I have my BL6000 speakers advertised for sale in a local website for expatriates.  I received a response from a Mr G. Smith with an e-mail address of xxxxxx_smithkline@yahoo.com and a telephone number 1 (702) xxx-yyyy.  He is interested in buying the speakers for his son in university. 

I asked for a shipping address in order to provide an "all inclusive" price and received the following address:

Address : No xxx,Yyyyyyy Avenue,Isale Igbein
State : Ogun State
City : Abeokuta
Zip Code : 23439
Country : Nigeria

Payment will be by PayPal.

Does this seem like a scam?  My instincts say "yes" because of the "Smithkline" and seems to be confirmed with the address in Nigeria.  Is PayPal safe enough if I do not ship until the payment has been transferred into my bank?

Well, maybe or maybe not..

The University he is talking about is likely to be the mini-campus in Isale-Igbein right in the centre of Abeokuta, the Capital of Ogun State.

There is really two points I noticed, first is the phone number starting 1 (702) yet the area code in that area is (234) and as far as I am aware Nigeria does not use Zip Codes.

Just let him pay by Paypal, if you get your money, then fine, provided he does not complain to Paypal that he did not get his goods.

 

I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. There's every chance that a dodgy credit card will be used for the transaction that doesn't show up initially but Paypal themselves will do a claw back from you leaving you without speakers and owing money. I've heard of this before and Paypal officially do not offer their services in Nigeria. This means they would not help you in the event of a fraudulent transaction. 

 Insist on direct bank transfer or nothing.

Steve

Agree - wouldn't go near it.

If in doubt - leave it out..Bank Transfer or nothing, as has just been said.  Although there are of course plenty of honest people in Nigeria, the vast majority i'm afraid have made me extremely suspicious when dealing over the internet!

Lee

I assume the G in his name stands for Glaxo.... Given he therefore has net assets of around $50billion I'm sure there's no problem - NOT!!

Hi,

 Couldn't agree more please be careful. As a B&O dealer I once had £18 000 transfered into my bank account from a gentleman overseas. I decided not to release the goods immediately. 3 days later the bank clawed back the money and said it was a fraudulent transaction.

 

Good Luck

 

St Urrock

Ps Argyle Moss, where are you? I think Beoworld now has 2 Argyle fans!!

Hi everyone, I feel in the best position to respond to this; being Nigerian and all.

I agree that there is a lot of fraud perpetrated by Nigerian scammers, however, as Lee pointed out, there are a lot of decent ones as well. This particular case though is definitely dodgy:  The phone number is a Lagos number not an Abeokuta one.  It's very odd that he would be buying his son B&O speakers as well.  Credit cards are still not so widely used in Nigeria as well.   Zip codes are not really widely used in Nigeria either.

So, yes, I wouldn't go near it either!  

  

Too much doubt for my liking here.

There's nothing to stop them putting in a paypal claim after receiving the speakers which will really mess your paypal account up. The only way round this would be get the buyer to agree to a 30 day wait after payment before sending the speakers as by this time the right to claim will have expired.

Personally I wouldn't deal with anyone from Nigeria simply on the reputation of being a scammers hotbed.

Chris.

PS. Welcome to Beoworld St Urrock

Yes, welcome St Urrock1
Love the photo' in your avatar.
Why do I get the feeling we are going to hear a lot more from you?

Andy T.

Welcome to BeoWorld St Urrock! Is it a 5 Series in your Avatar?

Dear All,

Thanks for the advice. Guess I will give this one a pass and look for another buyer.

Wings

Wings:

Dear All,

Thanks for the advice. Guess I will give this one a pass and look for another buyer.

Wings

Hi Wings,

         I have had some interest from a guy in Japan for my 6000s. The postage is too great from the UK though. I can pass you his details if you would like them. I would ask his permission first of course. Let me know. Either PM or email me.

 

  Jonnie 

Thank you, Jonnie.  PM has been sent to you.

Thank you guys for your welcome messages.

 

Yes the car is a 5 series and lovely it is too!

Regards

St Urrock

Hi:

 This issue appears to be closed now. However, last year I had a sideline of selling pre-used top-end mobile phones such as Motorola A1000 and other PDAs. My main cutomers were in Eastern Europe or other dare I say "developing" countries. As a result I recieved a lot of attention from dodgy scammers that eminated from Nigeria. On each ocasion they would put personal information into the email correspondence they had with me such as this is for my poor uncle with one toe who cannot walk very far etc.

The fact that the buyer here has stated that he is buying these speakers for his son in such a way would suggest to me that this is a similar scam.

 In order to avoid such issues I would put into the advert I will not sell/ship to Nigeria. Once I got quite annoyed and stated something like "I am not stupid, I will not ship to your long lost uncle in Nigeria who has one leg and has to walk 100 miles to get to his house every day". Perhaps it was rude, yet it did the trick. The auction did not get ruined at the last minuite whereas the previous six had.