Is this a scam?

[hsamson]

Hello,
I am John Stone of Strong Hold Ventures,i will like to order some of
your products and i will want it ship to our place in Bangkok, Thailand:

Shipping Address:
Strong Hold Ventures
1411 Convent Road,
Silom Bangkok, 10500
Thailand

So i hope to hear from you soon regarding my inquiry and to know where i can
view your products you have presently in stock and if there is any special
pricing i need to know about. Lastly regarding payment i will be sending you Our credit card to charge for my order to avoid delays but can you let me know the type of credit cards you accept?I hope to hear from you as soon as
possible.

Regards.
Happy New Year
John Stone


After placing a significant order with me he sends me this e-mail

Concerning the shipment, the likes of UPS, DHL and others always don't take care of the charges down here. Charges like handling, customs and duties etc. We have experienced such situation before and we don't want to experience such a thing again. We will be glad if you contact this shipper Sketch Fly Freight for the shipping quote. Here is there email address(sketchflyfreight@yahoo.co.uk), Note that we can't deal with the shipper but they always deal with the company where they will be doing the pick up in other to reduce the customs duties and other charges down here in Thailand. By indicating in the paperworks that the payment was received by the shipper from the point of purchase, it will reduce the charges and if we(owner of the goods) wanted to pay for the custom duties and other charges, at times it is more than the whole package amount. We do trust SFF and if we didn't, wouldn't have ask you to contact them in the first place. They are very reliable and fast. They will take care of everything including handling, customs and duties,Tax, insurance etc. Always send us the copy of email you send to them. We will be looking forward to see the total cost of the order with the shipping quote from SFF so that we can send you the credit card details for the payment Hope to see your mail soon.
> >
> > Thank you
> >
> > John StoneStrong Hold VenturesSales Manager

I would appreciate any advice you could give me on how to handle this situation. We have gone back and forth several times and I even confronted him about it being a scam and he is telling me that it is not and he will pay in full up front??? I have a big hunch that he is a pro scammer

[hsamson]

sorry about the double thread post....it said it timed out so I re-posted!
Sorry from the newbie! ; )

[BorisZ]

I can bet that "Sketch Fly Freight" does not exist. Legitimate freight company will have corporate website and not free email account.

Also if you receive credit card info, immediately call their credit card company. Tell them that order has been placed with potentially stolen credit card.

If you, after all negotiations, get money order/check do not ship for at least a month. That how long it usually takes to clear check.

[mumbles]

seems to be complete nonsense. do you usually do business in thailand ?

[MBT]

John Stone of Strong Hold Ventures apparently is also from Switzerland. Wants to know if we will ship there and accept cc. payments.

This is the typical presentation for purchasing scams - overseas, no company data, generic domain for email (ie gmail, yahoo, etc.), want to pay w cc.

Rule of thumb: legit customers don't try to be anonymous. You might as well hit 'delete' - or 'block sender' so you don't get any further emails from him.

[Wondershopper]

No scammer is going to admit being a scammer.

"Wow! You must have an impressive business in that he wants to use your products without knowing first what you have or do. That is quite impressive that somebody would seek out your business from the other side of the world. You must have one heck of a marketing campaign!!!"

I hope this helps you to see that there is no question its a hoax and that I've offered you a bit of a chuckle. You should charge him for insulting your intelligence and then for being an insult to his own intelligence.

Originally Posted by hsamson

Hello,
I am John Stone of Strong Hold Ventures,i will like to order some of
your products and i will want it ship to our place in Bangkok, Thailand:

Shipping Address:
Strong Hold Ventures
1411 Convent Road,
Silom Bangkok, 10500
Thailand

So i hope to hear from you soon regarding my inquiry and to know where i can
view your products you have presently in stock and if there is any special
pricing i need to know about. Lastly regarding payment i will be sending you Our credit card to charge for my order to avoid delays but can you let me know the type of credit cards you accept?I hope to hear from you as soon as
possible.

