CarBuyingTips.com Consumer Alert: Don't fall for scammers trying to get you to pay for purchases through phony but realistic looking global cargo, logistics, or shipping web sites they setup. Legitimate shipping companies never handle payment of items all they do is ship, nor are they licensed in your state as required by law. Use your head.

Fortis bank in Europe is abused by many scammers, setting up escrow frauds claiming to be Fortis Escrow. Fortis is a bank not an escrow, and has nothing to do with escrow.

If this article was helpful to you, please CLICK HERE AND VOTE FOR IT on Digg.com. That's a useful site that allows articles with the most "diggs" to float to the top. It will help spread the word to more potential victims. Also, if you are a member of the ultra popular article sharing site del.icio.us, please use your posting privileges now to post this article. Use Links > Post to del.icio.us to post it. Thanks!

FACT: eBay rules FORBID using Western Union or Moneygram to pay for items online! Don't fall for spoof emails!

Darwin Fraud Alerts & Red Flags to Watch out for:

Amazon.com FRAUD ALERT
You can't miss the fraud plasma, camera and camcorders priced below market. Plasma HDTVs that should sell for $6000 or more, listed at $800, with a note to "please email me before you buy". Avoid amazon marketplace advertisers who tell you to email them at their bogus Yahoo email before you buy, that is a violation. Use your heads people, a real electronics store does not use hotmail or yahoo email. Don't deal with sellers asking you to use Western Union, or escrow. If you can't put it in the amazon shopping cart and pay by credit card, then it is a scam. Report fraud listings to Amazon.com at: reports@amazon.com. Preventing fraud doesn't stop at car buying. Read our article on How To Buy Diamond Engagement Rings on our sister site BridalTips.com

eBay Email Fraud: Phony "Update your account info" emails that appear to be from eBay, PayPal, Banks...
Danger Will Robinson! Don't let your eBay account get hijacked! Watch out for "phishing emails", dubbed by hackers, usually "urgent" in nature, the source address spoofed so it looks like it came from eBay, logos and all. The email warns you to login to your eBay account or bank account to "verify" your account info or your account will be shut down in 24 hours. If you fill out the form in the email, or click on any links in the email to "login to eBay", they have hijacked your account, they can shut you out and get sensitive credit card info from you. If you use the same password among accounts, now they can get into your other accounts. I stepped into the vortex many times, disabling over 20 emails so far. One scammer showed off his prowess to me, I could see their scam stole eBay logins at the rate of one every 2 minutes for 4 hours until I had it shut down off Yahoo's Geocities. We'll show you how to decipher phishing emails, learn where they are coming from, report the scammer, have his server shut down, his email shut down, save hundreds of eBay account holders from getting their accounts hijacked.

Fraudulent Escrow Service Scams

Why do people fall for the same scams every year? As P.T. Barnum once said, "There's a sucker born every minute." We Americans are stupid, no common sense, our brains are on auto pilot, we believe every stupid site and license number we see without verifying "facts". Why bother naming our babies? Let's name them first name "Stu", last name "Pid." If the 1/100 of 1% of us who click on spam and email frauds would delete those fraud emails instead, we'd get no spam because spammers know they would never make money.

Americans suffer greatly from the Pied Piper affect, using whatever bogus web site the other party of their transaction tells them to use. If you were buying a house would you let the seller's real estate agent choose your lawyer? The best fraud prevention is fraud education. eBay and the other online marketplaces are safe sites to use, but if you are careless, scammers are skilled at leading you away from that safety. A little common sense will save you from financial losses.

We receive fake escrow warnings on the largest online classifieds sites, down to the smallest no name sites. The odds are 99 to 1 against you finding a legitimate escrow service. Do you remember the Jiminy Cricket safety films from Disney that we used to see in elementary school? The ones where Jiminy yells at the stupid people? Maybe we should have Disney update them for today's internet scams: "I'm no fool, no sir re, I'm going to save $10,003! Hey Stupid! Pay attention!

Here are some sample escrow fraud site designs used recently, they look very convincing:

First of all, what is an escrow company? Why do I care?
Legitimate escrow companies, commonly used when buying a house, are trusted third parties who hold the money until the goods are received by you the buyer. The escrow tracks the product when it ships and verifies delivery to you the buyer. Once you accept delivery and your inspection period ends, the escrow pays the seller. eBay recommends purchases over $500 use an escrow. eBay uses an exclusive escrow service through Escrow.com, a licensed, audited escrow company incorporated in California. Slick fraudulent escrow sites appear legit and are run by fake "sellers". You never get your product.

How Fake Escrow Scams Operate: The scheming "sellers" have ads on Yahoo Motors, AutoTrader, Craigs List, eBay Auctions, eBay Motors, every known vehicle and motorcycle classifieds site, Amazon Z-Shops, etc. This Internet fraud has become an epidemic, but you need not be paranoid, just be prepared. Here's how the fraud works. You are buying a used car (or other product) on eBay, Autotrader.com, CycleTrader.com, Yahoo Classifieds, etc., and you see a hot BMW or Mini Cooper, or Camry, or Mercedes, or Harley Davidson whose selling price is much lower than other listings for the same item. So you ask the seller a question. The seller replies with a "Dear Sir" form letter, rarely do they mention your name, it's all scripted. It usually has poor grammar and spelling too. He wants you to use a particular escrow site, "he's used them many times already." He is offering to pay shipping for the car! Do you know how much shipping is on a car across the U.S.? It's usually about $900. And he's giving it to you for free? That's Red Flag #1. Take a look at this sample scammer email below with grammar and spelling errors. Red Flag #2.

Notice how they don't address you by name, they leave it generic, because they are using a script. What a moron scammer. Let's see, the last time I tried to fly just myself to the UK on Lufthansa Air, it was $600. And "she" is going to fly a BMW to my house for free on "Laughtansa!" I don't know who is more foolish here, the scammer for actually thinking someone will fall for that line, or the fool who actually falls for that line.

