Ship-to Names and Addresses Being Used by Nigerian Scammers

See also these related articles by Barbara:

"Be very suspicious of a cashiers check or money order sent to you where you are asked to cash the item at your bank and use a MoneyGram to send a portion of the funds to someone else. The check or money order may not be real and it can take weeks for your bank to learn that it has not cleared. You could be responsible to your bank to cover the loss. Current scams associated with this type of fraud are mystery shoppers, employment opportunities and sales of goods on the internet."

- a Tip from MoneyGram.com

Ship-to Names and Addresses
Being Used by Nigerian Scammers

A Handy Reference List for Merchandise Sellers
(Last updated: February, 2007)

Here, for convenient reference, is a summary list of several names and addresses that readers have reported they have been given as a ship-to address for merchandise ordered from individuals now known to be Nigerian con artists:

22,Ojekunle Street, Papa Ajao Mushin, Lagos State, Nigeria 23401

24,Ojekunle Papa Ajao, Mushin, Lagos State, Nigeria 23401

18 Sebanjo St, Papa Ajao Mushin , Lagos Nigeria

20 Ricca St., Lagos Island, Lagos state Nigeria 23401

No. 85 Agba Dam Housing Estate Rd in Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria, 23431

Kenneth Plot 58, Shittu Close Ago Palace Way, Okota, State Lagos, Nigeria,

Tonia Paintings Gallery, 33, Nightingale Vale, Woolwich Common, London SE18 4EN.

Tonia Paintings Gallery, 34, Ojekunle Street, Papa Ajao Mushin, Lagos State. Nigeria. 23401.

Head Office Mack Inc Nigeria, 9 Adekintan Off Palm Aveanue, Mushin Lagos, Nigeria 2341

Benin City, Nigeria (a number of individuals, including Israel Osawe, are soliciting churches for Bibles and cash donations--more info here.)

P. O. Box 78, ORE, Ondo State, Nigeria (being used by many fake Nigerian churches or ministries)
_______________________

I don’t know if con artists are stupid enough to keep using the same names in their multiple contacts with various companies, but here are some names reported by my readers that you can keep handy. They could easily be associated with different addresses than the ones used above.

(Apologies to all the honest folks who happen to have these same names.)

Whitney Brown * Rosaline Campbell * Chris Emeka Ekueme

Marie James * Olaniyi James * Kim Kelly * Paul Kelly * Tonia Kluivert

Mack * Maxwell * Susan Patrick * Peter Richards * Christy Ronald *

Phil Scott * Dennis Summer * Willoby

NEW: Someone is now publishing a list of e-mail addresses being used by known scammers, as well as a lot of other valuable information on scams. This list is being updated every few days. Bookmark this site so you can check the next time you get a suspicious e-mail communication: 419Baiter.com

MORE READER REPORTS OF BOGUS ORDERS

With so many scammers working from Nigeria, one tends not to be suspicious of white females from England. But here's another scammer to watch for, as reported by Jyl Milner. She was contacted by Susan Patrick, who identified herself as an artist living in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire with two kids, one dog, cat, birds, and the love of her life. Because she described herself as a "struggling artist" with a family and all that good stuff, many who receive this message may be taken in by her. She wrote: (errors have been left intact):

"I have sold in galleries, museums and to private collectors from all around the world. I am always facing serious difficulties when it comes to selling my art works to Americans; they are always offering to pay with a US POSTAL MONEY ORDER, which is difficult for me to cash here in England. I am looking for a representative in the states who will be working for me as a par time worker and I am willing to pay for every transaction, which wouldn't affect your present state of work, someone who would help me receive payments from my customers in the states. I mean someone that is responsible and reliable, because the cost of coming to the states and getting payments is very expensive, I am working on setting up a branch in the state, and so for now I need a representative in the United States who will be handling the payment aspect.

"These payments are in money order and they would come to you in your name, so all you need do is cash the money order deduct your percentage and wire the rest back. But the problem I have is trust. But I have my way of getting anyone that gets away with our money; I mean the FBI branch in Washington gets involved. It wouldn't cost u any
amount, u are to receive payments which will be sent to u by FedEx or USPS from my business partners, which would come in form of a money order then u are to cash it and send the cash to me via western union money transfer all western union charges will be deducted from the money. If you are interested, please get back to me as soon as possible."

Ed. Note: Same old con game, just packaged differently. The common thread here is "cash it and send the cash to me via western union." (See my "Counterfeit Money Orders" article for more about this).

After Cindy Wilding posted some books for sale on a local message board, she got an e-mail from "Steve Williams" with a hotmail address who later turned out to be based in Nigeria. Fortunately, she found the articles on my Web site before she shipped his order. His e-mail read (unedited): "I will like you to email me with the name of the Goods you have in stock including there price and let me know the types of credit card you accept for payment and i want you to kindly email me all the info about your Product Booklovers! Bestsellers."

