William Layton

[sharpy1071]

I've advertised some r/c equipment on this site and have had a reply from a person called William Layton. He didn't sound quite 100% from the start but I am quite cynical when it comes to money. This morning he has said he will give me £9000+ for my radio and I'm to send him the difference minus £100 for my trouble, all for a £90 radio Tx! Beware, I know you have all heard of this before. Needless to say he won't be getting my Radio neither my bank details or difference!

[Nigel R]

He doesn't also have three million pounds in an unclaimed bank account that a dead Nigerian prince has conveniently forgotten about, does he?

[Cuban8]

Probably stuck at Lagos airport after having lost his passport, and will need 'dear friend', a few hundred dollars to help him out .

[john hunt 7]

I too had dealings with this person after advertising a model for sale on this site I knew it was a scam because he came straight to my email and not through RCM&E so I ignored him what worries me is that the only people who know my email address and know I am selling this particular model is the RCM&E makes you wonder what is safe

[Engine Doctor]

I too had an e-mail from a Mr layton if that's his name ???? as you say he didn't sound right and came direct not even mentioning RCM&E site . I just ignored him and deleted his message ,

[Pete B]

Thanks for the heads-up, gents. He seems to have signed up to the site just a few days ago with an innocuous email address, clearly with this sort of activity in mind.He has been binned.

If something doesn't look right, it probably isn't. Be very careful out there...

Pete

[SIMON CRAGG]

Same scammer responded to my BMFA ad for a Speccy radio last week No Paypal or BACS facilities. Said he was visiting the country. Said he would pay full price, but wanted my bank details so his bank could send a cheque!. After a few e.mails to and fro, I ditched him. Total waste of space. Who do we report these idiots to?. Make me really angry these wasters.

[Pete B]

Posted by SIMON CRAGG on 04/12/2018 16:28:30:

Who do we report these idiots to?. Make me really angry these wasters.

The IP he used to sign up is in New Jersey, USA, Simon. These are international scammers, so no point in reporting them to any particular authority. The best we can do is highlight the nature of the activity and hope people heed the warnings.

Pete

[Bruce Collinson]

But somebody will turn up to collect the goods. I had a similar experience when I advertised an OS in the back of the mag, a generic reply not specifically mentioning an OS ... your items ...no response to a Paypal suggestion. I eventually worked it out. I reported it to BEB at the time. What’s described above is a variation.

Mine was, his courier would hand me a bank draft on collection. My first reaction was to buy a baseball bat for the meeting and try to find out the destination, then pass all the details onto the fraud people but an isolated episode is unlikely to get their attention.

These start to sound like concerted frauds/thefts. They clearly succeed often enough to make it worthwhile. Maybe someone could call in a favour from the Plods and put a Jeti or a gas turbine up, false details, then arrange a meeting and get the courier’s collar felt. If we assume that it’s not a kleptomaniacal aeromodeller stealing this kit, then it must be fenced. As the only realistic home for the goods is other aeromodellers then if they’re straight they need protection and if they’re bent they should be made to crash and burn. Probably, with UK modelling being a bit of a tight knit community, it’s going in a container on Hull docks, like the Defenders, quad bikes and Golf Rs (allegedly).

It smacks of organised crime and the state ought to start to show interest. Maybe an approach from BMFA? They will not just be targeting modellers. I wondered whether there was some sort of automated system in use, spamming. I wonder whether other intrinsically valuable item users are similarly targeted, motorbikes, cameras, wifi etc.

If nothing else, they might gat the picture that there are no easy pickings with the modelling fraternity and go elsewhere (displacement, in Newspeak).

Thoughts?

Yours in apoplectic frustration,

BTC

Edited By Pete B - Moderator on 04/12/2018 20:23:20

[SIMON CRAGG]

From the communications I had with him, I don't think he is remotely interested in models. IMHO its an elaborate way of getting hold of bank details / pin numbers etc. etc. Even if we just flag up the names of these cretins on here, it will at the very least make others aware that low lifes like this are trolling our hobby.

[nigel newby]

Oh no!!! I was banking on that money!

