Thread: Some dick tried to scam me with Tool tickets

This is one of the emails I got:

From: TNT Customer Service [customerservice@group-tnt.com]
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 11:28 AM
To: J
Subject: TNT Transaction Details - Payment Instructions


Please use this Number
to track your package.
*GE25501960GB*

Important TNT Payment Instructions/Shipment Details
Please read the Instructions carefully.
Reference Number: 25501960**
Click here to track your package: Tracking


Dear TNT Customer,

We have your package in our custody.

Description of goods: (4) TOOL Tickets
Sender of package ( Seller ): Carrie Porter
Receiver of package ( Buyer ): Jeanne S. Schwarz

Delivery Address:

Address: 12206 Bowling Street
City / State: Cumberland / Maryland
Zip(City Code): 21502
Country: USA

Delivery Type: TNT Express Overnight Delivery - After the Payment is received and verified by TPG - TNT
Amount to be paid by the Buyer: US $600.00

Important Note: The payment must not be made using Western Union's Send Money Online Service due to the high Credit Card fraud risk. We will not confirm any payments made online.
The Payment must be made at one of Western Union's Agent Locations, in person by the Buyer.

The Payment must be made through:

** Western Union Money Transfer - for amounts up to US $4,999,99 / £ 2,800.00
Money Orders or Checks - for amounts between US $5,000.00 and US $7,500.00 / £2,801.00 - £ 4,500.00
Direct Bank to Bank Money Transfer - for amounts up to US $10,000.00 / £ 5,600.00

IMPORTANT** : The TNT Payment Policy for this transaction is through Western Union Money Transfer - for amounts up to US $4,999.99 / £ 2,800.00. Your payment cannot be lost in the mail, like money orders or checks.

Receiver of the Payment - TNT Agent - Instructions

You must go to a Western Union Agent Location and make a Money Transfer to the Name of the TNT Agent who is responsible with this transaction - George Walters.
In order to complete the Money Transfer you will need the Payment Details of our TNT Agent:






First Name: George
Last Name: Walters
Address: 419 Bury New Road
City: Manchester
Zip(City Code): M25 1AA
Country: United Kingdom

History : George Walters is TNT Agent, TPG Logistics UK. Since joining TNT-TPG in 1991, George has held a number of senior roles. He has led several financial projects and established sound commercial and financial control policies. In 2001, George was promoted to his current position, where he takes responsibility for TNT Logistics UK’s commercial, accounting and financial activities.

With these information you must fill in the Western Union " To Send Money Form " and complete the money transfer to the Name of the TNT Agent.
After you complete the payment you need to send the Payment Information for verification to our Payment Department at their e-mail address: TNT On-Line Payment Service
The Payment Information that you need to send to us for verification are:
- MTCN - Money Transfer Control Number
- Sender's Name and Sender's Address
- Amount Transferred

Payment Privacy Policy :

1.The Payment will be sent to the Seller by TNT only after you receive the package, check the merchandise and if you are completely satisfied with it, you will then instruct us to release the Payment to the Seller.
2.TNT acts as a third party holding at the same time the merchandise and the Payment.
3. After the merchandise is received by the Buyer, the Buyer will have up to 21 days depending on the nature of the merchandise to review the merchandise.
For transaction No. 25501960 the inspection time is 5 ( five ) business days.
a) If the Buyer decided to keep the merchandise the Buyer will instruct TNT to release the funds to the Seller.
b) If for any reason the Buyer does not want to keep the merchandise, the Buyer will ask TNT to be refunded.
The refund procedure is very simple, the Buyer will receive the money from TNT through Bank to Bank Wire Transfer, or by Check or by Western Union Money Transfer.
The refund method is at the Buyer's choice.



Thank you for using TNT
Richard McGregor-TNT Customer Department

Manchester Depot
419 Bury New Road
Manchester
M25 1AA
Customer Department
General Manager: Robert Kay
Email: TNT On-Line Customer Service

Unfortunately I started the conversation with a work email address, so I didn't want to get too carried away. You guys are welcome to have at him though.

Tonights tickets in MPLS were going for over $1000 on Ebay. The original lot sold out in less than ONE MINUTE! 93X (radio station) was warning people not to buy from scalpers... Tool apparently is making a return run here in the fall.

