I just wanted to share a little warning with you lovely chaps. I received an email today from a chap in Fiji who apparently wants to buy ‘some items’ from my ‘store/gallery’. It immediately rang alarm bells, I mean, Wesley Duckworth? Really?!? NOT PAYPAL! Plus, he can’t even be bothered to address it personally to me and this particular email address is my name! A quick jaunt around Google told me all I needed to know.
Anyway, I thought I’d copy the text for you just in case any of you get the same one. Apparently the same email is sent under the name ‘Hetherington Parton’ too.
From: Wesley Duckworth (wesleyd2003@gmail.com)
Date: Wed, 01 May 2013 07:49:56 -0700
Subject: ORDER TO FIJI
Hello, I'm Wesley Duckworth and I'll like to place an order for some items from your store/gallery but before we proceed I'll like to ask the following questions.
Do you ship to Fiji Island? Do you do Mail Order? Do you accept credit card as for Payment (My US Master and Visa card to be precise)? NOT PAYPAL
I'll be waiting for your response so we can proceed.
Warmly Regards, Wesley
Apparently if you reply they ask you how much it would be to ship so-and-so to an address in Fiji. They then send you their credit card details and instruct you to take $700 (reports vary on the amount) more to forward to their ‘logistics operative’ (!). They then tell you some lies to get you to pay that money very quickly, and untraceably, via moneygram after which you discover that their credit card either doesn’t exist or is stolen, and you’re $700 out of pocket.
So there you go, watch out! In other news, I’m just recovering from pleurisy of all things (I honestly thought that was a disease confined to Victorian workhouses) It hurts! So I have been spending my days on the sofa playing Resident Evil 4 not exerting myself because I get shouted at if I do! I’ve done pretty much nothing for two weeks – so boring, but just breathing was really painful so I didn’t have much choice.
Hopefully I’ll get to do something creative this coming week though!
Warmly regards,
Beccy
Posts
Thanks so much for your posting on Wesley D. I'm an artisan in Australia and he's just had a go with me - must be how he gets his jollies as I can't imagine too many people eventually fall for the scam.
ReplyDeleteOh my I cannot thank you enough for alerting the rest of us about this scam. I just had the exact same email from this person and was so excited about the prospects of selling in Fiji!
ReplyDeleteHey, thank you for this article! I got suspicious about the all credit card thing and also it sounded to good to be true. And here comes google (stalking people on google is fun :D) and your post. Thank you so much, take care!
ReplyDeleteI'm an author in Atlanta, GA, USA, and I just heard from him today, wanting to buy a bunch of books. And it was a very weird email that had warning bells going off in my head. You'd think he'd change his name in his emails after getting "made" by enough people... Thanks!
ReplyDeleteOur business (micropress) just got the same thing. Google brought up this post and several others to warn us off. Thanks for the service!
ReplyDeleteDuckworth knows we are on to him, so he has changed his name to Drew Moritz . BEWARE!
ReplyDelete