Someone attempted to scam us but they did not succeed. This is how they went about it. Someone posing as a homeowner requested a quote via email. He gave us an address and explained he was not home but in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. We have had somewhat similar legitimate requests before with no issue. We have even did jobs for customers out of town. Regardless, we emailed him a quote and he accepted. He asked if we would do him a favor since he was in the hospital. He wanted to give us "his" credit card number, charge an amount over the quoted price, deposit the overage into "his" bank account and keep the rest. The red flags raised as this was a tall tale sign of a scam. Without intended to clean "his" roof, I played along and he gave me a credit card info. I immediately called the police but unfortunately got the run-around. They stated they couldn't do anything and suggested I call a bank. The bank suggested I call the Feds. I called a number and they suggested I call another number. I gave the info to that forth person and asked that they at least attempt to contact the owner of the cc and have the card immediately canceled. That person didn't really say she could or would. I just didn't feel the concern. My objective want to help the unsuspected card holder and to stop or possible catch the perp if he/she was operating in the USA. But in all these conversations, no one wanted the computer IP address or emails from the perp. No wonder there are so many thriving scammers.
John Aloisio said
Dec 2, 2015
I had the same call about three weeks ago but thought it was just a localized scam. Same pitch about being the hospital and the house was up for sale, blah blah blah. Only thing that I did different was call the realtor who had the sign on the house. They said the owner was not the name I had been given, so I just deleted all the emails.
Art O said
Dec 2, 2015
Typical Craigs list scammers. They must be trying other ways to scam and these boards don't help.
Doug Rucker said
Dec 2, 2015
We get them all the time via text massage....been going on for years. This is a very common scam, in fact, in the one of the FaceBook groups I'm in we will show screen shots our text responses which can be quite funny at times....I usually respond for them to fill out a quote request at our web site getarealjob@quitscammingpeople.com
Fred W said
Dec 2, 2015
WOW....Exact same scam here. I still have all of the texts to prove it! "Please Sir, you're breaking my heart" because I felt something wasn't right and refused to bid.....whew. Now I feel better.
John Aloisio said
Dec 3, 2015
Lol!!
Diamond Roof Cleaning said
Dec 3, 2015
Had the same thing happen to me in the beginning of the year. I too called the realtor to find out the owner of the property. Sure enough it was not the guy asking for the work to be done.
Patrick G said
Dec 3, 2015
Did you ask for the credit card name...visa, mastercard.Etc. They all have a fraud divison and would have been plenty interested. You can always call your District Attorneys Office, you would be surprised whatthey are working on.
Chris Mozick said
Dec 3, 2015
Same here I received that same email and as soon as they emailed me back about him being in the hospital I knew it was a scam.
Dave O said
Dec 4, 2015
Patrick G wrote:
Did you ask for the credit card name...visa, mastercard.Etc. They all have a fraud divison and would have been plenty interested. You can always call your District Attorneys Office, you would be surprised whatthey are working on.
No. After getting the run-around while attempting to help out the victim I moved on.
Dan Dykstra said
Dec 5, 2015
This scam has been around for quite some time, I get these via text message weekly.
Someone attempted to scam us but they did not succeed. This is how they went about it. Someone posing as a homeowner requested a quote via email. He gave us an address and explained he was not home but in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. We have had somewhat similar legitimate requests before with no issue. We have even did jobs for customers out of town. Regardless, we emailed him a quote and he accepted. He asked if we would do him a favor since he was in the hospital. He wanted to give us "his" credit card number, charge an amount over the quoted price, deposit the overage into "his" bank account and keep the rest. The red flags raised as this was a tall tale sign of a scam. Without intended to clean "his" roof, I played along and he gave me a credit card info. I immediately called the police but unfortunately got the run-around. They stated they couldn't do anything and suggested I call a bank. The bank suggested I call the Feds. I called a number and they suggested I call another number. I gave the info to that forth person and asked that they at least attempt to contact the owner of the cc and have the card immediately canceled. That person didn't really say she could or would. I just didn't feel the concern. My objective want to help the unsuspected card holder and to stop or possible catch the perp if he/she was operating in the USA. But in all these conversations, no one wanted the computer IP address or emails from the perp. No wonder there are so many thriving scammers.
I had the same call about three weeks ago but thought it was just a localized scam. Same pitch about being the hospital and the house was up for sale, blah blah blah. Only thing that I did different was call the realtor who had the sign on the house. They said the owner was not the name I had been given, so I just deleted all the emails.
Lol!!
No. After getting the run-around while attempting to help out the victim I moved on.