Is this some sort of scam?

[photographs42]

I just received the following e-mail. It came through my web site so everything before the line….Message:…is normal. I have never shipped overseas and a couple of things bother me.

First, the “Dear Sir or Madam,”. It seams strange that they are considering a purchase from me w/o knowing my gender.

Second is the use of the term “store”. If you visit my web site there is no hint of my having a store but maybe this is a translation thing.

Finally, it seams odd that they don’t tell me what they are interested in. If they want matted prints, that’s probably no problem, but if they want large framed pieces it is.

Has anyone received a similar e-mail? Do you think it’s some sort of scam? If I respond to the questions, what am I opening myself up to?

Or is it legit?
Jerome


*******************************************************************************
Name: Brian Simanjuntak
email: service@multivisionplus.net
Subject: ship overseas to Indonesia
Remote User:
HTTP User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)

Message:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to place an order from your store, but before I put My order here, I would like to know about the answers of these questions below :

- Do you ship overseas to Indonesia ?
Which Courier service that you used for overseas order, DHL or FedEx ?
- Can I use My Card for the payment ? Visa, Mastercard or AMEX ?

Once I get those information, then I will send you the order details.

Please respone asap regarding this matter.

Thanks,
Regard,
Brian Simanjuntak.
MULTIVISION, Tbk.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Given that the e-mail is so vague that they don't say what they want to purchase and that "multivisionplus.net" is just some warehoused domain name that doesn't have any website associated with it, I'd say it's some sort of scam.

[wfwhitaker]

Scam indeed. Your response will only be their foot in the door. Stay well away from it.

[Ed Pierce]

Undoubtably a scam. I received a similar one a few years ago and responded to it...I can't remember now exactly how it worked, but it was a ripoff. Since then I've received dozens if not hundreds of these.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

This is a well known and old scam. They might want to try two things, one for you to ship them prints after they give you a credit card number which has been stolen, or they will tell you they need to send a check or for you to charge more from the credit card and if you could "please" send them the extra money back with the prints. Either way you are scammed. If you have nothing to do at the moment, I would say play along and waste their time as long as you can. It might be fun for you... :)

[Steve Hamley]

replies might get you a lot more spam - they then know someone's at least listening.

Steve

[Michael Gordon]

If you have nothing to do at the moment, I would say play along and waste their time as long as you can. It might be fun for you... :)

Here's some good ideas for baiting and fun!
http://www.whatsthebloodypoint.com/p2.php
http://www.419eater.com/html/baiting.htm

[Joseph O'Neil]

Yepper -it's a scam. I get about 20 of these a day anymore. Ignore and move on

joe

[photographs42]

Rats! I was afraid it wasn’t legit. And I had big plans for the money I was planning to make off this guy.

Thanks everyone for confirming what I was already pretty sure of.

Jerome

[Kirk Keyes]

http://www.419eater.com/html/baiting.htm

My favorite is the Ebola Monkey Man site! http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

[BrianShaw]

Rats! I was afraid it wasn’t legit. And I had big plans for the money I was planning to make off this guy.

Thanks everyone for confirming what I was already pretty sure of.
Jerome,
I'm mostly with the group in the thoughts that this may not be a legit offer, but have you tried contacting the guy to ascertain for yourself if it's a scam attempt or not?

[photographs42]

Jerome,
I'm mostly with the group in the thoughts that this may not be a legit offer, but have you tried contacting the guy to ascertain for yourself if it's a scam attempt or not?

Well, that was my initial thought, but it just looks too strange to me. I don’t have a lot of responses to my site but when I do they usually indicate a particular image or images that they are interested in and this guy doesn’t even know what I sell at my “store”. Plus, I did a search of his name and his company and didn’t come up with anything to encourage me. I get more than enough crap in my e-mail box and I don’t need to invite more, which is what I’m afraid would happen if I respond.

I’m not really worried about getting scammed because I wouldn’t think of sending anything without having the money in the bank on a deal like this but I don’t want to get on a patsy list either. Maybe if I had more time to fool around with it I would see what happens but I just don’t need any more hassles.
Jerome

[BrianShaw]

Jerome. See http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=19960

I now agree... it's a scam. Forget about dreams of an early retirement from a huge sale of prints to the largest hotel owner in all of Indonesia. :(

[paulr]

why don't we put our heads together and find a way to scam the scammer?

for inspiration check out http://www.hot.ee/ppppowerbook/

[Joseph O'Neil]

why don't we put our heads together and find a way to scam the scammer?

for inspiration check out http://www.hot.ee/ppppowerbook/


Or beter yet - check out this site

http://www.419eater.com/

joe

[paulr]

that's pretty good, but did you read the p-p-p-powerbook details? these guys managed to scam the scammer out of hundreds of dollars in import tarrifs, and sent him a powerbook that they made out cardboard.

[Kirk Keyes]

It wasn't cardboard, it was a real notebook. The kind you bind looseleaf papers in when you are in school.

I really like where he drew the data ports on the spine of the notebook. And especially the one labeled "who knows"!

Beautiful!