What follows is the story of my e-mail correspondence with a Mr. Mark Tellor, an Italian Hockey Coach residing in Provo, Utah over the course of 3 days in January 2009. It’s longish.

In recent Eric-related news, I bought a lightly used Mac Pro as a replacement for my struggling to keep up Macbook Pro. Bittersweet. Of course, to afford this, I have to sell my laptop, so I hit up craigslist.

I originally posted the laptop for way more than it is worth, just to see if anyone would bite. I quickly received this e-mail from a Mark Tellor:

“Hi, with your kind gesture let me know your firm price of this item am intrested in purchasing it………Thank you”

Oh great, a buyer! I gesture, kindly:

Hey Mark,

I would like to sell this laptop for no less than $2000. Let me know if this is okay and we can talk further.

Mark Tellor responds:

Thank you for your mail.

I’m soory for my late reply, am an Italian Hockey coach residing in Provo,Utah, but i will be going back to Italy in 4day`s time to resume my coaching job. I need your kind gesture to help me ship this item to my son as a birthday present who went to futher his Chemistry Education in American University (ABTI) in west africa, Nigeria, I’ll be paying you Through Paypal, these secure and protect two parties in a transaction. I will like you to send me your paypal invoice or your paypal identification email for payment, If you dont have PayPal you can give me your

Full Contact Address……………………..
Full Name: ………………………………….

For a payment through money order. This information should be provided correctly to avoid wrong payment. I will provide you my son`s shipping information for shipment as soon as the payment is done. Thanks for your Anticipated co-operation.
Remain bless,
Mr. Mark Williams
NB: I will be paying you the sum of $2120USD for both the cost price and shipping fee

Oh. I get it.

My friend Christos told me a story of a friend of his that had shipped a scammer a box of rocks after convincing him to pay for shipping. Finding myself in a situation to try something similar, I decided to go for it. Also, I ask him about hockey in Provo:

Hey Mark,

That sounds great! They play quite a bit of hockey in Provo, I hear? I actually have a cousin out there who is a tremendous goalie. His name is Thomas Cruise. Perhaps you know him?

At any rate. That sounds great. I will send you a paypal invoice as soon as I can. One thing though, I don’t have the necessary funds to cover the shipping costs up front. Do you think we could ship via UPS? That way, you can provide me with a UPS number and pay for the shipping directly. Does this sound favorable? Let me know.

Best of luck on your trip back to your homeland. May god’s grace bless you at every turn.

Again, Mark:

Thanks for your mail,

I would prefer us using this paypal, nomatter what because you know your self that it’s more secure than any order mode of payment paypal is the first amoung all if it comes to that hear is my paypal account mail bently_colje@yahoo.com am verified send me your invoice there right.

But if you dont feel that confortable with them we can us money order they are second amoung all they are fast and protect two of the parties in the transaction let me know your dicission.

Remain Bless.

I am remain bless, but I am discouraged. It doesn’t seem like he’s going for it. I guess that’s to be expected.

Hey Mark,

Don’t get me wrong, I am completely fine with using paypal to receive payment for the laptop, however in order for me to ship it, I will need to front that money of out my own pocket. Sadly, I do not have these funds available to me. So, in order to be able to ship the laptop and complete the transaction, I am proposing that I:

1.) Send you an invoice for just the laptop via paypal (shipping not included)
2.) Ship the package via UPS so that you can pay for the shipping directly. The way this works is that you create an account at UPS.com. Then, I enter all the shipping information and tell them to bill your UPS account. This is the only way I can afford to do ship the laptop as I do not have the necessary funds available to me.

Does this sound okay?

-Eric

PS. Did you hear about this?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/allstar2009/news/story?id=3853086

Mark:

I am not ready for your ups stuff i dont want to be scammed ok paypal only or money order.

This guy is a pro. After a delay in the communication, he writes again:

Sory is because i haven’t used them before that is why am having little confuse.I will pay for the shipping dont worry about that.

At this point I send him a paypal invoice. I determined that this wasn’t really that risky and was a necessary step if he was going to believe I was on board.

Hey Mark,

Okay, great! So by now you must have gotten my paypal order. Once I receive confirmation from paypal that the funds have gone through, I will just need a UPS number from you, which you can obtain at:

https://www.ups.com/myups/login?returnto=https%3a//www.ups.com/account/us/start%3floc%3den_US&reasonCode=-1&appid=OPENACCT

Once I get a UPS number from you, I will ship the laptop immediately.

Also, have you seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX5hQeD71ns

I get a message from Paypal telling me he’s paid, but too much! It seems as if he’s having trouble understanding me.

