So, That's How That Scam Works

Abby and I have been trying to sell our spare bed.

As most of you probably know, we recently moved from Mountain View to San Francisco. We left behind a two-bedroom apartment with an infrequently-used second bedroom to a smaller one-bedroom apartment. One of the things we've been trying to get rid of is a bed. We were hoping to sell it for $475 (still a fraction of its original price), but we've been whittled down by lack of interest to a more modest $300.

One of the things that keeps happening is people respond to the ad telling me they are out of town and cannot deliver the check or pick up the bed in person, but they will instead send the check by mail and then hire movers to come and get the bed. Every time, it sounds rather fishy, but I've gone along, telling the people that that's all well and good, but I need the bed gone rather soon, so possibly they shouldn't mail the check after all. Then, they vanish. My scam-sense began tingling.

Now, finally, someone has attempted Stage 2 of the scam on me, I know how it works.

Stage 2 is an email telling us that the bank made a mistake, and the cashier's check we will receive in the mail will be for $3000 dollars instead of $300. After taking of an extra $100, for our trouble, would we be so kind as to immediately wire the extra $2400 dollars back? Then he'll hire the movers to come get the bed.

Yeah, right.

See, as I understand it, money transfers via wire are quite fast, but checks take a while to clear. The check for $3000? I'll bet my hat it's a bad check. The $100 I get 'as recompense for all this running around' is a little extra bait on the hook. So, when the dust settles, I'd be out $2400. Of course, the movers will never materialize to pick up the bed.

I let our mysterious internet fellow know that I'm not going to deposit a check for $3000 dollars and wire him the extra $2400. If he cancels the check and sends a new one for the right amount, it will probably still get here in time for me to deposit it and him to send movers to get the bed. How much do you want to bet I'll never hear from him again.

So... anyone know someone who wants to buy a bed?

(no subject)

The Game: Call of Cthulhu
Publisher: Chaosium Inc.
Familiarity: Medium-Low. I played it this one time in high school, but I’ve had access to Abby’s copy for a long time and read it as a Cthulhu Mythos resource and occasionally drawn inspiration from it for other games. Tulzscha, for example, once showed up in a Mage: the Ascension game as one of the outer things worshipped by the K’llashsa Nephandi.

( 'Nothing I could say could even adumbrate the loathsome, unholy, nonhuman, extra-galactic horror and hatefulness and unutterable evil of that forbidden spawn of black chaos and illimitable night.' – H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald, 'Out of the Eons' )

I’d like to add (as if my character creation project posts aren’t long enough as is…) that I found this character creation process surprisingly fun. I liked how easy it was to create an old and wise character, in contrast to most games, which break down if you don’t build a relatively inexperienced young adult. For a random character generation, I was also surprised how quickly this guy came to life in front of me.

Up next... well, let me be honest. I've just finished unpacking all my gaming books, and some of the alphabetizing changed. So, I think I'm going to drop the alphabetizing and just do whatever I feel like doing. So probably Changeling: the Dreaming next. Then I dunno. I've got an idea for Nobilis that I've been meaning to try.