I have had 5 calls from people telling me I had £3000 for an accident I had had. I must admit I don't really remember having an accident, but I also don't really remember marrying my wife. But she assures me I did. So I guess I must have had the accidents.

I was then going to use £6000 of the money I got to help that poor Nigerian Prince out, who need the funds to get out the 25 million pounds that was held by a solicitor. He just need the funds to pay the legal fees. For my services rendered I was to receive 10%.

[Peter Miller]

The dodge is this.

He sends you all that money. You then pay the difference to whoever collects the item and six months later the bank tells you that the bank draft was fake and you owe them £8000 pounds.

I had this one many,many years ago. I contacted the police and their cyber crime officer came to see me and explained the crime in detail.

I said "Surely no one is that stupid!"

He told me that a man in my own village was taken for £3000 when he sold his car to a scammer like that

[stu knowles]

With all due respect to the OP, this form of scam has been around for so long, I find it surprising that people are even momentarily taken in by it

[Geoff S]

I'm not sure how knowing my bank account number/sort code is going to help anyone steal my money. After all, those details are on every cheque I write - admittedly those are very few these days but the account details aren't secret and not useful except to help someone pay in to it.

I've used direct bank transfers to pay quite large bills in the past eg to the plumber who installed our shower cubicle and fitted a new c/h boiler.

Geoff

[Dave Hess]

It's OK. I know this guy. He's an incognito Nigerian prince. I can vouch for him. I sold a guitar neck to him for which he offered £10,000. Naturally, I was very suspicious, so I demanded payment in cash. He sent it the next day via DHL. When I opened the package and counted the money, it was all there - 400 crisp new £25 notes. I couldn't send him the guitar neck and the £100 fast enough.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

P.S. Whatever happened to the good old nine bob note?

Edited By Martin Harris on 05/12/2018 14:00:19

[Geoff S]

Posted by Martin Harris on 05/12/2018 13:55:07:

P.S. Whatever happened to the good old nine bob note?

Edited By Martin Harris on 05/12/2018 14:00:19

They stopped being legal tender after the tragedy of decimalisation when we should have gone the whole way to nonadecimal money

Geoff

[Stuart Z]

Sounds like money laundering to me.

S

[John Privett]

Posted by Geoff Sleath on 05/12/2018 11:44:29:

I'm not sure how knowing my bank account number/sort code is going to help anyone steal my money. After all, those details are on every cheque I write - admittedly those are very few these days but the account details aren't secret and not useful except to help someone pay in to it.

Not only are you handing over your account details Geoff, you're also giving them a specimen of your signature whenever you give somebody a cheque. Not I think that's really a huge problem, just saying...

[Denis Watkins]

Posted by John Privett on 05/12/2018 20:32:50:

Posted by Geoff Sleath on 05/12/2018 11:44:29:

I'm not sure how knowing my bank account number/sort code is going to help anyone steal my money. After all, those details are on every cheque I write - admittedly those are very few these days but the account details aren't secret and not useful except to help someone pay in to it.

Not only are you handing over your account details Geoff, you're also giving them a specimen of your signature whenever you give somebody a cheque. Not I think that's really a huge problem, just saying...

They are looking for enough details to secure loan applications, and guarantors as well as weak bank access

It is an absolute nightmare, but you do have recourse with valid holders of your information

We all know enough not to give casually our information

[SIMON CRAGG]

Posted by stu knowles on 05/12/2018 08:34:59:

With all due respect to the OP, this form of scam has been around for so long, I find it surprising that people are even momentarily taken in by it

Perhaps not all readers of this forum are as street wise as you fella. As I stated earlier, if highlightling this issue only helps one reader of this forum from being scammed (or worse), then I have acheived my aim.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Pete B]

You'd better hurry up, Tom - there's lots of winners wanting a slice of that cake...

Pete

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Stephen Smith 14]

Can't believe threads like this continually keep coming up, if your thick enough, naive enough or greedy enough to fall for any of these scams you deserve to loss your money, after all education is expensive. My suggestion for any one that thinks its genuine is stay off the internet.