Email Scams

Like a number of selling, auction, and advertising sites, our website is from time to time targeted by criminals and financial scammers. The offence they are trying to carry out is known as "Advance Fee Fraud" by the authorities.

There are a number of current variations of the scam, but the end result is that their method is payment will be fraudulent, ie funds do not exist. Payment will be offered in a form which initially appears genuine, but which later will turn out to worthless. Thus the seller will be out of pocket, and also minus their wedding dress.

All enquiries are processed through our servers rather than by regular email delivery, and we have a reasonably intelligent method for weeding out dubious messages. However we cannot guarantee 100% success, we are always playing catch-up as the scammers become more devious. You MAY receive something which is not genuine.

When you do receive enquiries from your advert, we would advise caution if the enquiry meets any of the following criteria:

The sender is from a foreign country, particularly an African country.

The message contains bad grammar and/or spelling.

The sender asks for your "latest" or "best" price, although this is shown in your advert.

The sender offers a cheque/transfer of higher value than your current selling price.

The sender offers to use Western Union.

The text includes the words "wedding dress" or "wedding gown" in brackets and/or capitals, as if it has been mail-merged into a standard block of text.

The sender offers to sort out shipping, or mentions their own shipper.

The query includes questions which can be answered simply by looking at your dress advert, for example price, or location, or photos.

The sender wants to buy the dress ASAP, without seeing it or trying it on.

If you wish to follow up a possible scam email, you will find some helpful info on the Metropolitan Police website:

http://www.met.police.uk

Below is the Met's current (October 2006) advice on this subject:

Thank you for contacting the National Criminal Intelligence Service about advance fee fraud (or '419' as it is known colloquially). This is an international problem that requires international cooperation to combat the unknown fraudsters responsible.

Reporting advance fee fraud in the UK
In the UK, advance fee fraud should be reported to the local constabularies, each of which has a dedicated officer, usually based in the fraud squad or commercial crime unit. Please contact them for assistance, and to forward emails, letters and faxes you believe to be associated with advance fee fraud, under the title 'West African organised crime'.

Do not under any circumstance reply to the unknown fraudsters responsible for sending out these communications. They are professional, international, organised and effective criminals.

If you have entered into communication with the fraudsters and thereafter sent money, please contact your local constabulary urgently.

PLEASE NOTE THAT NCIS IS UNABLE TO RESPOND TO ENQUIRIES OR RECEIVE INFORMATION FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC REGARDING ADVANCE FEE FRAUD.

Reporting advance fee fraud overseas
If you are a non-UK citizen, please contact with the national law enforcement agency in your country which leads investigations into advance fee fraud.

In Australia, contact er-waoc@afp.gov.au
In Canada, contact wafl@phonebusters.com
In South Africa, contact mediarelations@saps.org.za or meiringh@saps.org.za
In the USA, contact 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov

Stopping the emails
You may also wish to forward a copy of the email you have received to the Internet Service Provider from where it originated. This enables the ISP to terminate accounts that abuse its systems. Address the email to abuse@'the ISP's name', for example, abuse@yahoo.com, abuse@hotmail.com, abuse@onebox.com.