The language uses are so different that I think they should have different names!

Henxy: who's credibility? (Not entirely certain I had that much to begin with, but hey-ho... ;-)

I can counter my previous oh-so-droll comment with the observation that, whilst communicating using English with Scandinavian people, it frequently occurs to me that Scandinavians speak English far-better-than-wot-the-English-does.

Cheers!

Adrian

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Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on February 10, 2010 at 4:26am

Great catch -- Tommy

Newbies,
I say if you want to throw your money away -- invest in bridges. Bridges are much safer and I have recently heard it said that IJ can get can ya a great deal on the London Bridge -- Is the bridge still for sale IJ?

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Permalink Reply by James Malone on February 10, 2010 at 1:12pm

Tommy this absolutely is a scam and as Richard noted, shipping agents only come into play with transactions in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise or higher.

Interesting aside: there is a variation of this scam I saw on a cable news documentary. These predators troll personal ads and look for lovelorn men and women and posing as a beautiful foreigner, strike up an online "romance."

Somewhere along the line they con the victim into being their "shipping agent" ordering expensive items with their own credit card, having the merchandise shipped to their home and then paying to have it shipped overseas (usually Nigeria) where it is allegedly being sold at a considerable markup. In addition to the passionate encounter promised when they finally meet in person, the victim is kept on the hook with regular reports of how much money this venture is earning. You can only imagine what the real ending of this story is.

I've always suspected someone with a background in hypnosis could a find a successful niche for themselves educating the public on avoiding scams since the predators often are adept at manipulating a victim's subconscious wants and desires in order to commit the crime, much the way Houdini did with exposes of con men and their tricks.

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Permalink Reply by Jesus Gonzalez on February 10, 2010 at 3:05pm

It's not a great idea to hypnotize or try to persuade hypnotists..

It's like going to rob to the jail , it's nonsense.

Scam is everywhere, everytime.

Jesus

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Permalink Reply by Roy Hunter on February 10, 2010 at 8:43pm

Another form of scam is an email requesting price info and/or dates for group sessions. IF you receive any money (or credit card info) in advance, make certain that the funds are GOOD before you send any requested refunds. I have received several such scam emails, and was fortunate enough to learn that others had received the same scams. One of them looked so legitimate that it fooled me until someone on another newsgroup warned people about the same scam.

Roy Hunter

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Permalink Reply by Doreen Cohanim C.Ht on February 10, 2010 at 9:22pm

Oyee Vayee, I got this email too lol, but I emailed back and said... Thanks for contacting FBI, you are under an arrest, You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, but I am still watching you.. I never heard back from them lol.

Respectfully, Doreen Cohanim C.Ht