I received a cheque in the post for £2,500 three weeks ago.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Make sure you give the impression that this friend of yours fucks people up for a living.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Good idea.

My Nigerian friend sent me another email at 4:29 this morning. I had started to wonder why I hadn't heard from him since the weekend- but of course he had been waiting for my money to arrive!

hello,

    how long is this keeping to get the money, please let know....so i can know how quick i will get the goods and the balanceof the money...... whats keeping long."

Now that it's Thursday, I think it's time for me to speak to Lloyds TSB to see if the cheque has cleared.

By the way, has anybody here ever used Western Union? I was thinking of making a transfer, as requested, only asking my accountant to make a terrible mistake- so that £2.14 gets transferred instead of £2,140. I could then send him the balance by cheque- or perhaps Swinny could deliver it in Monopoly money (after all, he has said £ in his correspondence- but did not specifically specify that it should be £s Sterling).

[Make me smile]

As I understand it, it is possible for a cheque to clear - i.e. you get the funds - then the originator cancels the cheque and you lose the money/have to pay it back. I doubt this Nigerian crime gang will have a UK bank account (for this purpose at least), as you could then easily get them via the Fraud Office, so I assume they've made fake cheques. Was the cheque paper watermarked etc. or a clear fake?

I very much doubt the funds will clear, but just a warning that even if they do you won't necessarily get to keep the money. It would be interesting to see what Barclay's and/or NatWest's fraud departments have to say!

With the gang having an Oxford address, how about setting up a sting op with the rozzers??? Now that would ensure you have a great show on your hands!

You're correct, it will not clear, because of the wrong sort code.
Watch it clear now, just watch it!

You should get in touch with the Fraud Team at Barclays regarding this. Don't be fobbed off by the cashiers, go and speak to the manager. They should be interested as they will get browie points from head office for stuff like this.

Barclays (obviously) don't take people forging their cheques very lightly and it is possible to get a reward if you help them discover who is doing this. If that is their real address then it should be quite easy. But I'm assuming that it isn't and that the Nat West account is not connected to them either.

[PyramidHead]

Swinny could deliver it in Monopoly money (after all, he has said £ in his correspondence- but did not specifically specify that it should be £s Sterling).

Please do that- Tell your customer that you've decided that the best course of action is to pay cash in an internationally recognised currency. Pack 2,500 monopoly £1 pound notes into a briefcase and have it delivered by courier.

You can add to the suspense by forgetting to send the key or combination to the briefcase, and having him break it open instead.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

I think you should call the pigs and tell them all about him - then offer to string him along so they can catch him and send him down like the bitch whore he is.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

You can add to the suspense by forgetting to send the key or combination to the briefcase, and having him break it open instead.

And Guy Ritchie-Ciccone could make a film about it one day!

[swinny]

Swinny could deliver it in Monopoly money (after all, he has said £ in his correspondence- but did not specifically specify that it should be £s Sterling).

Like fuck I could!

Reading back over this all though - are people really that gullible that they'd fall for this? It just has "Scam" written all over it...so how do people let themselves fall for it?!

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Well, someone must be falling for this, otherwise those Nigerian trolls would have died out long ago.

[Pinball]

I bet somone somewhere is offering rewards for catching these buggers. So you could actually end up making some money after all!

[TraceyQ]

Any news on this yet, Adrian?

[Ambient Sheep]

Coming rather late to this, it's either the incorrect sort code non-clearing scam as people have said, or money-laundering.

Either way you should go to a bank's fraud team or the police.

[Pinball]

I'd say the rozzers were long overdue in this case.

[TraceyQ]

I've been mooching though the Ebay community today and I am astounded at the sheer number of scams these people try to pull.  It's called "phishing" isnt it? They try it on with as many as possible and then hope they get a bite?

[aboutlastnight]

I call it 'phucking cunts'.

[Pinball]

Wouldn't it be marvellous to be able to "spike" people over the Net, like what the hacker did in GoldenEye? The thought of a 486 in Nigeria going up in smoke really girdles the loins.

[aboutlastnight]

Ha ha, 486... that's too high spec surely?

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Any news on this yet, Adrian?

Sorry, my computer has a cold and my broad band has snapped, so I can't access the web from home- and I haven't been on here for a few days. The ubiquitous Mark David continues to try it on:

hello,

     have waited for a while now, you should go to the bank tommorrow to collect your money,it must have cleared ,send me the goods, and the balance ....and please let me have your phone number.

                                                thanks.

And in the mean time, guess what! Lloyds TSB have written to me to say that the cheque is poo. And the letter totally declined to mention that it was actually me that raised the subject of suspected fraud in the first place. They have invited me to wrote back to them, or phone some 0845 number so that I can pay to be put on hold. I'll write.