jpd wrote:I won an item on an auction site on 07/16/07 item location UK. The seller instructed me to do a money transfer and use tnt as a delivery and escrow serevice. Can I do some kind of sting operation and bust these frauds? I will try to delay the process to give time to devise a plan.
I encourage others to investigate any escrow offers.
You can't publicly announce and plan a sting operation.
The scammers read these boards.
The suthorities in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter, aren't going to go after scammers who intend to pick up a Moneygram or Western Union transfer.
If the scammer tells you to send the transfer to lets say London, he can pick it up anywhere in the UK.
There are literally thousands of those transfers made daily.
The trick is to stop the transfer from its source.
The problem is Western Union and Moneygram.
Neither are as dilligent as they should be in stopping this type of fraud.
They may claim to be helping to stop these transfers, and in some instances do, but they don't instruct their vendors (supermarkets and convenience stores for example) to inform their customers of the fraud potential when using their service.
The victims are not made aware of the fact that its not a safe way to send funds for internet purchases.
I know for a fact that Western Union has allowed 22 transfers to be made to a scammer using the same name but several different cities.
You would think it would set off some type of red flag to Western Union, but it didn't.
Western Union was sued by 46 staes because they allow fraud to persist with their service.
reference:
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/n ... 4a_05.html