You'll discover later via a WHOIS search that the escrow site you were told to use was only created the week before, hence the liar could not have used them several times. Like a fool, you register a new escrow account at the online escrow site that the seller recommended, usually a polished looking site. See our screen shots further down. The escrow sites list "license numbers" with the state. Some generously sprinkle official looking logos from the BBB, Verisign Secure, TRUSTe, and Internet Fraud Complaint Center! Some fake escrows are brazen and warn you about internet fraud, and even link to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center! Most fake escrows falsely claim Copyright 1999 or 2000 to appear they have been around a while. Feeling secure, you send your $28,000 to the escrow company and lose it forever. You never hear from the "seller" again. He walks away from his Yahoo email box that he created for this scam, does not answer the throw away cell phone he stole to act as his phone number, and any emails to the escrow site go unanswered, because they just walked away from it and setup the next phony escrow already.

Fake escrows herd you into 3 payment methods:

Hey, stupid!
Let me get this straight. You're going to blindly use the escrow service the seller tells you to use without basic verifications? That's like letting a real estate agent choose your property attorney. You're not going to verify the escrow site's license with your state? Or call the phone number and talk to a human first? Takes 5 minutes! You're going to Western Union $8,000 to someone you don't know? Do you really believe some idiot in the Netherlands is really going to pay the transport charges and fees to get your car to the U.S.? You're not going to verify the escrow site's usually non-working phone number? I have a better idea. I'm going to send you a postage prepaid box with my address on it. Just stick your wallet and your checkbook in the box and mail it back to me. Wouldn't you rather give all your money to me, someone you like, rather than deal with the heartache of knowing you got scammed in a car fraud by some overseas scammer? Let's turn you into a donkey.

CarBuyingTips.com ALERT: Many scammers claim they will pay shipping and transport charges, even from Germany or Switzerland! That's what lures in the suckers. Don't fall for this. It costs $900 to ship a car across the U.S. I don't know any seller who would pay for shipping a car. Use your head.

The Dirty Dozen Common Fake Escrow Site Designs
There are many designs of escrow frauds you'll encounter, but these screen shots below are the 12 most common fake escrow designs we shut down. Once we get them shutdown, they usually carbon copy the site design over to a new name and start all over again days later, like the Whack A Mole games at the carnival. We have shut down over 600 fake escrow sites. The dirty dozen escrow frauds below have appeared over 50 times each under various domain names. Study these fake escrow screen shots, see how slick they look. If the other party tells you to use a site that looks like these, it's a scam for sure, no question about it, no doubt at all.

CarBuyingTips.com ALERT: Escrow sites with the word "Safe" or Secure" in their name are neither safe, nor secure.

CarBuyingTips.com Dirty Dozen Common escrow fraud site designs,
If you are told to use sites that looks like these, you can bet they are a fraud:

Many of these fake escrow sites have a photo of their alleged boss named Saul Weiss, General Manager. That poor guy's picture and name has appeared on so many escrow fraud sites in the last year, I bet his image is downloaded off the internet more than Britney Spears!

"Suspicious" escrow sites and bogus worldwide shipping sites
we are currently watching and you should avoid as of September 24, 2008:

Some fraud web sites may be shut down by time you see them here. These are suspicious sites we have found the last 2 months, or have turned them in to the web hosts/registrars for deactivation. If you see a site listed below, it is because we have determined they are probably fraudulent or received complaints about tem:

Any escrow site with "Square Trade" in the name is a fraud. Square trade does not do escrow, they are basically a dispute resolution service for eBayers.

eurotrans-group.co.uk, eurotrans, trading-care.com, internationaltradeauto.com, globalshippingexpress.net, shipping-international.com, autotradeinternational.bravehost.com, best-car-online.com, vehiclescargo.com, moneybookers-financial.com (also emails posing as moneybookers.com telling you to Western Union your escrow payment), worldshippingmaster.us, commerce-solution.com, vd-experts.com, web-protection-purchase.com, sqtrade-safedeals.com, fraud fax number: 407-264-8202, us-auto-sell.com, best-auto-online.com, us-online-trade.com, ALS-Transport.com, auto-trade-online.com, dbd-group.com, 1st-delivery.com, electronicscentrall.com, auto-trade-escrow.com, europe-locations.org, tdgexpress.prohosts.org, us-best-car-site.com, online-cargoexpressinc.net, usautomobiletraders.com, insurance-classic.com, internationalautoescrow.110mb.com, simpatrades.com, e-tradinginternational.com, Internationalautoshipping.com, simpasales.com, ss-trading.net, cargus-freight.com, Expert Movers, expert-movers.fastwaydelivery.com, earthshipment.com, vehicle-trade-us.com, online-auto-trade.com, safecargus.com, delivery-europe.eu, world-car-business.com, cargoline-ltd.com, internationalautoescrow.110mb.com, .irc-servicesinc.net, dermatox.net, car-trade-world.com, trade-auto-expert.com, bestsolutionsescrow.110mb.com, bigeurocargo.com, eccrwsec.com, corbispay.net, secureautomobiletraders.com, bigeurocargo.com, traderspay.com, ebay-vehicles.com, motors-vehicleprotection.com, truckingco-speditions.com, profilogistics.com, trans-trabus.com, us-globe-transport.net, exces-cargos.com, car-sell-solution.com, metrotranslogistics.net, gateway-movers.com, bestasales.com, globe-transp-us.net, Global Payments Inc. global-cars-transports.com, globalpaymentsinc.us, secure.safetrader.co.nz, us-bestvehiclesite.com, hermesspa.com, das-shipping-express.zzl.org, cargosafety-web.dl.ag, global-shipper.us.tf, escrow-finance.com, rocket-trans.com, Cosmopolitan Shipping Express, usdasautoshippers.com, cosmoshipping.8rf.com, bestautomobiletrader.com, webasolutions.com, bestvsell.com, bestvsell, clickandbuysafe.com, trans-globe.s5.com, californiavehicletraders.com, scandlines-globalonline.com, quick-vehicle-trade.com, autradeals.com, expertatr.com. More to come.....

Any escrow site you are told to use which is hosted on SPhosting.com is a fraud, this ISP service has been abused for years by scammers, as soon as one fraud site gets shut down, scammers open a new site on SPHosting. You would think that someone with intelligence at SPhosting would have realized by now what's going on and shut these scammers down when they pop up.