Yep, it's totally crazy. They say not to buy from scalpers, but I swear the scalpers are the only ones who have tickets. These are small venues, yet there are literally hundreds of tickets being sold by scalpers for each show. I wouldn't be surprised if Ticketmaster let certain businesses buy in advance for an extra fee.

I just wanted to thank you for posting your experience with this person. Google search is a wonderful thing. I received almost an identical email from Carrie Porter regarding Miami Heat tickets:

"Hello

The tickets are still available. The price is 1000US$ for all 4.
I need to sell them asap because I am not in the US and I will not be going to the game.
I am now in Manchester, United Kingdom.
I will pay for an overnight delivery so if we both move fast you can receive the tickets in less than 1 day.
The tickets were bought by my company as a bonus on a deal for a customer from the US. Unfortunatelly the deal did not go through and now we are stuck with the tickets. I would hate to see the tickets go to waste. We can have the deal asap.
Obviously we need a way to complete this deal that will allow us to make sure we receive what we are after.
I have found a way for us to complete the deal safely and fast, and in this way you will receive the tickets in less than 1 day, if you move fast as well.
The solution is provided by a international company called TNT which is similar to Fedex, DHL or UPS, which will handle the payment and delivery of the tickets.
With this procedure I will only receive the payment for the tickets after you will receive them and see that they are genuine.
Please click on the link below to the TNT website to see how we can complete the deal safely and fast directly from the website of the company where the procedure is explained.

http://express-manchester-tnt.com/ov...s/details.html

Like I said, I will pay for an overnight delivery so you will receive them in time.

Let me know what you think

Carrie"



Sounded shady as hell, so a simple google search led me to this thread and a couple others.

Thank you Goofus.

I almost fell for this! I am so glad I found your story. I recieved the exact same series of e-mails....only the names have changed.


here is one of them.
Delivery Type: TNT Express Overnight Delivery - After the Payment is received and verified by TPG - TNT
Amount to be paid by the Buyer: US $400.00

Important Note: The payment must not be made using Western Union's Send Money Online Service due to the high Credit Card fraud risk. We will not confirm any payments made online.
The Payment must be made at one of Western Union's Agent Locations, in person by the Buyer.

The Payment must be made through:

** Western Union Money Transfer - for amounts up to US $4,999,99 / £ 2,800.00
Money Orders or Checks - for amounts between US $5,000.00 and US $7,500.00 / £2,801.00 - £ 4,500.00
Direct Bank to Bank Money Transfer - for amounts up to US $10,000.00 / £ 5,600.00

IMPORTANT** : The TNT Payment Policy for this transaction is through Western Union Money Transfer - for amounts up to US $4,999.99 / £ 2,800.00. Your payment cannot be lost in the mail, like money orders or checks.

Receiver of the Payment - TNT Agent - Instructions

You must go to a Western Union Agent Location and make a Money Transfer to the Name of the TNT Agent who is responsible with this transaction - David Fleming.
In order to complete the Money Transfer you will need the Payment Details of our TNT Agent:






First Name: David
Last Name: Fleming
Address: 419 Bury New Road
City: Manchester
Zip(City Code): M25 1AA
Country: United Kingdom

History : David Fleming is TNT Agent, TPG Logistics UK. Since joining TNT-TPG in 1991, David has held a number of senior roles. He has led several financial projects and established sound commercial and financial control policies. In 2001, David was promoted to his current position, where he takes responsibility for TNT Logistics UK’s commercial, accounting and financial activities.

With these information you must fill in the Western Union " To Send Money Form " and complete the money transfer to the Name of the TNT Agent.
After you complete the payment you need to send the Payment Information for verification to our Payment Department at their e-mail address: TNT On-Line Payment Service
The Payment Information that you need to send to us for verification are:
- MTCN - Money Transfer Control Number
- Sender's Name and Sender's Address
- Amount Transferred

Payment Privacy Policy :

1.The Payment will be sent to the Seller by TNT only after you receive the package, check the merchandise and if you are completely satisfied with it, you will then instruct us to release the Payment to the Seller.
2.TNT acts as a third party holding at the same time the merchandise and the Payment.
3. After the merchandise is received by the Buyer, the Buyer will have up to 21 days depending on the nature of the merchandise to review the merchandise.
For transaction No. 65501987 the inspection time is 5 ( five ) business days.
a) If the Buyer decided to keep the merchandise the Buyer will instruct TNT to release the funds to the Seller.
b) If for any reason the Buyer does not want to keep the merchandise, the Buyer will ask TNT to be refunded.
The refund procedure is very simple, the Buyer will receive the money from TNT through Bank to Bank Wire Transfer, or by Check or by Western Union Money Transfer.
The refund method is at the Buyer's choice.



