The Scam Alert Blog

Clown Internet Scam – An Internet Scam is Currently Targeting Clowns and Other Entertainers
By Tom Raymond

I am the victim of an internet scam. It is very hard to write that sentence, but it’s necessary in order to warn my fellow clowns, magicians and other entertainers, and to prevent them from being taken for $2,800.00 like I was. Here is what happened to me, and how you can avoid it.

I run the clown-ministry.com web site, and I perform as a clown at both ministry and secular events. Due to the popularity of the clown-ministry.com web site (do a search on Google .com for ‘clown’ and it’s the 7th site listed, for example) I’m easily found by people — for both good and bad reasons. For instance, last year my wife Ellen and I taught clowning for a week at the Seventh Day Adventists’ national Camporee — we’re not Adventists, and don’t know many people who are, but we were found by them & hired primarily due to the popularity of the web site. We’ve been invited to perform in clown at a conference in Canada, performed at company picnics, etc. well out of our neck of the wood, and so on. Please understand that this isn’t bragging; it’s setting the stage for what happened in the scam.

We were contacted via e-mail by someone purportedly from Cincinnati, Ohio, who wanted to fly my wife & I to Cincinnati to perform at a birthday party. Since we’d had similar things happen in the past, that didn’t set off any alarms in my head. In addition, I knew that there are entertainers such as Jennifer Lopez who will sing “Happy Birthday” at your party, for a fee of $50,000.00; I’m no J Lo, and my singing is atrocious, but I charge a lot less as well

I did an internet search on that person (I’m not using the name he gave, since there’s a criminal investigation as well as FBI investigation going on — no joke), and found someone by that name in Cincinnati, Ohio, a “regional celebrity” so to speak. So, it didn’t seem incredulous that he would have the money to hire us as well as pay round trip air fare. It’s now obvious that it was merely someone using that person’s name to “hook” us.

At that point, my wife & I were still inclined to think of this as a prank, but even so we replied to the email with a quotation for our services, politely and professionally. We were joking with each other that this had to be a prank; after all, why would someone hire us when there are hundreds of clowns in the Cincinnati area? Unless it was someone with money to burn who wanted to buy “bragging rights,” it made no sense. So we forgot about it, until the person replied back, hiring us.

We still considered it a joke, until we received a check in the mail, for $2,800.00. MUCH more that we had quoted our services for! We thought that, maybe, the excess was to pay for round trip air fare and accommodations, but even so that was far too much. We e-mailed the person back, explaining that we had received $2,800.00 via check. His response is what should have tipped us off to the scam.

He replied that, since he was out of the country on a business trip, he had his personal assistant send the checks out for the party, and the assistant had made a mistake, combining with our check one for $2,300.00 for the photographer from the United Kingdom that he was flying in to photograph the party. Would we be so kind as to send him those funds via Western Union?

Like an idiot, I said “yes.” The check had been deposited and cleared (I thought), and I didn’t want to hold onto money that didn’t belong to me. So, I went to the local Western Union office and sent $2,300.00 to an individual in the United Kingdom. This didn’t set off any red flags (although it should have) since it seemed like the type of silly mistake I’ve seen people do before. What happened next, though, set off every red flag in my head, and then some.

Days later, I received another email from the man supposedly from Cincinnati. According to him, his mother had an advanced form of lung cancer, and needed an immediate operation. He wanted me to send the remaining money to his mother’s doctor in Nigeria and he would reschedule the party later. When I heard the word ‘Nigeria’ I had icicles running up and down my spine. Nigeria is famous, in the internet world, for being home to the most prolific scam of all time. You’ve likely received spam email about it. In a nutshell, it involves the widow of some minister or rich person, who is trying to smuggle their immense fortune out of the country before it’s seized by her dead husband’s adversaries; in exchange for letting them use your bank account, they will give you (various amounts of money, if not enough to make you filthy rich, at least enough to make you dingy). Of course, no money comes out, but these people proceed to rob your bank account of every penny.

So, when I heard that, fear clutched at my heart. Besides, why would someone rich enough to hire me (and fly a photographer in from the UK) need my money? The answer is, he didn’t; he was just trying to bilk me of more money before his ruse was exposed.