The escrow scams work in reverse too! They can steal product from you as a seller on eBay
eBay sellers can get ripped off after the winning bidder tells them to use escrow. Instead of using the eBay Safe Harbor checkout, victims foolishly register outside eBay on a fake escrow site. Sellers then get emails from this fake escrow saying "the buyer" has wired money to the escrow, you are now clear to send product to the buyer." Sellers lose expensive jewelry, diamond rings, necklaces, cameras, computers, to Romania. Some power sellers have lost dozens of laptop computers, and cases of cell phones, receiving no payment. Most victims don't realize the "buyer" is in on it, running the phony escrow site. Most victims don't know they are sending their product to a hotel lobby, UPS store, a mailbox store, sometimes an apartment. The scammer picks up your package and you never get any money from them. But postal authorities alerted by would be victims, can follow the package to the end of the line.

Watch out for auctions requiring "Bidder Pre-Approval"
You want to bid on the BMW or Harley but there is a note at the top of the auction that says this: "Note: This listing is restricted to pre-approved bidders or buyers only. Email the seller to be placed on the pre-approved bidder/buyer list." That's a dirty trick to get you talking via email to the scammer outside the eBay system so he can work is fraud on you. If you email the scum bag to ask how you get approved for bidding, he sends you his template email and tells you to pay via Western Union, or use this "great escrow site". It's really a site that he setup to scam you.

Ok, so who are these guys who are ripping us off? Where are they located?
We have identified several pockets in Europe, Romania being the biggest. We have supplied addresses and victims to the Secret Service in Romania for arrests. They are young high school or college aged punks who copy other people's scams. They blow the money they steal from you on discos and girls. Other areas we trace activity to are U.K., Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and Greece. In the U.S. there have been scammer arrests when victims selling items on eBay were told to use fake escrow sites, who lied and told victims to mail their product to NY, or Beverly Hills. Victims alerted postal authorities and their Secret Service Field Office, who follow the package, and arrest the scammers upon delivery.

How do scammers with fake escrows and pull it off so easy?
Listen up dude, fraudulent escrow scams are just the final puzzle piece of a much bigger picture of five interlocking scams working together to steal money from victims, leaving patsies in their wake to take the blame. Many law enforcement people don't even know this. The combination of stolen identities, stolen credit cards, phony job scams, and phony auctions all support the fake escrow scam that nails thousands of people every year. We estimate each auction/escrow fraud nets at least a dozen victims, for over $100,000 combined. Certainly worth the 2 weeks it takes scammers so set each one up. We hacked into Federal-Escrow.com in August, 2003 and found 300 victims in their database! In order for the fraudulent escrow scam to allow the scammers to steal your money, the other 4 related puzzle piece scams which support the fake escrow scam must fit perfectly. Without them, the whole thing falls apart on the scammers like a house of cards. That's where we have a lot of fun, yanking out the cards underneath them, watching all their work come tumbling down on them. Then they have to regroup and start all over again. LOL!

The fake escrow sites are like Coke Machines sitting on the internet
These fake escrows are turnkey sites that are running on auto pilot. I can lead you to one, make you register, then send you Western Union wiring instructions, and my scam is complete. I can rip you off using a site I did not even create! Long after arrests were made on Perfect-Escrow.com, I was still being alerted by victims of that site worldwide, indicating that multiple scammers from the hacking community were using it.

Don't pay for auctions or cars via Western Union, E-Gold, or equivalent!
USE YOUR HEAD, DUDE! Legit escrows would never tell you to wire payments through easily abused cash transfer services like Western Union or Moneygram. Western Union is unsafe for this because you are not wiring money to a fixed bank, your funds can be picked up anywhere in the world. Most scammers are in Romania, Spain, Italy, and Nigeria, which are so corrupt, you don't even need a password to pick up the money. All you need to pick up money is a pulse. Scammers don't even need the MTCN number, all they need to know is your name to pickup your cash. A real escrow company would tell you to use YOUR bank to wire money to THEIR bank, complete with their routing number and account number. Then it's TRACEABLE! You must still verify their bank account before you wire, it could be a bogus patsy's bank account. You must always verify on your own, where that account is located. If you cannot get that information through your bank, or verify it by calling the beneficiary bank, then don't send any money! It's a bad idea to wire money when you don't know where it is really going!

CarBuyingTips.com ALERT: NEVER deal with an eBay seller who Changed ID in the last 30 days.
Sure lots of honest people change their ID. So what, wait them out. Our experience shows many escrow scammers had 0 feedback on eBay, or they recently changed IDs. Still other scammers use hijacked accounts of people with hundreds of positive feedback to operate their scam. If you are a person who only uses a seller's feedback as a gauge of their honesty, you will get ripped off big time. Look for eBay's recently changed icon over the ID.

I've observed that scammers favor free email sites like Hotmail, Juno, Yahoo, etc. In these days of global security concerns we need laws to do away with free email accounts. This would at least require scammers to pay for accounts, and possibly add levels of difficulty. Of course many already pay for email accounts with stolen credit cards. We have seen that people who post warnings about the escrow companies on eBay forums have their posts removed by eBay moderators.

Hey Stupid!
If you determine the escrow site the seller sent you to is a fake, don't ask the seller to use another escrow site, he is in on the scam! There is no car, there is no camera, there is no cell phone for sale, it's all a fake. Many victims just don't get it. The seller is behind the whole scam.

I got ripped off, or I'm about to get ripped off! What do I do first? Who do I report it to?
Now that the scammers have all your personal info, you MUST take steps to protect your identity so it does not get stolen. Once you have been ripped off, you need to sign up to a one year credit monitoring service that provides your credit report. Try Experian, Equifax or TrueCredit. You'll get regular updates if someone tries to take out credit under your name. As a victim, you'll learn the harsh realities of life. No one cares about your little problem. Local police unfamiliar with this scam are not usually setup to investigate cyber crime. The FBI and Secret Service can't help you because at the federal level they can't act unless the losses are over $100,000, and besides, they know that these money wiring frauds don't lead them to suspects, so their odds of an arrest are really low, and your case is not worth their effort. The cops won't do anything to get the escrow site shut down either. So unfortunately, in this age of terrorism, you won't find scores of law enforcement waiting around to work on your case just because you lost money. Thousands of others have lost money too and you are all are on your own.

