My son is trying to sell his intermediate flute (so he can buy a custom headjoint). He put flyers in his and another school, and a free ad in Loot.

Yesterday he got the following e-mail from a yahoo.com address.

>Subject: Gemeinhardt 30SHB flute £600
>GOOD DAY TO YOU...... I AM MAILING YOU TO SHOW MY
>INTEREST IN YOUR ADVERT:
>
>IF IS STILL AVAILABLE, SO LET ME HAVE SOME PICTURES OF
>IT..... BECAUSE I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO COME AND TAKE A
>LOOK AT IT BUT BE HONEST WITH THE PRESENT CONDITION
>OF IT WHEN DESBRIBING. I WILL BE PAYING YOU WITH A
>CHEQUE AND THE CHEQUE WILL CLEAR IN YOUR BANK BEFORE
>ARRANGING FOR THE PICK UP AT YOUR LOCATION.. SO GET
>BACK TO ME WITH THE DETAILS AS BELOW:
>
>NAME THAT WILL BE ON CHEQUE
>FULL ADDRESS THAT THE CHEQUE WILL BE SEND TO
>YOUR CONTACT PHONE NUMBERS
>
>CONCERNING THE SHIPPMENT....... I WILL ARRANGE WITH A
>DELIVERY FIRM TO COME FOR THE PROPER PICK UP OF IT
>FROM YOUR LOCATION AFTER YOU HAVE RECEIVE THE PAYMENT.
>SO LET ME HEAR FROM YOU WITH THE DETAILS FOR PAYMENT.
>WAITING TO READ FROM YOU AS SOON AS POSSIBLE...
>
>THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING

At the end of which there was then a name which I probably shouldn't include here as the guy might be completely genuine. But it looks funny to me. On the one hand he's asked for more pics which suggests to me that he has a real interest. But the use of capital letters, and the odd spelling and grammar reminded me of a lot of e-mails I've received telling me I've won a lottery in Holland or am urgently needed to receive significant funds from the widow of the erstwhile Secretary General of Upper Oombongoland.

And I'd have thought that as the vendor, my son would be responsible for shipment. Why does he want a shipping company to come and collect it? And why does he want to send a cheque when he could use Paypal.

So I've rather concluded, perhaps unfairly, that this might be an exercise in collecting personal data. Had my son complied with the request the someone he doesn't know would have his name, address, phone numbers and addy. I don't know what use that is to anyone but I guess it must be some.

I checked the Yahoo! profile and found nothing useful.

On the other hand, of course, it could be completely genuine so I wondered if anyone else had been on the receiving end of a similar experience when selling an instrument?

Best wishes

barry

Personally, I would not touch this with the preverbial barge pole, Barry. I have been caught out by these people and managed to stop myself when they asked for bank details. If I were you, I would wait for what seems like more genuine responses. Try e-mailing them back (like I did) asking for more details about them. I got no response when I asked for their details.

Could be genuine, but it sounds like another scam to me.

There is very little chance this is genuine.

A good indicator for these things is bad spelling/grammar (unless of course it's written in txtspk...) and an unusual urgency to pay you. Most genuine people will make some sort of effort to ensure they're not gonna lose out.

They try to gain your confidence by saying you can wait until the cheque clears, but what usually happens in these cases is that the cheque clears, you deliver your item and then the cheque bounces 3-4 weeks later.

I wouldn't even bother replying to this.

To be honest, there is absolutely no (good) reason to prefer a cheque to PayPal, particularly for an overseas buyer. PayPal these days is pretty much as easy to use as any other form of online shopping. I can think of lots of things somebody might be doing with both the photos and the personal data.

If it were me, I'd err on the safe side and email one refusal, and ignore any further correspondence.

Ignore it. We had loads of these messages when trying to sell an instrument via an internet site. Anyone genuinely interested in an instrument (especially second hand) will want to check it out first.

Nah. It's fake. A ripoff. A con. Just delete it and move on!

'GOOD DAY TO YOU' is a familiar dodgy start! ;-)

definitely fake. I had similar when selling my horn -
Am Rev.John Sanrantos i saw your ads and am interested in buying it so i will liek you to email me with the condition and the last price and the pics so that we can proceed from there and mind you i will be handling the shipping company because i have a shipper that help me ship all over the world ok?Awaiting your response asap.

God Bless

Signs are - he will handle shipping, bad english, and large abounts of money.

'GOOD DAY TO YOU' IGNORE FAKE EMIAL, WRITER IS WIKCED PRESON WHO NOT HAVE GOOD INTEREST IN MIDN FOR YUOR FLOT.

IGNOR-EIT-LY,
gc

I'd if you're not sure, ignore it.

DDDD...

Definitely Dodgy, Don't respond - Delete!

Thanks everyone.

best wishes

barry

Its a scam - there are loads of these going around at the moment - yes they will send you a chequew and will often ask you to take a cheque for £3000 and take the amount you want plus an extra £500 for the trouble, then when you cash it, it will initially clear but thena afew weeks later funds will remain uncleared and you will have no money and no instrument because it has been collected.
Waste of time ignore them. Send an email saying paypal or cash only!

I had a flute headjoint which I was trying to sell, and we put adverts on a couple of internet sites and we got so much spam trying to get us to give over bank details

hi heard something the other day at work that bad spelling is used to get past the firewall on the pc as it picks out certain words but if spelt wrongly these will get through.