ScamWatch

Background.
This page is here to provide information on scamming, and updates on current scammer activity. For those who may not know, advanced fee fraud or '419' scams are a huge problem on the Internet. They are typically operated by West Africans. Anyone advertising a reasonably high value item for sale on the Internet is likely to be targeted. 

A typical scammer will email you asking if the item is still for sale and what your best price is. They usually say they want to buy it and pay by cheque, and get their shipping agent to collect it as they aren't in the U.K. They'll say they're going to send a cheque for more than your asking price, and that you should send the surplus to their shipping agent by Western Union or wire transfer. 

This seems safe enough as you would think you can wait for the cheque to clear before transferring the surplus. Unfortunately the cheque will be cloned or a forgery, but will be initially cleared by your bank. It may take several days or even weeks for the issuing bank to highlight the error, at which point they will reclaim the funds from your account. The scammers rely on you transferring the surplus before the banks realise the error, leaving you out of pocket. 

MuddyStuff has software installed to block anyone from Africa and various other regions from accessing the website. This undoubtably reduces the number of scammers, but it's impossible to stop them completely, especially as some of them use the SkyVision network which makes them appear to be in London.

If you are contacted by one of them, either ignore it, or have a bit of fun playing them along if you can spare the time. If you have got an address you don't mind giving out for them to send the cheque to, it's worth doing as the postage and forged cheque will at least cost them some money. 

Known Scammers.
The following is a list of scammers who have contacted people advertising on MuddyStuff in the past. Only one has been reported in recent months. Please forward any suspect emails to us, and we'll add the sender to the list below if they're a scammer.