If you are an eBay seller who mailed a product to the scammer
You can try to locate the police in the area in Europe where the funds were wired, or where you sent a package. How do you do that? I was hoping you can tell me dude! Good luck with that one. But that is a long shot, foreign police tell you to file a report with your local police. Everyone just wants you to go away. Lookup a good private investigator in the phone book specializing in international fraud. The only place you really should bother to submit a complaint to is the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC). It is staffed by FBI agents, but don't expect to hear back from anyone, they are not there to work on your case, they are collecting information on current trends in internet fraud, and may act when they get enough complaints about a scammer. The bottom line is the only person looking out for you is you, with our help. You must be your own police. Follow that money trail to get your funds back. In the auction scam where you are a seller and told to send a product through an escrow that you know is fake, then you can alert detectives in the city where your product is to be delivered. Work with them and your post master to setup a sting, track the package, arrest the scammer as they take delivery.

How to get a scammer's email account shut down for abuse
Here's where your fun begins. You initiated dialogue with a seller, who emails you back, without addressing you by your name, with garbage like this:

"Dear Sir, I have initiated the transaction using www.xpress-transaction.com. This is my 4th time when I use this escrow service and I really like this company because they are specialized in motor vehicles transactions..."

I'm no fool, no siree, I'm going to save $10,003! Time to get cranking here dudes, this scammer is playing you and a dozen other victims, from his free Yahoo or AOL email account. Some scammers spoof the sending address so it might say XYZ@Yahoo.com when it's really coming from somewhere else. If you report this spam to Yahoo and AOL, they shut it down almost immediately.

Your Simple Strategy:
You must forward to the abuse team the scammer's email PLUS the IP Address headers (very important). If you are using Microsoft Outlook email, here is what you do:

1) Right click the message in your inbox, and choose Options. A popup window appears and at the bottom is a field that has Internet Headers. You'll see a bunch of garbage that starts off looking like this:

Return-Path: <thomasvanvugt3@yahoo.com>
Received: from web60710.mail.yahoo.com ([216.109.117.233])...... and it keeps on going for several lines.

That IP address you see there is what the abuse team needs to see, so they can verify it really did come from their servers. Select all the lines of IP Headers in the box and do a CTRL-C to copy the header information into your windows clipboard. You're almost done!

2) Now go to his email, hit the Forward button, and paste the Internet Headers right above the scammer's message. Include a brief note to the abuse team that this scammer is sending victims to a known fraudulent escrow site. His poor English and grammar should be a giveaway.

• For Yahoo, mail it off to abuse@yahoo.com with the subject "Abuse: Nigerian Scam/Spammer". That seems to have the most success
• For AOL, mail it off to abuse@aol.com with the subject "Abuse: Nigerian Scam/Spammer"
• For eBAY: Scroll to the very bottom and click on "Report This Listing"
• For CraigsList: In the upper right of your browser click on the gray "Prohibited" button 10 times
• For all others, insert the ISP name, abuse@Whatever-Their-Mail-Service-Is.com, with the subject > "Abuse: Nigerian Scam/Spammer"

3) I also use SpamCop.net to submit him as spam. The reason is, Yahoo automatically shuts down any email account that receives a SpamCop.net complaint. Pretty stupid huh? But we can use that in our favor to get the scammer's email shut down in a few hours. Also, SpamCop.net does a great job of reverse engineering the internet headers for you to determine where the email really came from and automatically notifies the abuse team of the proper ISP. This effectively renders useless any tricks the scammers used to spoof/hide their own email service.

NOTE: If you don't send the internet IP headers, the abuse team will ignore your email, because they MUST verify the IP address of the sender as coming off their email server, and you would have wasted your time.

After the scammer's email account is shut down for abuse...
The scammer will email you the next day from another address, saying "Sorry, I had problems with my other Yahoo account." I'll bet you did buddy! LOL! When he tries to continue business with you, turn in his new email address to the abuse desk! This is an important step in the fight against online fraud, as many victims tell me they saved themselves at the last minute when the scammer started emailing them from another address, and the victim became suspicious and bailed on the deal. I'm no fool, no siree, I'm going to save $20,003! Shutting the scammer's email account saves several people.

How to shut down a fraudulent escrow site
If you find a site that is a fraud, the you must convince their web host to shut them down. Then send an email to their registrar, to disable the domain name so they cannot pop up on a new web host. Go to Register.com, do a WHOIS search on the domain name. Usually in the record, they lie about the administrative contact, using one person's name to be the patsy with another person's phone number. Call the number and ask if they are related to the escrow. If they say no, then you know it's a scam, and the escrow site used their name without their permission. Once you find the domain servers at the bottom of the listing, go to that web host company web site, and contact them via email. For example, here is a partial WHOIS lookup for a site that ripped off some victims, USACARTRADERS.COM.

Domain Name: USACARTRADERS.COM
  Registrar: NAMESBEYOND.COM DBA GOODLUCKDOMAIN.COM
  Name Server: NS01A.NAMESBEYOND.COM
  Name Server: NS01B.NAMESBEYOND.COM
  Updated Date: 30-jun-2006
  Creation Date: 26-jun-2006
  Expiration Date: 26-jun-2008

So if a site was hosted by Yahoo, try their Yahoo! Abuse Feedback Form Online or you can email abuse@yahoo.com with an evidence list of information that proves they are fake, false mailing addresses, phone numbers that go to someone's fax or no where at all, etc. Whatever web hosting company is displayed in Name Server Field of the WHOIS record, that is where you email your abuse alert to. The above example shows Yahoo as the web host. In the above sample WHOIS record for the escrow fraud, it shows MelbourneIT as the registrar. Email their registrar abuse@melbourneit.au because of the false info in the WHOIS database, and ICANN requires they investigate. Go to the web host's site, and the registrar's site and find out how to contact them. By shutting down an escrow scam, you have just ruined about a dozen or more scams in various stages of completion, and really put a damper in the scammer's week. Once their site is shut down, it can take them a few days before they sign up to a new web host and for it to propagate across all the domain servers on the internet and finally resolve to the new server location. This really puts a cramp in their style. Even if the web host is an idiot and ignores you, they eventually will close the site down when the stolen credit card used to pay for the web hosting does a chargeback.

