Ireland & UK Auto Payments Fraud- I'm victim as well..

[lightfair]

Hello Nick;

glad you found us in time. This particular case is interesting because it has one really new element for me - impersonating a government agency.

--
Benjamin Manser - Air Corps Pilot
Army email: benjamin.manser@royalairforces.com
Personal email: benjmanser@gmail.com
Royal Australian Air Force
Aircraft Type: F/A-18 Hornet Fighter
--

It's not a very convincing footer.

Well - yes and no. royalairforces.com looks at first glance legit (you can call up http://royalairforces.com/ directly). However in reality it is just a COPY of http://www.defence.gov.au. When looking at the WHOIS data we can see the following:

Domain name: ROYALAIRFORCES.COM
Name Server: ns1.surf-town.net
Name Server: ns2.surf-town.net
Name Server: ns3.surf-town.net
Creation Date: 2010.06.25
Expiration Date: 2011.06.25

Status: DELEGATED

Registrant ID: BGEACPB-RU
Registrant Name: JOSH VICK
Registrant Organization: JOSH VICK
Registrant Street1: 5017 JACKSON LN
Registrant City: BRENTWOOD
Registrant Postal Code: 37027
Registrant Country: US

Administrative, Technical Contact
Contact ID: BGEACPB-RU
Contact Name: JOSH VICK
Contact Organization: JOSH VICK
Contact Street1: 5017 JACKSON LN
Contact City: BRENTWOOD
Contact Postal Code: 37027
Contact Country: US
Contact Phone: +1 232 4672772
Contact E-mail: paddymcj2@yahoo.com

Registrar: Regional Network Information Center, JSC dba RU-CENTER

So royalairforces.com was registered just last June by an individual claiming to come from the US; and it is hosted on a server from a company in Denmark.

I'll send out some information to get this one killed hopefully quickly.

[photocurator]

Hi, I'm in Sydney, Australia

'Fighter Pilot' Benjamin Manser still at it. This is his reply to a question about car registration remaining on a vehicle yesterday. Reply came same day but referred to my email 'a few days ago' and did not address the original question. Asking me where I was located seemed odd. Suspicious, I found your excellent site. Thanks! I have also informed the site selling the vehicle.

Hi,
You emailed about my 2007 Toyota corolla few days ago, I couldn't reply sooner because your email arrived in my junk folder. The car it's up for sale at $11900 now and I believe it's a good price for a car with 28600 km and no accidents. Let me know if you're still looking and please tell me where are you located

--
Benjamin Manser - Air Corps Pilot
Army email: benjamin.manser@royalairforces.com
Personal email: benjmanser@gmail.com


Photocurator
Royal Australian Air Force
Aircraft Type: F/A-18 Hornet Fighter

[lightfair]

Hi photocurator,

it's good to know you didn't fall for this. Could you do us (and your Australian fellows) a favour? Please contact the webmaster of defence.gov.au (InternetWebmaster at defence.gov.au) and let him know about this situation. My own report wasn't accepted (it was considered spam; go figure...).

[andjela]

I am in Australia
Things I found suspicious
he replied same day and this is from his email "You emailed about my 2007 Toyota corolla few days ago"
when pressed reply it went to gmail account not air force

same story he didn't have phone number so I contacted him via email and this is what he wrote:

FIRST EMAIL

Hi,
You emailed about my 2007 Toyota corolla few days ago, I couldn't reply sooner because your email arrived in my junk folder. The car it's up for sale at $11900 now and I believe it's a good price for a car with 28600 km and no accidents. Let me know if you're still looking and please tell me where are you located


--
Benjamin Manser - Air Corps Pilot
Army email: benjamin.manser@royalairforces.com
Personal email: benjmanser@gmail.com
Royal Australian Air Force
Aircraft Type: F/A-18 Hornet Fighter

SECOND EMAIL
My car is still available and it has absolutely no problems. I'm selling because I'm a pilot for the Royal Australian Air Force and I'm going to Afghanistan for 6 months and I intend to buy a new car when I'll return home. This is a mission of peace and establish order on the streets of Kabul. The deployment is in exactly 15 days from now and currently I'm in a military base in Queensland together with my regiment for final instructions and the car is here with me. Anyway, if you want to buy it I can take 3-4 days permission and bring it to your address and make the deal. My car is very nice, it has comfortable seats and very stable at high speeds and it comes with full service history and new tyres changed in May so, let me know if you wanna buy it because there are few potential buyers who want to buy it too.
P.S. I apologies for all this information provided, I hope I've answered most of the questions you have in mind, in case you have any other questions, feel free to contact me but .... due to my job and trainings every day.... it might be a delay in reply so, I apologies in advance for this also. One more thing, there is also no money owe on my car