Thank you for using TNT
Richard McGregor-TNT Customer Department

Manchester Depot
419 Bury New Road
Manchester
M25 1AA
Customer Department
General Manager: Robert Kay
Email: TNT On-Line Customer Service

© 1996-2006. TNT. All rights reserved.e

I know this is an older thread, but the Consumerist (www.consumerist.com) just linked to this article regarding this same scam.

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/...tor-178720.php

I guess they wont quit

But since consumerist wont let me comment (no invite), I just thought I would share what I found:

If you whois express-manchester-tnt.com, you get this information:

Registrant Info:
Community FCU
Jeanne S. Schwarz
12206 Bowling Street
Cumberland, MD 21502
US
Phone: +1.3017292024
Fax..: none
Email: angelina_miller70@yahoo.com


If you google the phone number, you get this:

Phonebook results for (301)729-2024
Edward J Schwarz, (301) 729-2024, 12206 Bowling St, Cumberland, MD 21502 Google Maps Yahoo! Maps MapQuest

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

And that phone number identifies as a Verizon phone number, so that's probably a land line.

NPA/NXX (Area code and Prefix) match using my lookup tool (http://www.unf.net/npa)

NPA: 301 NXX: 729
Rate Center: CUMBERLAND
Company: VERIZON MARYLAND, INC.
State: MD

And the property is indeed owned by this guy:

http://sdatcert3.resiusa.org/rp_rewr...chType=Account

And if you look on the whois information, it says community FCU. there is a First Peoples Community FCU in that town, yet no Schwarz works there. (http://www.firstpeoples.com/)

Now the technical details I found:

www.express-manchester-tnt.com has an IP address of 216.251.43.98. That belongs to www.megawebservers.com, which is based in Canada.

if you go to www.express-manchester-tnt.com - you get redirected to the real people in the UK. Anything under this subdirectory: http://express-manchester-tnt.com/ov....transactions/ is hosted there.

They used a microsoft product to modify these webpages. (see the meta tag: content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2802" name=GENERATOR).

There's a contact us option, it sends an email to CustomerService@group-tnt.com. Group-TNT.com is owned by:

Registration Service Provided By: MSN Personal Address
Contact: personal_address@css.one.microsoft.com
Visit: http://support.msn.com/contactus.asp...ersonalAddress

Domain name: group-tnt.com

Registrant Contact:
CHARLES FURRY
CHARLES FURRY (Customerservice@group-tnt.com)
+1.9092441910
Fax: none
23461 CONTENINTAL DR
CAYON LAKE, CA 92587
US

and hosted via hotmail. It redirects to a TNT site when you go to it via a web browser, but the email goes to hotmail.

The transaction tracking is obviously fake. Simple PHP file to check for that one number, and then redirect to http://express-manchester-tnt.com/ov.../25501960.html. If you look in that file: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Zzzzz/Desktop/15501918/files/1x1.gif

Bad HTML code == Microsoft Frontpage probably. I wish they used their real name as their login, instead of Zzzzz.

--

So this scam involves more than one person. It's probably some online kiddie group. They're smart, but not super smart. I would be curious to find out if Ed Schwarz is really the crook, a victim, or someone's dad. My guess is it's someone's dad.

Sorry for all the boring details, i've had too many friends ripped off craigslist. I hope this information helps someone.

Andy Goodwin
(my not so updated blog: http://www.unf.net)

Remind me not to **** off andyg.

Originally Posted by DarquePervert

Remind me not to **** off andyg.

Hahaha!

Nah, I just get tired of people scamming. A friend of mine's dad got ripped off on craigslist over $100. The money doesnt make me mad, its the fact that his dad is new to technology, and now a memorable experience for him is getting ripped off on craigslist.

That, and if you're going to scam, do it right. Dont put all your info up for everyone to find, or setup a corporation. Hell, that might even make it legal (kidding)

Andy
(www.unf.net)