Payback Baby! How some victims are fighting back and exacting revenge
Many victims are finding other ways to get revenge on the scammers, like signing the scammers email addresses on spam lists, phony diet and Viagra sites, and junk newsletters. Some scammers run several escrow sites at once, so you can harvest several email addresses off each escrow site and sign them up to some gambling and porn spam lists. Believe me once they end up on one spam list, it will hours before they appear on several other sleazy spam lists. Before you know it, they will be stuck sorting through their inbox past dozens of emails telling them how they can enlarge their penis. Something I'm sure they need anyway. Some people go to the escrow web site and on the feedback form, start filling it in with 100 KB text files, then keep hitting submit, then back button, then submit again, several times until it eats up their email server's capacity and fills up their inbox. Then they cannot receive messages from victims they are trying to email with before the big rip off. When potential victims get bounced emails, it spooks them and they don't go through with the deal! LOL! That way you have saved other people from being scammed.

The web hosts and the registrars who enable fake escrow sites are to blame also
When we compile our evidence lists and send it to the scammer's web hosts registrars, usually they respond pretty quickly to shut them down. One registrar said they got a batch of escrow domain name creations that emanated from the Palestinian territories of Israel. This registrar service will stop accepting orders for domain names which include escrow because "in three years we have never had a domain name registered with that word in it which was not paid with a stolen card number."

But some registrars, like Register.com, and some web hosting companies like Yahoo, Hurricane Electric, Interland and ValueWeb do little to shut down fraud sites they are hosting once we alert them. Part of the reason for success of these escrow scams is the "enablers" turn the other cheek. Many victims are enraged when I tell them that they did not have to get ripped off, because we alerted the web hosts weeks before. Victims are now upset that web hosts are putting profits before your well being. You'll here dumb excuses how it takes a court order for them to shut down the escrow site. What a joke, as soon as the stolen credit card does a chargeback on them, down comes that web site! Hey, what happened to that court order that you require? I guess they don't really need it. They can shut down sites for violating their user agreement which includes things like copyright violation and stealing from people. Some web hosts tell you it's not their job to police their customers content, which is true, that's we why we did it for them. When handed indisputable evidence, web hosts should disable the web sites, and registrars should disable the domain name from future usage. We alert them of fake addresses on web sites, stolen from hotels and restaurants, fake dates, lies about incorporation, fake phone numbers, pirated content, and more. So here you have companies that have been shown proof positive that they are either the registrant for, or the web host for a fraudulent escrow web site who has ripped off people and they ignore us, choosing greed over ethics. Yahoo will only shut down a site if they get a complaint from the company whose copyright content was stolen by the fake escrow site. If you were scammed by an escrow that was enabled to continue running after we alerted their host of fraud, ask your lawyer if the web host or the registrar can be sued for negligence for allowing their customer to continue running after being shown proof positive evidence. We know of many such "enabling" occurrences. I'll be happy to supply damaging evidence against any web host to victims who need it. Scam sites like AutoTradeCenter.net and their sister site iAutoEscrow.com went on raping victims for weeks while Yahoo ignored repeated warnings from us. So what finally brought the sites down? Probably nothing we did, my theory is the creditcard used for the hosting account was stolen and did a charge back.

ICANN is the worst enabler of identity theft on the internet
ICANN is doing such a poor job of regulating registrars and the WHOIS database, that I'll even go out on a limb here and state that their lack of action may be helping to fund terrorism. In fact, we now call them "ICANT"! I have turned in hundreds of complaints of fake WHOIS information to ICANN's Whois Data Problem Report Form that have gone unanswered. ICANN is supposedly requiring all registrars to maintain truthful WHOIS information or they must disable the offending domain name. Any moron with a computer can register a new domain name with 100% fake WHOIS information using your stolen identity, your address, and your phone number. So victims and their lawyers who go digging to see who "owns" the escrow site that just ripped them off, will come after you, an unknowing victim of identity theft. I have documented evidence of this occurring in over 300 cases that I worked on. ICANN is dropping the ball on this one folks, time to write your congressman, not that it will help any. It seems that everyone puts up this facade about how concerned they are about internet crime, national security, ID theft, yada.... But pin them down to act, and all you get are excuses, if you even get an answer at all and you and I are the only ones doing anything about it.

Registrars MUST disable any domain name with false WHOIS record information
In 2003 ICANN starting clamping down on bogus information in the domain name WHOIS record, and some registrars are violating ICANN rules by not complying. They are supposed to disable any domain name that has false information in the WHOIS record. We have sent registrars evidence lists clearly showing fraudulent registrant information of the WHOIS database for the web site, yet some, like Register.com and 1stdomain.net don't appear to be reacting to our abuse alerts. We need tougher laws forcing the registrars and ISPs to respond when confronted with indisputable evidence, and make them liable when they allow fraudulent web sites to continue to run. It sure seems like they care more about making money from the scammers, since they earn nothing from the victims of the scammers. A few costly high profile class action suits will straighten that right up.

Classic example of an arrogant registrar gone mad
We found a fake escrow stupidly named commerce-hub.biz that we had shut down under other names. Their "Staff" photo showed 8 people they claim are their employees. This was fraud; not their employees, photo was stolen from America Texas Title. Scammers lure victims with content stolen from other sites to appear established. That violates web host agreements. We also alerted their registrar, 1stdomain.net, in Kihei, Hawaii because the fake escrow site had stolen identity information in their WHOIS record. 1stdomain.net is required to investigate and disable the domain name. The scammers used the name of C. Richard Reese, CEO of the $1 Billion dollar IronMountain, Inc., and DSI Technologies. Iron Mountain is aware of the stolen identity problem, and told us Mr. Reese is not in anyway involved with the fake escrow. Famous CEO's don't use their name on WHOIS records, CEOs don't get involved in mundane tasks like reserving domain names. Besides, IronMountain would have put the company name in the WHOIS, not Reese's name. The fake phone number listed in the WHOIS rang at a phone in Indiana that never picks up. I tried a few times to convince 1stdomain.net this was all fake WHOIS, and they might expect legal action from scam victims and Mr. Reese. I then get an angry email from Dietmar Rittner, VP of 1stdomain.net, telling me: "We are asking you at this time from refraining to continue to harass our technical support threatening legal action where there is no grounds... If you continue to threaten our employees, we reserve the right to take legal action to stop this." Ok, fine. We'll leave you alone to fend off all the angry victims that come after you. Oh, but do enjoy the credit card chargeback's you'll get from future sites that the scammers reserve through 1stdomain.net. Get enough charge backs and you'll lose your merchant status with the credit card companies. So all you victims out there now know why many fraud sites are allowed to run unchecked. Their arrogant web hosts and registrars arrogantly and defiantly block your attempts to protect yourselves. You are a threat to their cash cow.

