Anatomy of a tentative Scam

How to Scam an artist... and fail at it.

On February 9, 2015, I received an email from Nathan Ebaugh, Finnish retail businessman dealing with Art.

The whole thing was a scam...

Nathan had visited my Pinterest Board “Art Direct from Artists”. He wanted to purchase some of my mosaics and some masks from Brazilian artist Andy Ferrari. I put him in touch with Andy so he could directly deal with her.

After we agreed on prices, Nathan asked me to have my mosaics shipped to Helsinki, Finland through his US shipping agent Richard Kirk from Wichita Falls Texas. He would pay for the art and shipment with his credit card. I would just need to pay the shipment.

What would really happen was that he would pay me with a stolen credit card. I would wire money to the Shipping Agent (They do not take credit cards) to have them come pick up the Art pieces. And I would not hear anything from anybody any more.

Of course the credit card being stolen, I would get no money, the credit card payment would not be valid, but I would know about it too late. And I would have lost the money I had wired to the (Fake) Shipping Agent.

There were several red flags in this story :

• No Websites either for the Client or the Shipping Agent.
• Email addresses on gmail and outlook. Generally, established businesses have dedicated websites and email addresses.
• The fact that the Shipping Agent only took wire transfers
• The fact that Nat did not have a Paypal account (You do not need an account to make a payment through Paypal), and that he told me Paypal did not work with his credit card.
• Specially the fact that he was asking me to find someone else who could use a credit card terminal to receive his payment.
• Finally, I never found any Shipping Agent of this name in Wichita Falls...

I suppose the same person was handling the 2 email addresses. While this was going on, he was trying the same scam with Andy, who did not fall for it either. However, this kind of scam probably goes on. Beware !

Never send any money for shipment of your goods, unless you are protected. Once you wire money, there is nothing you can do...

Here are some of the details of the whole tentative scam :

This is the first email I received : 

Name: Nathan Ebaugh
Email: natebllc@gmail.com
Phone: 9027819872
Comments: Hello Sales, Am a Retail Business man i will like to order for some of your goods to my store in Finland,let me know if you can ship to my store in Finland and also accept credit card? Regards. Nat

We exchanged more emails and I understood he had seen one of my Pinterest Boards “Art direct from Artists” and was interested in purchasing Mosaics and Masks displayed on it. 
The masks were creation of Andy Ferrari, so I got him in contact with her. 
When I googled Nathan I could not find him. I asked him details about his activities and told him I would accept credit card payments through Paypal.

Hello Nat
Thank you for your inquiry. 

I ship mosaics worldwide, I have pieces in France, Australia and Dubai, I can ship air or sea. I make a strong wooden crate for the mosaics and they travel very safely.

I cannot directly take credit card but you can use your credit card to pay through Paypal.
Could you please tell me a little more about your business ? Do you have a web site ? 
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely 
Frederic Lecut.

I was a little surprised he had no website address, but after all, people have been doing business without website for centuries... His English was not exactly proper, but I thought that was normal for a Finnish guy. (After all my English is not perfect either...) As we agreed of the sale of 4 pieces, Nathan asked me to contact his shipping agent Castle Shipping Ltd in Wichita Falls, Texas, to ship gods to his address in Finland. I contacted the shipping agent and here is the answer I received :

Dear Client,
My name is Richard Kirk ,under the umbrella of CASTLE SHIPPING LIMITED.I am the pickup agent in charge of your customer's order, We can see in our data base that the customer with the ID # LK8230CL8 is from Finland and i can see that we have shipped to them before. Below are what we will need to quote you:
The pick-up address:(Where goods will be pick up) Dimensions: Weight: All you need to do is to pack the order down and we shall come over and have it repack for pick up. 

Richard Kirk - Castle Shipping Limited, 474 7th Street, Wichita Falls, Texas 76301

Everything seemed legit and professional...

I submitted Weight and Dimensions to the Shipping agent and received a professional email with a quote :

Dear Client,  
We would be glad to provide you with cost for shipment from the pick up location 610 Mitchell St, Headland, AL 36345 USA.Due to recent new custom regulator on some goods in Finland, the freight charges has increase which we believe Mr Nathan should be aware of. For a shipment moving from 610 Mitchell St, Headland, AL 36345 USA to Vesakkotic 6719 FI-00630 HELSINKI FINLAND , with the total weight and dimension you provide, below is the quote as requested. 

Customer ID# LK8230CL8

Your quote request # is 003649842. 
Shipping fee: $1420.00
PICK-UP ADDRESS: 610 Mitchell St, Headland, AL 36345, USA
Delivery Address: Vesakkotic 6719, FI-00630 HELSINKI, FINLAND
The freight costs includes: Collection from your Yard - Customs clearance - Transfer fee - Air Freight - Duties - Inland transit to Finland - Insurance - Import Permit - Door To Door Delivery in Finland - ETC
We have greatly reduce the price of your customer shipment. We accept Wire transfer as a means of payment, you have to let us know when the goods will be ready for pick up in other to schedule a pick up for the shipment as we normally have a lot of shipment request.We can ship to any where in the world and we will be grateful to be at your service.Thank You and we hope to serve you.
We make it a simple task, Whatever the journey, Wherever in the world.
Thank you
Richard Kirk
Castle Shipping Limited - 474 7th Street, Wichita Falls, Texas 76301

As I thought the quote was little high, I contacted my Shipping agent who quoted me $860. I contacted Nathan about that, but he told me he was used to dealing with Castle Shipping and would rather pay full price for their great service... After all, it was his money !

   
Hello Frederic, 
Thanks so much for getting back to me with the cost of my order and shipping cost from Castle Shipping, am quite please with the cost of order and shipping cost from Castle Shipping,with Castle Shipping fee i wont be paying for any more tariff,tax or charges,also i sincerely appreciate you getting another shipping quote for me through DHL,there are some charges they don't pay for which i will have to pay when the goods get to Finland that why i want you to make use of Castle Shipping for the shipment,more over the shipping address is difficult to locate in Finland which has cost me lost of goods and goods been return so please feel free to make use of Castle Shipping. 
I will like to proceed with the order by sending you my valid US issued credit card details to charge for the order and shipping,please let me know the details you will need to process my credit card. 
Thanks 
Nat

I replied this was no problem but that I could not proceed his credit card directly and that he could pay me with his credit card through Paypal

Hello Nathan 

Like I told you from the beginning, I cannot process your credit card myself, however, you can use that credit card to pay me through Paypal. You just go to their site and enter my email address. I would rather you pay directly the shipping company, but I can do this for you if you would like to. 
Paypal is charging a 3.9 % fee to process the international transfer....

I finally received this answer :

Frederic,

Thanks so much for getting back to me with the final cost of my order, am quite please with the total cost, i will be please if you can get a close source of yours who has a credit card terminal machine to charge my credit card, i will be paying for the sub-charge fee for the charges,please bear with me on this i don't have an account with Pay Pal and it doesn't work on my credit card.  
Thanks 
Nat

Now this was a little strange. I was not going to go ask someone I knew to use their credit card terminal, so this was my answer to Nat :

Dear Nat
I should be able to use your credit card through Paypal myself. If you provide me with all details of your credit card, I can do this for you. I will need credit card number, name on card, billing address, expiration...

Since then, I have not heard from the little Weasel...

I am a modern mosaic artist with a studio in Headland, Alabama, USA and Saint Valery / Somme in Northern France. Although my work is mostly inspired by the Arts of Classical Rome and Greece I am also highly interested in modern artists working with unconventional materials. I enjoy sharing the latest news about them in this blog.

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