Regards.
Happy New Year
John Stone


After placing a significant order with me he sends me this e-mail

Concerning the shipment, the likes of UPS, DHL and others always don't take care of the charges down here. Charges like handling, customs and duties etc. We have experienced such situation before and we don't want to experience such a thing again. We will be glad if you contact this shipper Sketch Fly Freight for the shipping quote. Here is there email address(sketchflyfreight@yahoo.co.uk), Note that we can't deal with the shipper but they always deal with the company where they will be doing the pick up in other to reduce the customs duties and other charges down here in Thailand. By indicating in the paperworks that the payment was received by the shipper from the point of purchase, it will reduce the charges and if we(owner of the goods) wanted to pay for the custom duties and other charges, at times it is more than the whole package amount. We do trust SFF and if we didn't, wouldn't have ask you to contact them in the first place. They are very reliable and fast. They will take care of everything including handling, customs and duties,Tax, insurance etc. Always send us the copy of email you send to them. We will be looking forward to see the total cost of the order with the shipping quote from SFF so that we can send you the credit card details for the payment Hope to see your mail soon.
> >
> > Thank you
> >
> > John StoneStrong Hold VenturesSales Manager

I would appreciate any advice you could give me on how to handle this situation. We have gone back and forth several times and I even confronted him about it being a scam and he is telling me that it is not and he will pay in full up front??? I have a big hunch that he is a pro scammer

[dolphin990]

I vote scam!

I just received the same type of emails from this guy:

Hello,

My Name is John Stone from Switzerland. Do you ship to Switzerland also if accept credit card as method of payment.

Thank you

John Stone
Owner

I responded, as we do ship products worldwide, and received a second email:

Hello,
Thank you for the mail. Get me the price of the below products:

Model: xxx
Model: xxx

Thank you


I gave prices, and then he responded with:

Hello,
Thank you for the mail. Here are the products that we need below:

xxx..........Qty 3

Let me know the total cost of the products before adding the shipping cost.

Shipping Address:
Strong Hold Ventures
134 Avenue Ruchonnet
Lausanne, 1003
Switzerland.


Concerning the shipment, the likes of UPS, DHL and others always don't take care of the charges down here. Charges like handling, customs and duties etc. We have lost so many products due to inability of some courier companies not to pay the custom and other duties. In Sept 2006, we lost goods up to $5000 as a result of UPS not able to pay the duties. The same things happened in 2005 from USPS and can't be mentioning companies. Since then we have been using FSF and they have been very reliable and fast. They will take care of all charges including the duties we are talking about. We have experienced such situation before and we don't want to experience such a thing again. We will be glad if you contact this shipper Fly Sketch Freight for the shipping quote. Here is there email address(flysketchfreight@googlemail.com), Note that we can't deal with the shipper but they always deal with the company where they will be doing the pick up in other to reduce the customs duties and other charges down here in Thailand. By indicating in the paper works that the payment was received by the shipper from the point of purchase, it will reduce the charges and if we(owner of the goods) wanted to pay for the custom duties and other charges, at times it is more than the whole package amount. We do trust FSF and if we didn't, wouldn't have ask you to contact them in the first place. They are very reliable and fast. They will take care of everything including handling, customs and duties,Tax, insurance etc. Always send us the copy of email you send to them. We will be looking forward to see the total cost of the order with the shipping quote from FSF so that we can send you the credit card for the payment Hope to see your mail soon.

Thank you


So, same email to you, but he never mentioned Thailand before which I thought was strange...

"Fly Sketch Freight"? Come on... sounds a little sketchy to me, lol.

So I wrote him back with a link to this thread. Maybe he'll realize we're on to him and give it up.

[nomaxim]

Originally Posted by dolphin990

So I wrote him back with a link to this thread. Maybe he'll realize we're on to him and give it up.

More then likely they'll just change all the names and continue on.