One man was not so lucky
Here's a good fraud case. Read this article on MSNBC called A $55,000 Net scam warning, about Bruce Lachot, who thought he was getting a bargain price for a used BMW at $55,000, but fell victim to this fake escrow scam. I saw him on Oprah telling his story. Like most victims, he was skeptical at first, but fell victim to Jedi mind tricks. Learn from his mistakes.

How to shut down a scammer's fake eBay hijacking "phishing email"!
By now, when you get the familiar bogus email telling you to login into eBay now or they will suspend your account, you know it's a scam. The email either asks you to login through a form right there in the email, or they ask you to click on a link to "take you to eBay". Of course the link really takes you to their fake eBay login page on the scammer's server, not on eBay. The key to remember here folks, is they ultimately want you to enter your login info through a form! This is simple to defeat once you know how HTML code works! Behind every form is a Form Action Statement. You must get that form action statement, and determine:

1) Where is the scammer's form being served from, that asks you to enter your eBay login info?

2) Once you supply the login info, how are the scammers emailing it back to themselves???

This is very easy to determine! What you need to do is very simple:

1) In Microsoft Outlook you need to do a "View Source" on the fake eBay form to get at this info. For example, if the form is in the phishing email sent to you, and you are using Outlook, go to the body of the email, right click, and choose "View Source". If you are on a web page instead, then in the browser window, select View > Source. Once the text file pops up showing you the HTML source code behind the scammer's form, you are good to go!

2) Now search this text file for the "Form Action" statement. You are looking for any address other than eBay, or an IP address after the "@" sign. Here is an example of one I worked on recently:

<FORM action="http://www.win.net/cgi-bin/mailform.cgi" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="mailformBcc" value="bolnavul@runbox.com">

You can see by the above code that it is really quite easy to identify what is going on.
The scammer was using the mail form on servers belonging to Win.net, to steal the eBay login account info from unsuspecting victims. This is a standard mailform.cgi program that takes info you submit to it via form post, and emails it to the email address that scammers specify in the "VALUE=" parameter, in this case, bolnavul@runbox.com, located in Norway.

Sometimes, they hide an IP address in the middle of some insanely long email address like this one that I received:

http://scgi.ebay.com.saw-.....reenterinformationconfirmationeBayISAPI.dll@210.98.239.11/icons................

See the 210.98.239.11 in the middle of the link there? That's in Korea! Gee, I thought eBay was located in California! So how do we put a stop to this phishing email now that we know what is going on? Simple dudes!

You send an email to the abuse desk of both of these ISP companies. If you can call them and alert them too, that is even quicker. Usually we tell people to email abuse@Whoever_The_ISP_Is.net, and inform them that a scammer is using their service to steal ebay logins, and we show the ISP the HTML code. The ISP finds the scammer's account, and stops the CGI email script. We win! Then we email the abuse desk at the receiving end of their form email, and alert them, so now the scammer cannot even log in to get the info he has stolen! LOL! Wasted all that time for nothing! Sucker! By doing this, you are saving virtually hundreds of eBay victims from losing their eBAy accounts, while crashing down the scammer's house of cards, by putting an end to scam #1 of their Big 5 Scams. You are also saving dozens of future eBay victims from escrow fraud. It's all our responsibility to act on these emails when we get them, and put a stop to this crap. Don't just delete it, REPORT it! It only takes a couple of minutes to do it, and once you've done it a few times, it goes real quick.

CarBuyingTips.com Rule Of Escrow Physics #1: Over 99% of all online escrow services are fraudulent

That's right, 99% folks! Of the list of about 600 or so online escrow site that we processed, virtually all of them were fraudulent. In reality there are very few legitimate online escrow companies. The odds are stacked against you 9 to 1 that you'll get an honest escrow service.

How to Check out an Escrow Service on Your State Department of Corporations
Legit escrows are incorporated, licensed, and bonded with your state. Just because their site says XYZEscrow, Inc., does not mean they are incorporated, I can type in "Inc." and people will believe it! You must validate on your State Department of Corporations site. For example, eBay's legitimate Escrow.com web site says they are located in the state of California, and audited regularly by the California Department of Corporations. They have a license #963-1867. So visit the California Department of Corporations web site, and find your way to the Financial Services Division. There is a form to search. Enter escrow.com, and their license number into the field: 9631867 no dashes. Then it shows you that Escrow.com is indeed licensed. Many fraudulent escrow web sites claim to be licensed in all 50 states, which is a lie, no one is, so verify it using this form too. If you can't find them in California, you know they are lying, and they are fraudulent. Many fraudulent escrow companies claim to be incorporated in New York, Cincinnati, or Cleveland, and regulated by their "strict Division Of Corporations". They will ramble off all sorts of impressive looking license numbers and state agencies they are registered with, but none of them ever pan out. So go to the New York Division Of Corporations and enter the company name on the form. Choose "all" for the company type. If they don't show up, or if they are inactive, then the site is a fraud. In California, a requirement for getting a license is they MUST be members of the Escrow Agents' Fidelity Corporation (EAFC). States require that their employees be bonded, typically with a fidelity bond with the state. The fake escrow sites who claim to be based in London or Italy with bogus statements about being governed by some bogus non-existent European Financial Code, are almost all fake.

After you read this fraud article, I want to teach you the proper way to buy used cars without getting ripped off. Read our chapter on How To Buy A Used Car & Avoid Scams.

CarBuyingTips.com Rule Of Escrow Physics #2: Don't be suckered in by how professional website looks. Always verify information!

