EPT
Haha, ok here's this really awesome story about my brother's car. It's pretty long but if you are willing to read the whole thing, it's really pretty intresting, and I might need some advice.
Ok, so my brother's car broke down and we needed to buy a new one. There was this grandma at our church who was moving to Japan, and she basically sold us a $7000 car for $3000 (it is a '93 XLE Camry). My brother wanted a stick shift, so he sold it to get some money for a Civic with a Acura GSR engine swap. So we put the Camry on sale.
After some dealing, he got a buyer who was apparantly from CarLink Motors and was buying the car for a client. But from the very begining, things smelled like bull. He wanted some wierd thing where he sends a frew grand, we send a few grand back to him, and smelling a scam, we asked him to clarify. It turned out he was going to send a $13,100 cashier's check for the car, which he dealed down to $7,100, and we would have to give him back $6,000. We accepted because cashier's checks are as good as cash, so it was no risk to us and high risk for him. We accepted the deal and we were happy.
Not. He calls us like everyday after the deal has been made. He sounded like he was Mexican (name was Anthonia Leader) and talked really fast, so fast we couldn't understand him. When he first called our house, my mom hung up on him 3 times until she thought she reconized "SUNG KIM!SUNG KIM!SUNG KIM!SUNG KIM!SUNG KIM!SUNG KIM!SUNG KIM!" Sung Kim is my dad's name, so she was like "You want to talk to Sung Kim?" He's like "YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YESYESYSE". So when my dad gets the phone, he asks what the guy wants. The guy responds with a LOT of giberish but my dad made out two words: money and car. So he's like, Oh you are the buyer for the car. The guy goes on his yes spasm again. My dad gives up on trying to understand him and tells my brother to talk to the buyer because my dad isn't perfect English. Well when my brother picks up the phone and listens for 3 seconds, he busts out laughing and can't stop for like 2 minutes. He thought it was a joke because the guy was so uncomprehendable. My brother tried to tell the guy to slow down and speak slower, but no success. The other guy just hung up. So things get a littler wierder, but we don't worry too much yet.
Now, the money still doesn't come even when it's sopposed to. It turns out he shipped it to New York accidently or something. But the guy doesn't believe us and calls us and screams "MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!!!" and doesn't really say anything else. Really insane. Finally we call fedex and get everything worked out and he leaves us alone.... for a while.
When the money comes, we put the $11,100 into our bank account (all confirmed) and take out $6000 in cash because that's how he wanted it. We insisted he accept a cashier's check as it is more secure and easier to ship than $6000 in cash. But he denies the offer with one of his spasms again. He wants us to use the international Money Gram. When we go to the Money Gram place, it turns out you need $260 as the fee to send that much money over their service. That was insane, I mean if the guy accepted the cashier's check and we did overnight fedex, it would only cost like $20... so we made Mr. Leader pay for the $260 because he wanted to use that service so bad. When we get home, we get another call and the guy is seriously pissed off. He won't believe us that we sent the money and keeps screaming at us.
OK, so that was the story up to yesterday. We discussed it as a family and here's what we analyzed. First of all, he claimed he needed to do the $11,100 check because it was some company check or something. Soemthing stupid. Well one thing that that doesn't seem to fit is why the change he needed back was EXACTLY $6000, I mean I'd expect it to be like $5876 or something like that, but it's an exact amount. So he must have been looking for a car that was around 7100 so he could get exact change, and a car that costs any less than 7000 would be suspiciuos because buying a 500 dollar car with a 11,000 check is unheard of.
Then there's the thing with the MoneyGram service. It turns out you don't even need the recevier's name. Anybody who has the pickup number can pick it up ANYWHERE in the world. Like this MEXICAN was sopposedly in CANADA... he his accent was very very heavy, which makes me think he wasn't been living here for a while. So how could he have a company like CarLink Motors. Who'd trust a person with their car transation if he can't even speak comprehendable English? And back on topic, WHO SPENDS $260 ON A MONEY TRANSATION! You can do it free with your bank or online, or even spend only 20 dollars on a the cashier's check/fedex combo. MoneyGram seems to be the best way to launder money as there is no trace who got the money, and you can pick it up ANYWHERE versus a cashier's check which you can trace.
Another wierd thing was his name. Anthonia Leader. I dont' know many Mexican names, but I do know that "Leader" is not a last name. I even checked out the Portland Metro PhoneBook and found no "Leader". The reason we think it is a fake last name is because my brother's e-mail, is soi_leader@asdfasd.com. He must have thought that "leader" was my brother's last name or something and copied it as his own.
The guy also never gave us his phone number. He didn't even request that we send the car title to him with the $6000 so it seems he has no intention of keeping the car but just wants the money. I mean legally, we still own the car and he has NO PROOF whatsoever that he bought the car. Normally when you buy a car and you will pick it up later, you will take the title for proof. Also he kept calling us and always asked about the money, and got extremely mad when they thought we jacked them, even though we already sent the money. "MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY!"
He also stopped replying to our e-mails about when he was coming to come pick up the car. Even over the phone he'd ignore our questions about how he was going to pick up the car and he would change the subject to the money. Now, here's a new addition to this story that basically confrims everything we expected. He gave us an e-mail today and here's what is says:
From: MIKE Willaims
To: Soi_leader@ljkalskdjfasdfasdfa[censored]
Subject: (S.O.S) I AWAITING WESTERN UNION IFORMATION........
