I am a little short of money. No I am not looking for it here, I am talking about selling stuff on Craig’s List. Craig’s List has a history of pirate activity but instead of jacking a ship for ransom this bunch of pirates sit in front of computers in Nigeria. This ring of scammers is only one of many apparently. Their ranks are growing though because in 2014 it was reported in PC Magazine that there were only five gangs that did all the scamming. Now it is so lucrative that the growth of these scammers has grown and become more refined.
As soon as I listed my two Table Saws and a Drill Press I was contacted in a text by someone who wanted me to email his step mother and she would buy the items. While I was answering one text another came in and said that his wife wanted the Table Saws. I decided to go with the wife who identified herself as Leyola Enyart with a gmail address of leola35g001@gmail.com.
I saved all the emails from Leyola Enyart and hope that they will be of interest to those who are interested in this process of the art of the scam.
Note the glaring mistakes in the body of the emails purportedly from a nurse who is married to a lawyer. The first was on November 14th after I wrote the following, “I have the Craftsman saws. Your husband said email you. My cell is, 619.792.0000” (don’t call; it is simulated) Call if you are interested please.
Thanks for the response and am satisfied with the price and the condition on the list, kindly withdraw the advert from list and considered it sold. I will add extra $50 with the original price while you remove the ads. ,My husband will overnight a Cashier Check/ Certified Check drawn from a local Banks, and i will make the pick up arrangement as soon as you have the check clear and your have your cash, I would have loved to come and take a look and purchase with cash, but my work frame{nurse} is tight. So, I’ll need you to provide me with the following information to overnight the Payment.
Full Name on the Check, Full Physical Address Final asking price and your cell# The check will be overnight to you asap and deliver to you within 24hours. Thanks
Wow an extra $50.00 bucks. This is a obvious tell. The way this works in this scam is very similar to one of my previous jobs. I was what is called a Carny. I was a high order Carny who made a lot of money dangling extra money so people would chase the money instead of the prize. By the way it was mostly men who were the most vulnerable to my game of double up and catch up.
I wrote the following email to Leyola and some of the content is blanked out because I do value privacy.
Good morning Leola I am happy for you and the saws. I will do as you request and consider the saws as your property as of this email.
Check info is as follows. Barrett Littleton 99999 Daily Road Fallbrook, CA 92028 $250.00 full price.
My cell # is 619.792.0000
I am available on that number 24/7 and have no landline. You can text me that you have received this email
Instruction to my home’ From I-15 go up East Mission (from old 395) to The traffic light at Pico and turn right. Pico turns into De Luz as soon as a block is gone by. Travel up De Luz 0.0 miles and turn just beyond that right onto Daily Road. Go 0 miles on Daily Road and we are on the right side of the road. Across the street are 2 mailboxes, ours says MARK (what carnys call anyone who is not a carny)and is black.
Our house is above the lower house and you go up the driveway to our picket fence. We have a large parking area so you will have no trouble with parking close to my workshop. Please close the lower gate after you go through, and if the lower house has any cars parked, they may have their two Poodles out. They are totally harmless and will bark. Ignore them. We have two Labs one Black and one chocolate, and they too are friendly, both will want to lick you and be your friend. I will be there and make sure you get parked so that loading the tools will be easy. One thing there is zero cell service most of the way up De Luz. I have a Verizon cell extender and WiFi that you can use here if you need to. It is a nice drive so enjoy. I will not turn down $50.00 but it is not necessary thank you. Barry
When I received the next email I told my wife that I was being scammed and was going to play it out. I thought this is so cool. But wait. There are real people out there who are getting ripped off every day by these people. What happens is they go to the bank and cash the check and send on the money to the location indicated. Then a week or so later the bank tells you that your deposit was fraudulent and you have to pay the full amount. Someone like me for instance is on a fixed income, hence the selling of stuff to get a little extra money to play with.
I thought that I would go ahead and see if I could entrap someone in the chain going to Lagos or wherever the cash flows. Someone must be in the U.S because the drop location is in the U.S. I intended to elicit more info and see where that led. I would then go to the County Sheriff’s office and make a complaint. More on that later.
The next email came in the next day,
Hello, Am sorry for the late response for the payment, I was busy busy with working and packing and My husband is a lawyer but he just informed now that the payment has been sent Via FedEx with the tracking # 788456708674 and he included the shipment funds in the amount on the check for the mover to come for the pick up. And you are to deduct your money $250 as agreed and additional $50 for keeping the item for me and your running around and then give the rest balance to the mover coming for the pick up, I hope i can trust you with my money? We have some other items around your location needed for our new apartment with the mover will be picking up everything together but pls i will need your honest and trust and your updating to end up this transaction..because this is our first time on the list. I will get the mover information Tomorrow morning and get back to you so that you will know who will be coming for the pick up. The check is from Law Office and it will be there tomorrow.
Such a plethora of information in this email. First, Leola Enyart has never addressed me by name in spite of giving me so much personal information. I am selling the following, two Craftsman Table Saws with a belt drive, one with a 220 volt power supply and the other with 110 volt. I also have an American Machine Company Drill Press for sale. Is a lawyer who lives in an apartment really interested in a set of tools like that? She wants my honest and trust. Right.