The Counterfeit Cashier's Check Fraud

How The Scam Works: Counterfeit cashier check fraud is on the rise. With this car fraud, you list your used car for sale in the newspaper or sites like Auto Trader Online or eBay Motors. A buyer comes to buy your car from you, and shows up to pay you with a bank draft or cashier's check. You look at the check, it looks pretty good, you think to yourself it's as good as cash, and turn over your $20,500 Ford Expedition to the "buyer", and the deal is done. You deposit the cashiers check into your checking account and get notified by your bank 7 days later that it's a counterfeit cashier's check. You became another bank fraud statistic, and had your car stolen! Also, people rip off car dealers by presenting them with counterfeit cashier's checks. This is why some dealers require you to fill out a credit application when you pay for a car in full with a bank draft, even though you are not financing through them. It stinks, but that's how they avoid bank fraud. When auctioning your car online, don't be a victim of eBay fraud; use common sense.

CarBuyingTips.com Rule Of Banking Physics:
A bank draft, a cashier's check or a money order is a worthless piece of toilet paper until it CLEARS from the issuing bank.

You are not safe until the bank check is validated by the issuing bank days after you deposit the check into your account. You're not safe when you deposit the check, nor when the bank makes the funds available in your account, only when the check has been validated and cleared up to 2 weeks later.

Whip me, beat me, make me write bad checks! Examples of counterfeit cashier's checks:

Banking Myth #1 : "A bank draft or cashier's check is as good as cash, right?"
Wow, bad call. Everyone is under the false impression that bank drafts are as good as cash. There are tons of counterfeit cashier's checks floating around that scam people every day. Counterfeit cashier's check fraud is everywhere on every type of financial instrument. There is so much cashiers check fraud out there that I don't think you can trust any cashier's check or bank draft to be valid. This holds true for all money orders, bearer bonds, and other financial instruments. Even the post office has been deluged with counterfeit postal money orders. People don't check for the few post office watermarks which could instantly identify counterfeit money orders forged to look like official post office money orders. The problem is so out of control, that no bank is safe from having their cashier's checks counterfeited. It happens to the smallest regional bank, all the way up to Bank Of America. In fact, look at the FDIC Monthly Special Alerts List. Month after month, it's filled with counterfeit check notices and stolen bank draft checks from banks all over the country. One of my theories is that there may be someone involved on the inside at check printing companies who is forging the counterfeit cashier's checks, many with bogus account numbers and bank routing numbers. Another theory I have is they can steal new checks right out of your mailbox when they arrive from your bank. Let these words forever ring in the back of your mind in any of your financial dealings going forward:

Banking Myth #2: "Bank drafts or cashiers checks clear the next day, right?"
Wrong again, another urban legend exposed. Propagating the problem further, many bank tellers, ignorant of their own bank's internal operations, are disseminating bad information to their customers, telling them the bank drafts clear in 24-48 hours. What really happens is that per the 1992 Federal Reserve Regulation CC, the bank MUST make the funds available in 48 hours, but the check has not cleared/bounced yet. Get the picture? Two different events, the bank makes funds available, then the check either clears or bounces about a week later, after bouncing around to incorrect Federal Reserve locations, or bank accounts. Virtually no one understands the big picture mechanics behind depositing checks, including tellers. The average bank draft or cashiers check can take 2 weeks to clear, not 2 days. Yet everyone thinks cashiers checks are as good as cash, and clear the next day. Bottom line, the scammers know the banking system well, and capitalize on this arbitrage quite well. The banks make the funds available in your bank account within 48 hours of your deposit, days before the cashiers check clears or bounces.

Hey, stupid!
Let me get this straight. You're going to take a check from a total stranger and just give him your car without doing even the most rudimentary of verifications? You're not going to check his drivers license? You're not going to verify the check with the bank first before giving him the keys to your car? Your going to believe his excuses that he can't make it to the bank? Can you say, car fraud! Let's turn you into a donkey.

The American consumers could really benefit by instant check clearing, that would put an end to all these counterfeiter playing the arbitrage games with the check clearing time. I guess the feds are unaware of auto fraud. This will bite you in the butt later when that cashier's check bounces 10 days after your deposit. You're in trouble now, you already spent the money after the bank made the funds available to you the next day after the deposit. You must wait 2 weeks after depositing a bank draft before you can use the money, even if the bank makes the funds available in your account. When that $11,000 check bounces, the bank will subtract $11,000 out of your account! You could be left with a negative balance, and your credit file could be damaged by this. This would negatively affect your ability to get credit in the future. People end up owing money to the bank because of this. We are also getting more reports of victims who get arrested as they try to cash these cashiers checks presented to them by the "buyer" of the used car the victim has up for sale. Obviously many banks and police detectives are not keeping up with the latest scams.

Scammers in this auto fraud posing as used car buyers use this 2 week check clearing delay, along with your religious belief in Myth#1 and Myth#2 above to steal your used car that you are trying to sell. They pay with you with a bogus bank draft that looks so real, it fools the tellers. You lowered your guard thinking the cashiers check was good as cash. Then the scammer drives home with your used car that you just "sold" to them. The bank doesn't even know it's a counterfeit check until it fails to clear. You don't believe me? That's why Barrett Jackson Auctions doesn't give the winning bidders the keys to their car for 21 days after the auction ends and bidders turn in their cashier's checks. They know they can get burnt on that Ferrari 360 they just sold to you, so they wait until they are sure those cashier's checks have cleared. I was at their West Palm Beach Auction and saw it all first hand.

The stupid banks are falsely accusing and blackballing the victims
We constantly get reports that victims of this scam get blackballed by the bank for depositing a fraudulent check, and some victims have been arrested too. Then some police are idiots and refuse to investigate their story, and arrest them. Bank America has wrongfully blackballed victims, accusing them of being criminals. Shame on them. Bank America, and other banks should be more aware of this scam. They are so stupid in fact, there are counterfeit Bank Of America cashier's checks going on right under their noses, as the photos above showed.