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 15:54:22 +0100 (BST)
Dear Soi,
HOW ARE YOU/HOPE ALL IS WELL EITH YOU.THIS SI TO INFORM YOU THAT THE CAR THE SHIPPERS WERE MENT TO COME AND OICKUP WON'T BE POSSIBLE AGIN B/COS MY COSUTOMER HAD AN ACCIDENT AND PASS AWAY SO THE WIFE AND THERE FAMILY CAME TO MY OFFICE TO INFORM ME AND THAT WANT THE REFUND OF THE MONEY AENT TO YOU FOR THE CAR.
BUT I CALL MY LAWYER IN AND WE AGREED THAT YOU TAKE %15 OUT THE MONEY AND SEND TOE BALANCE TO THIS ADDRESS BELOW SO THAT THEY CAN OFF SET THE BURIAL ARANGEMAENT THAT IS DUE THIS COMING WEEK.THE NAME YOU USE TO SEND THE FUNDS IS MY CUSTOMER'S LAWYER NAME BELOW TRUE MONEY GRAM
SO PLS I AWAIT THE WESTERN INFORMATION AS SOOS AS POSSIBLE HERE IS THE INFORMATION YOU NEED TO DO THIS AND SEND THE WESTERN INFORMATION TO THIS MAIL ADDRESS carlinkmotors@mail2world.com FOR THIS MAIL ADD IS MY MAIN OFFICE WERE I SATY ALWAYS.PLS TRY AND UNDERSTAND WE ARE SORRY FOR WHAT EVER IT WILL COST YOU....OK.
THANKS AND GOD BLESS,
MIKE.......(C.E.O)CARLINKMOTORS
NAME - STEVEN MA
ADDRESS - 11 BAY STREET,
TORONTO, ONTARIO. M5J 2S1.
CANADA.
TEXT QUESTION..... MY CUSTOMERS NAME
ANSWER............... KIM
To: Soi_leader@ljkalskdjfasdfasdfa[censored]
Subject: (S.O.S) I AWAITING WESTERN UNION IFORMATION........
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 15:54:22 +0100 (BST)
Dear Soi,
HOW ARE YOU/HOPE ALL IS WELL EITH YOU.THIS SI TO INFORM YOU THAT THE CAR THE SHIPPERS WERE MENT TO COME AND OICKUP WON'T BE POSSIBLE AGIN B/COS MY COSUTOMER HAD AN ACCIDENT AND PASS AWAY SO THE WIFE AND THERE FAMILY CAME TO MY OFFICE TO INFORM ME AND THAT WANT THE REFUND OF THE MONEY AENT TO YOU FOR THE CAR.
BUT I CALL MY LAWYER IN AND WE AGREED THAT YOU TAKE %15 OUT THE MONEY AND SEND TOE BALANCE TO THIS ADDRESS BELOW SO THAT THEY CAN OFF SET THE BURIAL ARANGEMAENT THAT IS DUE THIS COMING WEEK.THE NAME YOU USE TO SEND THE FUNDS IS MY CUSTOMER'S LAWYER NAME BELOW TRUE MONEY GRAM
SO PLS I AWAIT THE WESTERN INFORMATION AS SOOS AS POSSIBLE HERE IS THE INFORMATION YOU NEED TO DO THIS AND SEND THE WESTERN INFORMATION TO THIS MAIL ADDRESS carlinkmotors@mail2world.com FOR THIS MAIL ADD IS MY MAIN OFFICE WERE I SATY ALWAYS.PLS TRY AND UNDERSTAND WE ARE SORRY FOR WHAT EVER IT WILL COST YOU....OK.
THANKS AND GOD BLESS,
MIKE.......(C.E.O)CARLINKMOTORS
NAME - STEVEN MA
ADDRESS - 11 BAY STREET,
TORONTO, ONTARIO. M5J 2S1.
CANADA.
TEXT QUESTION..... MY CUSTOMERS NAME
ANSWER............... KIM
ROFL? haha, notice the "Dear soi," part? He really thinks that is a first name... haha. So notice the "from" part, it says Mike Williams instead of Anthonia Leader. Hmm... also he says he's from CarLink Motors, yes? Go to CarLink Motor's Website and check out the e-mail there. It is sales@carlinkmotors, not carlink_motors@yahoo.... hahaha
So now I am confident that this is dirty money (I mean wanting the money back makes it so obvious) and we are being used to launder their money. He wants us to send the $7100 back because the family died... ROFL! We are thinking of just keeping the car and selling it to someone else (We just earned 7100! haha) but I'm afraid that they'll come here with guns or something. So instead, my brother "no refunds" in his e-mail reply and just said "sell the car yourself, you are a car dealer". They are trying to use us to cover their tracks so the cashier's check doesn't trace back to them.
So... what do I do? What we were originally going to do was sit for a month or so (this was before today when he didn't e-mail us for a refund and we hadn't communicated with him in a few days) and then keep using the car or sell if no communication. We thought he'd just run away with the $6000 and be happy, but just in case he was really sincire, we would wait a month. Now we don't need to wait a month, this is almost a confirmation. I'm thinking of e-mailing CarLinkMotors and asking if carlink_motors@yahoo is one of their staff, but I already know the answer. Should we just keep the money and hope they don't shoot us? Should we tell the cops? The thing will telling the cops is things tend to get a lot more complicated and all the questions... and they might even take our extra "hard earned" money away!
Anyways, this is really awesome situation and I thought I'd share. Haha...