You see, when I initially deposited the $2,800.00 check, it appeared to clear; it was then several more days before he requested the $2,300 to his photographer, and nearly a week (from the time I deposited the check) until I complied with that. 11 days after the check was initially deposited, it came back ‘funds denied.’ The bank then debited $2,800.00 from my checking account — which didn’t contain that much, of course. So, I’m out $2,800.00, the crook (or his accomplice in the UK) received $2,300.00. What’s the moral of the story?

The purpose of this is two-fold: to warn my fellow clowns, and to point out the red flags that I should have seen, and what I should have done.

1. Bogus email address: there are many ‘free’ email sites available, where anyone can set up a free email account. Spammers, and many others use these to hide behind. Never trust information coming from a ‘free’ account.
2. Depositing the check: I should have deposited the check, and then waited 2 weeks to ensure that it had cleared. I had seen people selling items on ebay.com who warn people paying by personal check that they would not ship items until 2 weeks after the check was deposited, just to prevent this problem. In my case, they used an internet service (qchex.com) instead of a personal check, but the same time period applies.
3. Sending money back: I should have offered to send the money back to the original person after 2 weeks, or destroyed the check and asked them to re-send the correct amount.
4. Nigeria!: need I say more? Sending money to Nigeria is a Bad Idea.

So, that’s where it lies. I’m out $2,800.00, and in danger of losing my house due to the actions of this criminal. Jesus Christ orders His followers to “pray for those who despitefully use you” (Matthew 5:44). It’s difficult, but I’m praying. Thank you for listening — be sure to protect yourself and your loved ones.

Tom Raymond, aka. Raynbow the magic clown, is a professional clown and underemployed computer geek, webmaster of http://www.clown-ministry.com/ the largest clown resource site on the web. His personal site can be found at http://www.clown-ministry.com/raynbow/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Raymond
http://EzineArticles.com/?Clown-Internet-Scam—An-Internet-Scam-is-Currently-Targeting-Clowns-and-Other-Entertainers&id=45477

Craigslist.org has turned into a great place to find those hard-to-find bargains or items. Tickets to a basketball game, the same car you had while you were in high school, and more can be found on this helpful site.

Like anything though, do your research when entering into a transaction. You probably don’t need to show much skepticism when buying a $20 lamp, but how about when renting a house.

Here is a story of at least eight people who paid rental deposits to a lady for the same house… a house she didn’t even own.

Be wary of anyone and always double check their stories.

Click here for the details on “vishing”.

About halfway down in this news story there is a tale of an attempted IRS scam that was sniffed out by this potential victim.

Don’t get scammed
Mark

Note: I also posted this in our Virus Alert Blog as it applies to both getting a virus and getting scammed.

Yet another argument for having a functional and updated anti-virus
program running on your computer:

I spoke with someone recently (we’ll call him Jay) who says he,
admittedly, doesn’t pay enough attention to Internet security.

Jay tells me that last month he opened up his phone bill and while his
normal phone bill runs about $80 or so, this time his current charges
were over $1200. Jay says he was obviously shaken by the amount and
when looking for details saw that he was being billed for many overseas
calls. Now, Jay was pretty sure he hadn’t been making these two a.m.
calls to Indonesia so he angrily called the phone company. The phone
company checked his usage history and sure enough verified that they
were coming from his phone. Jay argued that he doesn’t know anyone in
Indonesia but that argument didn’t hold up to the phone company’s
records of these calls being made from his phone number. The phone
company made the suggestion that his computer had made those calls
without him knowing it. Jay took his computer to a friend who runs a
computer repair service and they looked into the possibility.

Well, Jay fancies himself a poker player and had been playing online for
the last six months or so. Over those six months he had played at a
number of different sites and has about broke even, which in my opinion
is doing pretty well. Internet poker sites, like many other sites,
require you download software onto your computer to play their games.
The technician looking through Jay’s computer found a “dialer” imbedded
in one of these sites’ software. Upon further investigation it was
determined that this was the piece of software making these late night
calls. The technician cleaned up the computer, installed an updated
anti-virus program, and gave Jay a quick lesson on Internet security.

