New Twist on Old Scam?
A new twist on an old scam is found in this story.
Here’s the usual scam: You get contacted by someone who wants to buy something from you. They’ll send you a money order for more than the amount. You are supposed to send change (a lot of it) back to the buyer.
But, yeah, it’s a scam, so the money order is bogus. The bank finds out after a week or two and comes after you for the money they gave you — money which is, of course, long gone.
Another variation, of course, is the one where you are hired to handle transactions for a company. They send you the checks, you cash them, and send a money order back to your bosses. The checks are bogus, and the bank…. well, you get the picture from there.
Only now you have someone paid a grossly inflated price for a database and who didn’t have to send any money back. Someone was running a scam.
The question, of course, is “Who is running this scam?” Without looking at the headers from the emails that were exchanged it’s probably going to be impossible to say.
MickC @ December 19, 2006