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Date Posted: 07:29:52 12/28/03 Sun
Author: Observer
Subject: Sellers beware: Area families targeted by international car-buy scam

Sellers beware: Area families targeted by international car-buy scam


Nevada Union High School student Ed Parker shows a copy of the check he received from a supposed buyer for his Volkswagon Beetle. After wiring some of the $6,500 to a man in Nigeria for shipping, Parker learned the cashier's check had bounced.
Zoom

Roman Gokhman

Though e-mail users have probably learned to be wary of eloquent Nigerians offering millions of dollars (in exchange for some personal banking information), most are probably not aware of another burgeoning Internet fraud connected to the West African country.

Nevada Union High School senior Ed Parker and his parents certainly weren't.

Faced with the task of paying for college, Parker decided to sell his beloved 1964 Volkswagen Beetle. The only problem was he couldn't find a local buyer.

In late October, Parker created an ad on craigslist.com, a Bay Area classified site. Just a week later, he was contacted by a man who said he was from the United Kingdom.

"He said he had a client who wanted to buy it," said Parker, who was seeking $2,500 for the Beetle. "I was happy it was going to get sold."




Even without seeing photos of the car, the buyer, who said his name was Desmond Fred, agreed to send Parker a cashier's check for $6,500, of which Parker could keep $2,500 for himself and wire the rest to a shipper - at a Nigerian address.

This is how the con began, not just for Parker, but for at least one other family in Penn Valley and hundreds of unassuming car sellers across the United States.

The ruse usually works like this:

A buyer claiming to be from Europe says he is interested in a car being sold online in the U.S. He sends a counterfeit cashier's check with the name of a real bank to the seller, who keeps some of the fake money and forwards real money to a con man in Nigeria.

U.S. Secret Service agent John Joyce, based in Tampa, Fla., said this particular scam has been around for about two years and is being organized by many different people in Nigeria or other West African countries

Joyce said there are two warning signs that should get the attention of potential victims.

"One, when you are dealing with someone from Nigeria, bells should be going off," he said. "The majority of these crimes come from Nigeria.

"The second thing is that the person is willing to pay more than what you are asking for. It's abnormal."

A bogus check, a sudden 'death'

For Parker, the transfer person was supposedly a Joshua Edwards in Victoria Island, a borough of the Nigerian coastal city Lagos.

Once the check arrived, "Fred" the buyer called Ed Parker and spoke to his mother, Desiree, through a third-party operator who likely was translating the conversation.

"'Has he got it? Has he cashed it?'" she recounted him as saying.

Soon after, Ed Parker took the check to Bank of the West on Brunswick Road, deposited part of it and cashed $3,000, which he wired to Nigeria.

When he got back home, the buyer called again.

"I asked him whether he was making arrangements to pick up the car, and he didn't answer that," Desiree Parker said.

Several days later, Fred called again and said Edwards was killed in an auto accident. Fred asked Ed Parker to wire an additional $1,000 to yet another person in Nigeria.

Parker held off, and a couple of days later, a Bank of the West employee gave him a call.

"They said I was liable for $3,600," he said. "I was just mad at the guy and at the bank for getting conned."

On Dec. 8, Desiree Parker went to the bank and spoke to a teller, hoping that someone would understand that it was not her son's fault.

"She suggested that we get a loan with (Bank of the West) to get some money," Desiree Parker said.



'I just got sucked in'

In 2002 alone, more than 75,000 complaints were filed with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, operated in part by the FBI. In a twist that may be indicative of how widespread this particular fraud is, the Parkers are friends with a couple duped by the same scam.

George and Dawn Brindley of Penn Valley were attempting to sell their 1999 Chevrolet Astro van on thebiglots.com, another shopping site.

On Nov. 17, a man going by the name of Andrea Richard e-mailed them and asked for a description and picture of the van.

"It just sounded like a legitimate deal," Dawn Brindley said. "He really sounded interested."

After two weeks of negotiations, the man announced he lived in Spain - although he had a United Kingdom e-mail address - and that he was buying the van so he could resell it.

"He said it was very popular there," Dawn Brindley said.

The buyer and sellers agreed that Richard would send them a cashier's check for $15,340 - $11,000 of which the Brindley's would keep for themselves, and $4,340 that they would send via Western Union to a man in Texas.

When the check arrived over Thanksgiving, it belonged to Chevy Chase Bank in Maryland and, according to the packing slip, it came from Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria - not from Spain.

On the packing slip was the name "Ezemadu Brown Tcihdi."

Brindley, becoming suspicious, took the check to Sierra Central Credit Union to ask whether it was valid.

"Two cashiers and one manager signed off on that check," she said. "They gave me no reason to believe it was counterfeit."

She cashed the check and transferred the money. The same day, Richard e-mailed them and said his mother died, causing a financial burden on him. He said he wanted his money back.

"We called the FBI that minute," said Dawn Brindley, who also filed a complaint with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center.

"I just got sucked in," she said. "The money didn't clear, and it all came out of my account."

The man kept calling and leaving harassing messages on their answering machine, and finally the Brindleys e-mailed and told him they knew he was a fraud.

They have not heard from him since.



At center of scam,banks feel helpless

First National Bank in Haines City, Fla., has received hundred of reports involving the same story about a U.K. buyer and a Nigerian transaction man since last February.

First National Operations Officer Chris Wiseman said he has heard of other banks, not only in Florida but across the country, whose checks have been defrauded.

"We're really an innocent bystander," Wiseman said. "I don't know what we can do."

The account number of the check Ed Parker received, supposedly belonging to Cornerstone Community Bank in St. Petersburg, Fla., was a fake.

Alan C. Brown, senior vice president at the bank, said he has received more than 100 similar reports from across the U.S. since late October.

"We've done everything we can for our protection," he said. "We don't know what's out there."

Both banks reported the fraud to authorities, and it is currently being investigated by the Secret Service and FBI.

Secret Service agent Joyce said the thieves give a fake Nigerian address in most cases, only to go and pick up the wire transfers from Western Union. Hence, although Parker, Brindley and Sanders were asked to wire money to Lagos, the thieves did not have to live there.

"It's a very easy way to make money," Joyce said. "These are the same people who are running a different scam (such as offering money for bank account information)."

Joyce said the biggest problem to catching these criminals is that U.S. authorities don't have the same powers of arrest overseas.

The service has a bureau in Lagos that works with local authorities to catch the thieves, but since they use fake names, addresses and phone numbers, it becomes more difficult to trace them.

The best way to stay safe, Joyce said, is to not cash a suspicious looking check.

Who is left liablein the aftermath?

When Ed Parker deposited his check at Bank of the West, customer service representative Cheri Parke said the bank placed a hold on $1,500 but could not place one on the other $5,000.

"(A teller) said since it's a cashier's check, it's probably good," Ed Parker said.

Bank employees have no way to tell whether a cashier's check is a counterfeit, Parke said.

Bank of the West officials later reconsidered and are no longer pushing Ed Parker to reimburse the bank. Bank spokesman John Stafford, based in San Francisco, said this is partly due to Parker being a minor.

Stafford declined to say whether the bank will try to get the money from Cornerstone Community Bank in St. Petersburg, Fla., but said Bank of the West will accept their loss for now.

The Brindleys are not so lucky. Sierra Central Credit Union, which declined to comment for this story, took more than $4,300 out of the family's account as compensation for the bank's loss.

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