That fixed Jay’s computer problem, but there was still the issue of the
outstanding phone bill. After numerous calls with the phone company
they finally agreed to adjust these virus-made long distance phone calls
off of his account. This was a step they didn’t have to take and Jay
was very thankful that they did.

Now that everything was back in order I did have to remind Jay of all
the warnings he’s gotten, from me and others, regarding Internet
security. Jay is a lot more knowledgeable on the subject now and is
more careful of what he installs on his computer.

This story is not told to tell people of the dangers of Internet
gambling. Internet gambling can be done in a relatively safe manner.
This story is told to illustrate the dangers of installing software on
your computer that you are not 100% sure is reliable and safe.

Though this is not technically an Internet scam, we at The Scam Alert have just now been the recipients of a scam attempt through regular, or snail, mail. We thought this would be a good chance to pass this on. Most have received these types of letters/emails before, please do not fall for it.

The letter we received said that we had been selected from our entry in the “North American Sweepstakes” and our share of the “lotto” was $65,000. There was a check enclosed that appears to be legitimate in the amount of $2,300. It says this is the first installment and is the
“tax penalty portion” of the jackpot we won. It goes on to congratulate us on our good fortune. The check is drawn on a New Jersey bank (which I won’t name here as they are most likely not part of the scam but potential victims as well), but the letter has a Nova Scotia return
address. It also has the name of our “account handler” and their phone number so we can contact them and handle the transfer of the money to us.

How the scam says it works: Basically, I am to deposit the check and then send that amount, or it may be a slightly lower amount, to the “handler” to pay for the taxes and penalties portion of the jackpot. The “handler” then does his part freeing up our portion of the jackpot
and a check for $65,000 (minus the $2,300) is overnighted to us.

How it really works: I deposit the $2,300 check in my account. I send them the tax and penalty fee. A week to ten days later my bank contacts me that the original $2,300 check is not good, there are either no funds or it is a bogus check/account. I have already sent off my check or money order to the “handler” and, you guessed it, no check for $62,700
ever shows up. My bank has credited my account for the bogus check and I am out the money that I sent off to the “handler”.

For purely informational purposes, I decided to call the phone number of our “account handler”. The first four tries I could get no answer. Finally someone answered and they explained to me that I need to deposit the check and send in $2,000 to cover the taxes and penalties fee.
Never intending to do this, but having way too much fun talking to this person I asked if there were any other alternatives. I asked why the lottery company didn’t just subtract the taxes and liabilities fees from my winning amount and then send me a check for $62,700 and send a check for $2,300 to the account handler. His response to this was that the fees vary depending on the country where the winner is located. I then proceeded to talk to him for about 15 minutes about what I was going to do with my winnings and how much this meant to my family. I told him about the new swimming pool we would be putting in and how excited the
kids were. I was really having fun at this point. I then asked him if I could just endorse the $2,300 check over to him and send that to him through the mail. He said this wouldn’t work as I would be overpaying the fees by $300 and that money should be mine. I told him I didn’t
mind at all as this would allow me to get my payment to him faster, thus getting my larger check faster. He then said that this wasn’t “legal” (oh, I loved him using that word) as the payment for the taxes and fees had to come from me, not the lottery company. I then thanked him for his time and told him I would get the payment right out to him.

The next day I took the letter, the check, and the envelope it came in and brought it my local branch of the United States Post Office where they will investigate if for mail fraud.

I urge anyone who receives this type of letter or email to not respond or follow through with their steps. Remember, common sense states that if it sounds too good to be true it usually is. Plus, how can you win a lottery that you never signed up for?

A common scam going on right now goes a little like this.

Party A is from a foreign country and agrees to purchase an item from Party B. Party A then sends a cashier’s check or money order for more than the amount of the purchase price. Party A then alerts Party B to their “mistake” and asks for a refund of the overpayment. Party B refunds the money only to find out later (sometimes much later as the time for a foreign check to clear is sometimes longer) that the original payment is a forgery or counterfeit. Party A then has a good time spending Party B’s money.

If someone buys something from you and gives you any reason why they are sending a form of payment that is greater than the agreed upon price and they’d like the difference back, red flags should be going up. Make sure that the check has cleared before sending any refunds.

Don’t get scammed,
Mark