Cheers,
Benjamin


--
Benjamin Manser - Air Corps Pilot
Army email: benjamin.manser@royalairforces.com
Personal email: benjmanser@gmail.com
Royal Australian Air Force
Aircraft Type: F/A-18 Hornet Fighter

[andjela]

Third email after I asked if he has contact no and what would be the best price

I've spoke to my superiors and I can take a 3-4 days permission to bring the car but I don't want to take this permission and ... maybe come for nothing, I mean that there is a risk of coming to you and...you simply don't show up and I don't want to be embarrassed because there will not be a second chance for me to take a second permission since I have trainings every day and the departure is knocking at the door. One of my mates advised me to use a third party escrow company for this sale because of the distance and also because of the risks involved.
He used the following escrow company: www.au-carpay.com for a car purchase on carsales website and he was very pleased. All you have to do is to register at their website and then I need your user name so I can set up the transaction. You can read how escrow works here: www.au-carpay.com/howitworks.php. I can give you one day to test the car at any inspection service you wish and only if you decide to keep it, they will release the money to me so, I believe this is the safest way. Let me know your decision because there is another person who wants to buy it and I need to know which way to go. I'll bring the car with the log book and we can sign the papers right away as for the price...$10,000 is the final



--
Benjamin Manser - Air Corps Pilot
Army email: benjamin.manser@royalairforces.com
Personal email: benjmanser@gmail.com
Royal Australian Air Force
Aircraft Type: F/A-18 Hornet Fighter

[photocurator]

Dear Lightfair, I've contacted webmaster @defence.gov.au for you. They suggested registering complaint on the official Australian Competition & Consumer Commission site
http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/ind ... scam#h2_10
I've done so and await Benjamin Manser's imminent arrest and execution...
Probably not. Our government can't even get itself elected.
Photocurator

[justhere]

I think Mr Manser has quite a few hooks out here in Austrlia. See below re a Mercedes C180 on carsales.com.au. When I contacted carsales.com.au regarding my suspicion they reverted that the email address checkes out and the only issues was that the zip code was wrong but since it is updated not the add will still be shown.

Hi mate,
My car is still available and it has absolutely no problems. I'm selling because I'm a pilot for the Royal Australian Air Force and I'm going to Afghanistan for 6 months and I intend to buy a new car when I'll return home. This is a mission of peace and establish order on the streets of Kabul. The deployment is in exactly 15 days from now and currently I'm in a military base in Northern Territory together with my regiment for final instructions and the car is here with me. Anyway, if you want to buy it I can take 3-4 days permission and bring it to your address and make the deal. My car is very nice, it has comfortable seats and very stable at high speeds and it comes with full service history and new tyres changed in May so, let me know if you wanna buy it because there are few potential buyers who want to buy it too.
P.S. I apologies for all this information provided, I hope I've answered most of the questions you have in mind, in case you have any other questions, feel free to contact me but .... due to my job and trainings every day.... it might be a delay in reply so, I apologies in advance for this also. One more thing, there is also no money owe on my car and RWC can also be provided

Cheers,
Benjamin


--
Benjamin Manser - Air Corps Pilot
Army email: benjamin.manser@royalairforces.com
Personal email: benjmanser@gmail.com
Royal Australian Air Force
Aircraft Type: F/A-18 Hornet Fighter

[andjela]

I don't think that he is in Australia he is just well informed.. he is replying to everyone as few days ago probably because of time difference

[photocurator]

The firm originally advertising the Toyota vehicle has removed the advertisement.
BUYER ALERT
Dear Carsales Network Customer,
Removed or Suspended Advertisement
You recently sent an enquiry on the following item:

AD ID Number: 9067625
Description: 2007 Toyota Corolla ASCENT ZRE152R
Price: $11900

Please be aware that this advertisement has been suspended or withdrawn from display on the Carsales Network (this includes Carsales.com.au, Carpoint.com.au and our member websites).
We withdraw or suspend advertisements if we consider that the advertisement may:
be illegal or fraudulent;
infringe the intellectual property rights of a person; or
otherwise be in breach of our Advertising Terms and Conditions

Photocurator

[photocurator]

Four hours later, this mimic email arrived

Dear Carsales.com.au user,
We sent you an email regarding the authenticity of the following ad "2007 Toyota Corolla ASCENT ZRE152R" on Carsales Network (this includes Carsales.com.au, Carpoint.com.au and our member websites). Carsales.com.au Support Team want to let you know the we have removed the ad from our website because of the wrong zip code posted by the seller. We have verified the ad manually and contacted the person who posted this ad and we must let you know that the ad will be marked as "Genuine" and re-posted on our website as soon as possible. You can continue to contact the seller of the ad "2007 Toyota Corolla ASCENT ZRE152R" because the authenticity of the seller : "benjmanser@gmail.com" has been verified.

Sure!

Photocurator