Has someone offered you a huge sum of money or a valuable consignment? It's a 419 or advance fee fraud - find out how they work, and what to do to be safe.

#4305 by ChrisSmith Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:36 am
The mule is employed to send the envelopes out containing the Money Orders/cheques etc.
Normally, the scammer approaches them in a very similar way to that which you were approached. He'll come in as a reputable businessman looking for an employee to work as a mail dispatcher receiving the payments and the receivers' details and then sending them on. He'll offer any person who accepts the job a specific amount of cash for a certain number of envelopes sent out. Sometimes he'll pay the mule (if the scam works further down the line), sometimes he'll use them and then dump them. Sometimes he'll pay them with the same fraudulent cheques that they're sending out so they get stung doubly bad.
In most cases, the mule has to pay for the envelopes and the delivery costs - so not only do they ignorantly risk arrest by throwing out false payments, but they're normally out of pocket too.

In extreme case, the scammer sometimes get the mule to print the checks for them and all he does is supply the names of the victims.

Very occasionally, the mule knows what's going on is illegal but keeps going at it for greed. These guys are as bad as the scammers themselves. But in my experience, the vast majority of mules are just as in the dark to the scam as all the other victims.
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