I am pretty sure by now that there will never be a human to human interaction. They see me as some bozo by now and get a little excited to have such a dimwit to deal with. You have read this far, you can see that I have some modicum of smarts, some matriculation in a institution of higher learning. I am having so much fun with this deal now that I can’t wait for the shoe to drop.
I replied with some abandon giving the opportunity to these people to go to the next level. I wrote;
Thank you for the update. I will be expecting all as you have described. Whoever is coming for the tools should have my cell number. We are easy to find, but people seem to have difficulties.
I just checked the fed ex site and it is supposed to be here today by noon. This originated in Seattle. Just so we are clear, you want me to have $300.00 in total. There will be a remainder of some amount that will be given to a mover. This is somewhat curious as I am unaware of anyone who wants to buy something so far away from Seattle, unless you are moving into this area. As for trust, I am reserving my trust until the transaction has been completed. We, my wife and I are in a specific location and live here. The Craftsman Saws and the Drill Press are sitting in my workshop and when your agent comes and picks up the aforementioned items then you will have no need for trust because the transaction will be completed.
I am a long time Para Legal with experience in administrative law and criminal law. I trust God.
Thank you for your purchase. You are getting some fine American workmanship not made in this country any longer, and that is sad. I am making Patio Chairs that are steel and wood. I am working on a modular design that will use the same basic steel parts and can be modified by the buyer. Right now I am working on the software so that anyone worldwide can see and manipulate the 3D image then change the steel from basic to stainless to aluminum and see a variety of colors and treatments. The woods can be selected and seen as well. Construction can be done with a pair of wrenches, included as an option. Every component will be made here in this country.
Unfortunately, the tools I need for this are all made in China or some other country.
Barry
I did not get a response from that email so I sent another.
Nov 15 at 2:57 PM I checked the Fed Ex information and here is a screenshot. This has not been sent as of this time on the email I am sending. A label was bought. That label was bought yesterday. It is a priority overnight and it is a purchase made at 1:34 pm. It also was listed the first time I looked as being delivered at noon today.
I sent another screenshot of the fedex site tracking info. I was interested if the screenshot was of any interest to Leyola Enyart. So I sent her another screenshot that showed that the location was Norcross GA,
Norcross GA. That is interesting. Here is the latest screenshot.
The next email was sent at 6:07 from somewhere in the world. I did not bother to track the real I.P. because it was most certainly in Africa.
Good Morning How are you doing? I just checked with the Fedex now and they said they will be at your door step today for the delivery of the check but like I said my husband sent the check to you including the (freight and hand ling’s fees) to pick up the item from you and some other items around your location needed in our new apartment.So the rest money meant for the pick up of all the items.
You are to get the check deposited into your Account or through ATM. Deduct your money $300 as agreed for the item and extra $20 for your gas , withdraw the remaining balance out and get it Transfer to the mover via Money Gram 10 Minutes Transfer as requested by the mover so that they can come for the pick up at your location. Locate any nearest Walmart or CVS location around you with the rest balance in cash and have it transfer to the below mover agent information via Money Gram 10 Minutes Transfer: You will be charge for the 10 Minutes Transfer fee so deduct the fees from the rest money you are sending to the mover
Receiver’s Name: Shakeem Dane Clarke Address: 112 Circle H Rd. City: Sharpsburg State: GA 30277
Please do take care of everything asap so that the mover can contact you for the pick up arrangement. And as soon as you are done with the Money Gram transfer, You will be given a receipt so get back to me with the Reference#, Sender name and the Exact Amount transfer after deducting the minutes transfer fees from the rest money you are sending to Shakeem Dane Clarke , for them to pick up the cash from their location
Wow. we moving now. This is called the blow off. They are done with me except in the sense that they are stealing money from a bank who is going to make me pay the amount that the check was for.
I did get a Fedex envelope with a check. It was drawn on a legal firm in Virginia Beach VA. This check was for One Thousand Eight Hundred and 00/00. I will not disclose the legal firm as they are also victims in a sense. Money is time spent. Or is it time is money spent. Any way you look at this it is clear that tens of millions of dollars are being raked in every day. Yes every day.
I called the law firm and spoke to a young lady who informed me that she had no idea how her law firm checks were being duplicated and used in this manner. She said hundreds of people called her so far. In a sense her law firm is also a victim. Reputation and time spent dealing with people who have been ripped off by an internationally based gang of thieves has most certainly taken a toll on this law firm.
I sent a final email to Leola Enyart and thanked her for the education and souvenir check.
Thank you so much for the education into your operation. It was interesting to see unfold. I will keep the check to hang on my wall as a souvenir. I will be writing an article for a well respected online newspaper named The Crime Report. It is run by the John Jay School of Journalism and Social Justice.
The most interesting part of this story is that Law Enforcement has zero interest in this sort of crime. A Sheriff told me no police department in the country will follow up on this crime.
So, might as well sell my tools to a cash buyer who comes to my home and gets what he wants and I get what I want.
I was not aware that I was going to actually write a story on this sequence of events and used the The Crime Report who I once wrote a story about the three strikes recall effort as a jibe that was probably missed entirely. The Crime Report is run by the John Jay School of Journalism and Social Justice and a fine publication.
I did call my Deputy connection and told him the story and he did say that “No Law Enforcement department in the country will pursue this crime as it takes just too much time, resources and effort. He ended with they are all in Africa and Asia anyway.
