Caution: ScamSpam ? Garmin 396

N941WR · #1 05-05-2006, 01:28 PM

FYI - This is the second time I have received this email. I suspect that the questions the guy is going to ask has something to do with your checking account or credit card numbers.

Even if it is "legitimate", I wonder if the Garmin 396's are export restricted. If so, you would be breaking federal laws by sending them to him.

Quote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Kenny Hayden [mailto:hayden@techprolink.com]
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 3:06 PM
To: bill
Subject: order

Dear Sir/Madam

My name Kenny Hayden from Singapore.
I hope you can supply me the goods i needed here.
I need some :
# GARMIN GPS 396 (6 units)
I have questions for you before we make a deal.
- Can you ship to Singapore via FedEx International Priority?
- Do you accept Credit Card for the payment?
If you can, i'll give you my credit card and billing/shipping informations you needed to process my order.
I'm waiting for your reply soon

Regards
Kenny Hayden

flyingdefinescontent · #2 05-05-2006, 01:38 PM

This is the same as those "Nigerian" scams running around. Don't do it! There are similar items plastered all over Ebay too. Buyer beware!

These guys will eventually get around to conning you out of money or information or anything else they can get their hands on.

Take it from a guy who just had some British brainchild try to ease 1800 dollars out of my Paypal account, don't do it! Change those passwords every week. Don't click on stuff you don't recognize. Don't fall the for the "too good to be true" ads.

Fly safe,
Carey Bowman

Jamie · #3 05-05-2006, 01:41 PM

This has gotta be a scam. The XM satellites are ONLY available in North America, thus the 396 WX functionality would be useless to anyone outside the continent.

rv8ch · #4 05-05-2006, 02:02 PM

Those guys have got to do something with all those stolen credit card numbers they are collecting, don't they?

Actually, it's a real pain that people do things like this, since there are, from time to time, suppliers in the US that won't sell me anything since I currently live outside the US. They want me to fax them a phone bill or some other silly thing. Very annoying.

Baja_Traveler · #5 05-05-2006, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamie

This has gotta be a scam. The XM satellites are ONLY available in North America, thus the 396 WX functionality would be useless to anyone outside the continent.

Actually, even though XM is targeting North America as an audience base, I have heard that the signal is being picked up as far south as argentina, and as far east as England (based on DJ comments while listening to XM radio). It may be possible for an XM reciever to get a signal over there in the West Pacific. I also know from personal experience that the signal comes in strong in Hawaii...

Jamie · #6 05-05-2006, 02:43 PM

Wow...that's impressive that the signal can be received at such a distance.

XM uses three geostationary satellites that are designed to provide coverage for the following area:

The original intent was for 2 satellites to be launched, one for the Left coast and one for the Right coast. Boeing botched some sort of power management issue on the original two satellites and end of life has been dropped to around 2008. XM launched the third satellite and put it in the place of the satellite previously providing coverage on the left coast. The faulty satellite that was on the left coast is now moving over to the east coast and will be placed beside the unit that is currently there. The two satellites on the East coast will alternate time transmitting in order to extend their lifespans. A fourth satellite will launched to take the place of the two failing ones on the east coast.

At any rate, the two satellites are in geosynchronous orbits (at the equator, of course) and are pointed at North America. I guess at that altitude some bleedover is going to happen.

I seriously doubt that XM is feeding weather data for Singapore over their WX service. I haven't tried it myself, but I seriously doubt it as it would consume valuable bandwidth which is very limited for them.

Are you getting WX in Hawaii?

kcameron · #7 05-05-2006, 04:39 PM

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see anything wrong with the inquiry from Mr Hayden. He's asks whether you can ship fedex to Singapore and whether you can accept a credit card. What's wrong with that?

briand · #8 05-05-2006, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamie

This has gotta be a scam. The XM satellites are ONLY available in North America, thus the 396 WX functionality would be useless to anyone outside the continent.

They will just resell them on e-bay to someone who (probably an American) who can use them. I think its just to "launder" the money that they will eventually receive from the use of a stolen CC #.

SteinAir · #9 05-05-2006, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcameron

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see anything wrong with the inquiry from Mr Hayden. He's asks whether you can ship fedex to Singapore and whether you can accept a credit card. What's wrong with that?

What's wrong with it is that it's a scam, and a fairly well known one at that (at least to those of us in this business). We probably get a dozen of similar emails per week, and all of them get deleted without a response....but I did read a good one from a colleague who asked if he could trade some sushi and a baby elephant!

FYI....a rather well known avionics mfgr got scammed on this last year because a secretary fell for it. Lost many thousands of $$'s in stuff, and ended up out the money and out the units....which later showed up on Ebay!

Cheers,
Stein.

flyingdefinescontent · #10 05-05-2006, 09:05 PM

Don't Trust Them!

I've seen dozens of these letters and the only thing that changes is the name and the country of origin. It's always the same, "Hi, I'm so and so, and I want to send you money, blah blah." In the Nigerian scams they would actually send a check which would of course turn out to be bad and they would then "need" YOUR secure information to make it valid, or they'd ask for a "deposit" to help them make the check good, or they'd blame it on someone else such as a manager or whatever and then try to hand you off to that person; it never ends. The possibilities are as endless as the creativity of the crook. In this case I'd suspect the credit card number would be stolen, as mentioned above.

Unless you have the ability to actually go to their location and meet them in person, don't do it. If you'd offer to do so it may be amusing to see how quickly their enthusiasm would fade. I feel sorry for the other folks this behavior affects, such as rv8ch there, but you have to be careful. And after you've seen enough of those scams they'll all start to look familiar regardless of the specifics.

Does it not make you even a tiny bit suspicious that someone would "cold call" you and offer their credit card info?

I see these thieves the same as I see murderers. Both want to take your time from you, just in different ways. You don't want to know what I'd do to them if I got the chance.

Ooooops, little soapbox there, I digress.

FWIW
Carey