Just because someone "wired money" into your account, does not mean they wired money into your account!
What? What the heck did he just say? Some scammers tell you they wired the money, say $14,000 to your bank account, and "oops, we wired you too much, it was supposed to be $4000, but you know, typos happen." So they ask you to please wire them back the difference of $10,000. Most people know once money is wired into your account, it's good as cash, right? So if they say they wired $14,000 into your account, you check for it and see it, then there must be $14,000 there, right? WRONG! The scammer lied to you. He did not really wire money to you. What he really did was send a fake cashier's check to your bank to deposit into your account. What cracks me up is many banks are aware of this scam, yet your bank foolishly deposits the "check" into your account for you without your endorsement or permission. Since you are under the impression money was wired into your account, you wire the scammer the $10,000 that they "overpaid you." You even checked and saw there was $14k in your account because your bank posted the funds before the check bounces a few days from now. Unlucky you, their check bounces a week later. Why did this scam work? Because you gave them your bank account information, and you thought they wired you cash, which they did not. It also worked because your bank is run by a bunch of morons.

The above scenario hits a lot of small businesses. You should direct your bank NOT to allow any paper check deposits that are not deposited by you.

Don't ever in a million years give anyone your bank account information to "wire you money". They will create phony checks using your account number and drain your account dry. No one needs that information ever. Don't ever let anyone you don't know and love attempt to wire you money. Don't email your account number or password information to anyone, INCLUDING your own bank. Some people get emails claming they are from their bank's customer service team and tells them to go log into a site that is not really their bank, but looks like it. Then they enter their account information, so the scammers now have it.

Here's some good "check fraud prevention". Assume that the cashiers check and all the information on it are fake until you've proven it to be real. Wait a minute, I hear some Disney music! I'm no fool, no sir re, I'm going save $10,003!

Tips for avoiding the counterfeit cashier's check fraud:

• Don't accept third party checks! Businesses don't take them and neither should you. Of the checks we captured, once was written off an account for a college in Canada, and others from Credit Unions.
• Ask that the cashier's check be drawn on a bank local to you, preferably your own bank. Then you can easily call the local issuing bank to verify if the account number is valid, and if the check is good. Don't even trust the phone numbers on the check, call 411 to get the bank's phone number.
• Avoid escrows with the word "Bank" in their name. It's all a Jedi mind trick. Escrows are not banks, they are escrow companies who use banks to hold their money. Calling themselves a bank when they are not one is a felony.
• Don't bid on any auctions that don't show the other bidders' names. The scammers do this so that we cannot warn victims when we stumble across their auction scams.
• Close the deal during banking hours so you can verify the check. The heck with the "buyer's" schedule, do it on your schedule, not theirs. Forget about their excuses, it must be done this way, unless you can call the bank and they verify the check. Get the name of the bank employee who verified it. Have them review with you all the security features and watermarks of the check to determine if it's real.
• Always check the driver's license of any buyer. Make sure the photo matches the person. One of our site visitors who got scammed admitted to me she did not check the guy's license, and is kicking herself in the butt for it. If they give excuses and no license, assume they have no license and DO NOT SELL THEM THE CAR. If they kill someone in a wreck, you could be liable for selling the car to an unlicensed driver. Car dealers check your license to prevent car fraud when they sell you a car, and so should you. Keep in mind, they can still provide you with a fake license.
• Ask the buyer to meet you at the bank that issued the cashier's check and close the deal there. First, you get Mr. Scum on video if his bank check turns out to be fraudulent. Second, the bank can tell you right now if the check is good, since it's their account. I suggest you cash the bank draft right there, and deposit the cash into your account. That way the check has been cleared, and the money is in your account and can't be removed by anyone. If the buyer refuses to meet you at the bank, it's because they don't want to end up on video.
• You take a risk accepting an out of state cashier's check. If a seller from outside the area is coming to buy your car, have them get a cashier's check from a bank local to you.
• Read the Federal Reserve Board's Guide To Check Fraud. (PDF File).
• Don't get involved with foreign buyers. Your car will sell to someone in the U.S. This will eliminate a lot of risk for auto fraud.
• On a few counterfeit checks shown above, the computerized MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) numbers at the bottom of the checks are sometimes slightly crooked. A real check would never be crooked, because the optical machines have very tight requirements on the metallic paint content, the font size, the print quality, etc. The MICR spec is a very strict spec, and few printers are capable of doing it correctly.
• Sometimes counterfeit cashiers checks are stolen from a bank, so it may be a real check, but it might also be stolen.
• Most banks have fancy cashier's checks with fancy borders. If you receive a check with no fancy border design, it could be a store bought phony.
• Look for signs of obvious fraud: MICR account number at the bottom of the check having an account # 00099990005. That just does not look like a real account number to me, does it look like one to you?
• Try to get the buyer's full name, address and phone number. Call them on that number. Verify it on phone number lookup sites.
• Before you accept a check from the buyer, ask them "Is this check good?" Ask them while in the bank in front of a teller witness and on video. The reason for this is if they are arrested, you now have them on another serious charge called "uttering a forged instrument". The police call it uttering for short. Oklahoma's Court of Criminal Appeals for example has defined "utter" to mean "to offer as genuine." This is good for you because uttering is a separate crime from the crime of forging the check. I suggested this to my friends who owned a stereo shop, and a guy who uttered a bad check to them ended up doing 2 years in Florida jail. What an utter waste.
• All cashier's checks should have a perforated edge on at least one side. This is because their checks feed off a roll through the bank's printer. If you get any check that is not perforated on at least one side, the Federal Reserve Board says that it is most likely a bad check.
• Have your bank flag your account so that no checks can ever be mailed in and deposited into your account on your behalf without your endorsement, knowledge, or permission, and they must verify your signature on file.
• It goes without saying, don't ever accept ANY personal checks. Stamp out auto fraud! Cash is king, though, just check for counterfeit money.

The Nigerian Scams (The 419 Scams, and others)

For these scams Click Here to read our Nigerian Scams Chapter

The information on this site is Copyright © 1996-2010 ConsumerNet, Inc. This site is solely for your personal use. You may link to these pages or print them out for your own personal use, but no parts of these pages can be reproduced, sold, or transmitted in any form without explicit written permission. By copying or paraphrasing the intellectual property on this site, you're automatically signing a binding contract and agreeing to pay a fee of $10,000 per instance per week payable immediately.