Hey Mark,

It seems as if there was a problem with the paypal transaction. I sent a request for $2000 but it seems as if you paid more than that. Here is a copy of the e-mail I received:

=========================================================
*PAYPAL PAYMENT APPROVED*
=========================================================
PAYPAL MONEY Ã&#8218® PAYMENT APPROVED*
Dear Eric Rothman,
Congratulations! The order placed by the buyer of your item to have a ® payment of (Dollars) sent to you as payment for the item ( Macbook Pro, Dual 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo ) has been successfully processed and has consequently been APPROVED. The financial details of the transaction are stated below:
——————————————————————————
Eric Rothman,

Paypal Authority is using this opportunity to inform you that a transaction of  $2150.00 will be transferred into your paypal account. The transaction was received  from Mr. Mark Williams for the Craigslist item bought from you, we will like you to provide us with the shipment tracking number for the craigslist item and as soon as this is done your money will be transferred into your account in 24/48 hours, please do bear with us for requesting for the shipping information before omiting the fund into your paypal account this is due to the high increase rate of internet fruad,it is our job to protect the seller’s and buyer’s from fraud star
This is the payment status below.
The buyers shipping address has been confirmed by paypal aucthority.

**********SHIPMENT VERIFICATION***********
We can have the shipment confirmed/verified in any of the following ways:
1. Contact PAYPAL stating the® Order Number and the TRACKING NUMBER of the shipment to our email:paypalaccountants@mail2expert.com
*********PLEASE NOTE*********
Due to the fact that Paypal processes thousands of orders daily, paypal RECOMMENDS contacting the Customer Service Representative that has been assigned to this particular Order directly. This ensures speedy verification of shipment as well as prompt dispatch the paypal. Send shippment tracking details to paypalaccountants@mail2expert.com
you can give the buyer of your auction item the TRACKING NUMBER of the shipment and once he/she verifies the shipment, he/she will also notify us immediately.
Please do not let your buyer gain access to this Payment Approval Notication.
=========================================================
***CUSTOMER SUPPORT***
If you have any questions, Please feel free to contact the Customer Support Representative that has been assigned to this particular Order at:
paypalaccountants@mail2expert.com
Thank you for using paypal verified® paypal  Payments. We look forward to serving your online paypal payment needs better in the future.

paypal Team,

Paypal Payments.

=========================================================

Can you contact paypal and have them make it for the right amount ($2000)? Sorry for the trouble.

May god save the queen and bless her at every turn.

Godbless,
-Eric

Also, the above Paypal e-mail I got was completely in comic sans.

No there is no problem with the paypal the extra $150 that makes it $2150 is the shipping fee hope you understand.

At this point, I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to work out in my favor.

Hey Mark,

Okay, you must not be understanding correctly. Here’s a rundown of the entire process. This is the way this is going to work.

1.) I sent you a paypal invoice for $2000, exactly the price of the laptop.

2.) You will pay me exactly $2000 via paypal, for the price of the laptop.

3.) You will give me a UPS number that you will create at UPS.com.

4.) I will enter all of your shipping information and your UPS number so that shipping will be billed directly to you.

You see, if you pay me via paypal for the laptop and shipping, I cannot get the money for shipping until AFTER I have shipped. And, I cannot ship without the funds for shipping. This is the way we are going to do this. If you will not agree, I will take my business elsewhere.

Also, my cousin Thomas Cruise is looking for new goalie pads. Do you know anything about them? Which would you recommend?
The Vaughn Velocity 3 7500 “Pulse” for $1424.99

or the Itech X-Rated XR10 Pro for $1299.99?
They both seem pretty good to me, but my brother (who knows very little about the sport of hockey) asked me if I knew any experts. I said I was selling my laptop macbook pro 2.4GHz to an Italian Hockey Coach! Maybe I can ask him, I said! Anyways, it’s down to these two, let me know which you think is best. Money is no object.

-Eric

Mark:

The 2000 is your price of item and 150 is your shipping fee i dont know if you understand go to usps is more chiper than ups.if you like take the business elsewhere since you have noticed that your money is inyour account why panicking go ahead ship it and get your money said by paypal period.
Thank you

Followed by Mark again:

Ok no problem am not buying anylonger i have paid all my money to paypal $2150 have been withdraw from paypal trying to get it back and got to ups will hold me from going back to italy usps is best just borrow money from friend or relation since you know that i have paid and your money is pending for you to ship it and get it simple.

Welp, I’ve had enough.

Tags: nigeria

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Some Pulp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.