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divigo

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 31, 2004
Messages
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Location
Etten-Leur, Holland
I don't know if any of you have had to deal with this allready, but I thought I'd warn you.

Some miniature horse people in Europe and in the USA have been getting e-mails from a person in West Africa on the Ivory Coast.

This person claims to be interested in buying your beautiful horse and would like pictures and more information.

So far no problem.

As soon as he thinks you are "hooked" he will ask you for bank information and other data.

Then you will receive an e-mail that he can only buy the horse if you transfer some money for taxes to him, since that is normal in his country.

This group of people goes as far as using stolen passports, false bank information etc to make you believe they are valid.

They only e-mail in French as that is their advantage on a lot of people who only understand half of what this man has been telling them.

Example of e-mail (I removed the name since they use another one every time any way):

Bonjour

Je me nomme name administrateur de societ?? residant en afrique de l'ouest precisement en c??te d'ivoire.

En faite je vous contact parce que je suis tres tres interressez suite a la vente de votre cheval qui m'interresse beaucoup et sur ceux je souhaiterais avoir plus amples informations sur le cheval a savoir le prix exacte du cheval ainsi que quelques photos a votre disposition et aussi une bonne precision.

Dans l'attente

name

00225-..........

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seccond mail after sending picture of horse:

Bonsoir

J'ai bel et bien recu les photos ainsi donc je desir acheter avec vous celui-ci si elle est encore disponible veuillez me faire part du prix totale afin que nous puissions en discute .

Merci d'avance,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope I do not frighten you all in America in selling your horses overseas, this message is just intented to warn you to be carefull.

I for one love American miniature horses and hope to buy a few more horses from overseas in the future, this warning just shows how carefull we all have to be in doing so.
 
Thanks for the warning.

It's always a "red flag" when the seller is asked to provide bank details or cash to the buyer for whatever reason, or receiving too much in the form of a cashiers cheque and being asked to send the overpayment on to the shipper or whoever.

It's a good thing to have frequent reminders about these types of things and also the examples of the various ploys used.

These people spend all their time figuring out ways to steal from the ordinary hard working people. Their trickery is their full time job and obviously there seem to be enough that fall for it to keep them doing it.

I think when people get "duped" they are sometimes ashamed to tell anyone.
 
Thank you for the information.

It is always helpful to know what scams are going around.

Peggy
 

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