One of my website visitors who read the Nigerian scam articles sent yet another example of a "typical message," which I have included below. He wrote, "I suspected something right away but played along a little. Finally they screwed up with the ‘favour’ request. Ours started out with poor emails in English which got better as they days went on. Of course, I told them ‘no way, try eBay’ and I haven't heard from them since. I hope you will post this for everyone else. I suspect they got our info from a NY trade show we just attended. Thank you for getting the word out!"

- Sample of typical e-mail -
(exactly as received)

Dear ,

1. we can ship through usps the post office they have been very impressive in delivering goods to our company here in nigeria just take the whole goods to them they will give you the total quotes on the shipping fee thats no problem, about the colours just mix it up,i need you to include all colours you have,. I am okay with the total quantity of my Order. I will forward my credit cards details to you shortly. In the meantime, please I want you to be of an assistance to me. the company who i want to supply this orders will be celebrating their 50th anniversy and they want to award their best staffs of the year with some 2 laptops so i was given this contarct to get the laptops along with your orders . so i need you to assist me buy the laptops and ship together with my Order. You can calculate everything together with my Order then give me the grand total cost. I need you to assist me purchase 2 units of any of dell inspiron, HP,SONY LAPTOPS,with pentium4 or milleniun specification, with 60gig or 80gig capacity, Please, I do understand this is not part of your business but i really want you to assist me because they are not available locally. Those laptops are difficult to get here and this can be a start of good things to your company and betwwen us cos we always purchase in bulk and most time on contract. I will also be glad to offer you $300 compensation for the running fees.
I need your consideration, so that i can pay you up together.
Thank you very much.
Best Regards
maxwell

NOTE: I know people have gotten very careless in writing e-mails these days, never capitalizing "I" and a lot of other words, or worrying about spelling or punctuation, but it seems to me that anyone doing business on the Web would automatically ignore such ignorantly written "orders" as this without wasting a moment of their time in communicating with the sender. Sooner or later, they all get around to asking for a little "favour."

Cynthia D. designs jewelry and sells on eBay and someone else’s Website. She was very upset by the way a man who called himself Peter Richards tried to scam her. "My life has been severely affected by this experience." she wrote. "Please put this on your website so maybe someone else will not be taken in by this person."

After following one of the usual routines used by con artists (he wanted to buy at wholesale and "partner with her" to distribute her products in shops in Africa), Peter Richards said he would send a cashier’s check for the merchandise, including all shipping charges, of course. Cynthia had never sold any of her products on the Internet before, so she was naturally excited by this order. But Cynthia went on the defensive when this guy asked her to get some prices on Sony Ericcson phones, and after he reassured her that he was definitely legit, she gave him pricing information on the phones. While pretending great interest in Cynthia’s jewelry products, and making her feel like he was now a friend, he said he had a problem he hoped she could help him with. Said he was owed money by a business partner in the U.S. who he needed to collect the money from.

"He said the person would send me the check for $3500 and for me to take $500 for the products I would send him and for future purchases," Cynthia said. "He then started instant messaging me around l a.m. telling me personal information and asking me questions. One of the instant messages was kind of rude, asking me to go to my P. O. Box, which I had given for the check to be sent. Since he had told me so many times his business was legit, and we had already decided which pieces he wanted, I thought I was helping him. He wanted me to send him the rest of the funds left over in the check via Western Union to an address he gave me. So, every day for ten days, I went to the post office but there was never any kind of check there, and every day I would e-mail Peter Richards to let him know the check had not come. Finally I let him know it seemed like he was more interested in the check than in my products.

"He sent me e-mails everyday without fail reassuring me that everything was fine. He even said one time his uncle had died and he really needed the money to bury him. Now I was really getting worried about him being legit. For one thing, he said the name of his business was ‘godstimestores’ and I could never find any information about that store, and he said he was broke and he had no money to bury his uncle. But being so kind-hearted, I kept looking for the check. I finally e-mailed him one last time to let him know the check may have been lost, at which time he reassured me that he would get another check to me. But the check never arrived and I never heard from him again."

Something must have gone wrong here, as the idea behind this scam is to get a cashier’s check or money order into the hands of the unsuspecting victim and to get them to "refund" a certain amount for some "overpayment" that has "accidentally" been made. Ideally, the honest recipient will move quickly, sending the refund (even using Western Union if they have been requested to do this) before they know the check or money order is a fake. I believe most people who have been scammed like this are too embarrassed to report the scam to authorities, so the actual number of victims is probably much greater than the 20,000 reports a month the FBI currently receives.

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