Christian Irwin, the music producer who disappeared under bizarre circumstances after making frantic phone calls about a Nigerian Internet Scam, appears to have been the victim of he infamous “overpayment cheque scam.” Fraud humor website419 Zeros says this about this type of scam:

This scam is normally targeted at people actually selling items on the internet, but this stupid prick just sent this out blindly to everyone on an e-mail list hoping to actually get a person who just happened to be selling their car online. The way it works is once they agree to the price, they send a cashier’s cheque for substantially more than the cost of the goods and say the excess amount needs to be wired to someone else, such as their agent. A cashier’s cheque is very difficult for the bank to determine if it’s legitimate on the spot and it usually takes at least 14 days to clear. Of course the cheque bounces a couple weeks later and you’re stuck paying back the money to the bank. I’ve heard of someone even requesting the bank manager to examine the cheque upon cashing, which he thought looked good, and it then ended up bouncing a couple weeks later. I’ve even seen a woman who lost $2,000 this way when someone was suppose to be buying her puppies!

Online community Craigslist has this to say about distant parties that offer to send you a cashier’s check and then have you wire money: “this is ALWAYS a scam, in our experience - the cashier’s check is FAKE.”

Most everyone with an email address gets scam letters. Most people ignore them, some fall for them (as it appears Christian did), and some fight back through something called “scam-baiting” whereby people respond back with the intention of wasting the scammers time. It is considered an Internet sport and it can be considered an art form when it is done as well as it is done as it is on 410 Zeros.

At 410 Zeros, the individual who scam-baits under the name “Frank Rizzo” (a tribute to the Jerky Boys), and gets the scammers to do all kinds of things–faxing documents, writing letters, etc. all the while pretending to go along with the scam. In the end, after the scammers are exhausted with Mr. Rizzo he pops them. It is very funny, but a warning that in true Rizzo fashion the language is a little rough. Check out the site but only when you have awhile to read them in detail.

Update: While researching for this posting I came across the Jury Duty Scam–something I could see working if they happen upon someone who has just ignored a Jury Summons or thinks that they might have.

Click here to access all of Independent Sources postings on the disappearance (and finding) of Christian Irwin.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2005 at 6:01 am by Insider and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.