# Retail Overseas



## ship (Apr 13, 2004)

A caution to all who don't know about this yet but there has been many people and companies in this industry that have been taken advantage of by criminals posing as fellow technitions from other countries. Often they contact you or your company to send them either some new or used gear, than offer a credit card or what ever to make the payment. Unless they are a well established company, do not trust them or sell them gear. They will get the gear from you, than either the credit card will be stolen or be rejected too late and you are very much out your gear.

I was personally was just contacted by one of them about some Mac 600 fixtures. Don't know where this person got my name but I don't sell stuff in my off time, much less on the internet or when I can help it. I thus never offered any such thing. If advice was given to him about something such as lamps, no sale was intended. Still this person I probably gave advice to contacted me directly to purchase some Mac 600s from - no doubt used fixtures from us. Fine we have a few hundred but don't do business on the internet nor due to well expressed warnings - with people overseas without the laws to protect us. Do not do business with people overseas especially from those you don't know, those from less civilized countries with similar laws, and those other than in the extreme from companies that are intronationally and ESTA recognized. You will have your gear stolen in the end no matter if it's a Leko or moving light. Moving lights and desks are a big theft market nowadays. 

Here is a copy of the E-Mail if it helps:
martin mac600 order

Greetings :

First,I would like to thanks to you to read my short email.
We are one of store for a medium level in Indonesia.After 
visiting your site we realise that how much we want to cooperate 
with your company.But,I would give some question that you should 
answer..
1.Would you Cooperate with some company from INDONESIA?
2.Do you accept electronic Credit Card for the payment(VISA/Master Card)as we dont accept PAYPAL?
3.If you agree,do you send some product to INDONESIA by using 
some famous delivery company such as FedEx or UPS delivery? 

Hope you can understand and will reply this short message soon as possible...

Regards
SOROAKOSHOP

his return address is [email protected]. Sorry if the guy is an honest brother tech person but it just sounds too fishy for me to take part in. If it sounds fishy, avoid it.


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## ship (Apr 14, 2004)

Hi Ship, 

Just read your post and I agree with you. However, the timing is pretty lousy as I have just received information that friction, fibreglass and self-vulcanising tapes are not available over here (this is from a couple of reps that my business partner knows). The 3M rep has not come back to us about the glue to stop the heat shrink from coming off of the labels on our cords either. 

So - my next step was to ask if you (or someone else) would be willing to pop some in a box and send it to me. Now, obviously I am going to pay but at the end of the day the call has to be made by the person I am approaching. 

I am hoping to be in the states this year (either on tour in June/July) or at a conference in October so I could arrange to grab some then but would prefer to get some sooner rather than later. 

Well - I will let you get back to running the show in Dave's absence and I know that you are probably very busy going through all your previous posts and condensing them in to 50 words or less vignettes for Will 

Cheers,

_________________
Mayhem


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## ship (Apr 14, 2004)

I forwarded Mayhem’s PM to the forum because it’s important in clarification and one that I did not express well or short enough. My posting it here is a warning to be careful because it might just be theater, but there are still people out there that want what you have. This person asking for the Mac 600 fixtures might be an honest broker also, just went about it in the wrong way. Still it being posted is important for all to be aware of as a general thing not much different than prince X fill in the blank in X country having large money deposits in a bank and needing your help to get it out for them in return for a healthy reward - as long as you give them your bank account number.

First, Mayhem is a member of this community that lives in a country having similar laws to those here. If he needs me to send him something especially specific parts he can’t otherwise get, I’ll send it - given it’s possible because the glue we talk about is fairly toxic and might not be shippable. Much better to explode inside his luggage anyway.

This is all McMaster Carr stuff and easy to get anywhere in the states. Shipping it abroad might be possible by him contacting McMaster Carr directly by e-mail and the website and just paying the extended shipping charges. 
We can continue to discuss glue off line after he contacts them to see if it’s possible, or should he wish I can ask. I’m on the phone with them at least once a day anyway.

There is also a large difference between for instance me calling Reich and Vogul in Germany to set up an account with them thru official channels as a representative from a traceable and known company and a personal E-mail such as was sent to me asking for fixtures. Mayhem asking for glue and tape is way different anyway. Seriously doubt I’m going to worry about say $30.00 worth of parts, I’ll probably give it to him anyway so as not to deal with the paper work..

As with bad timing, had he contacted me about a month ago I could have packed the gear in with a tour that should be in his country by now. It will have gotten to him by way of England, than Russia, than where he is but shipping will have been free at least. If I can ship 120v/800w Ray Light lamps to Birmingham overnight from New York, having him get something slow boated laterally by way of sea container on a slow boat, inside a road box, that’s easy. Too bad.



As for me running the forum in Dave’s Absense??? Who me? Nope Dave is in and out. He deserves some time but we are all watching and running the forum. Wolf if anyone is running it at the moment besides - it’s that East Coast Southerner connection.  

50 words, not a chance.


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## ship (Apr 14, 2004)

ATT, I am Wanga Mobutu Sese-Seko, son of the late
President Mobutu Sese-Seko of former Zaire, now congo
Democratic Republic. My family and I now live in
exile, in Morocco. I believe you are aware through the
International press how the European Government frozen
my late father bank accounts. Recently the French
Government confiscated my father's Chateaux in South
of France. In view of this, my family and I are afraid
to make any investment without a front. In this line,
therefore, it is the wish of my family to solicit for
a trustworthy and sincere person who will invest these
fund under trusteeship. I am interested in making an
enormous investment worth US$23Million in some parts
of the world of which will be beneficiary to both
parties SOURCE OF FUND. Before the death of my father,
he deposited the above stated funds with a security
Firm in Europe and frica. Therefore, I intend to have
a front who will manage this funds and invest it into
property development, buying of shares and stock in
Multinational Companies and engage in non speculative
investments and other related ventures. As soon as I
hear from you I will then aarrange a face-to-face
meeting for us to deliberate on this investment. It
will also give me the opportunity to assess your
capability of handling this investment. Please, I will
like you to send me your private telephone/contact address
to allow me discuss privately. Meanwhile, reach me on
the above email address. Kindly treat this matter with
utmost confidentiality. Best Regards, Wanga Mobutu
Sese-Seko


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## Mayhem (Apr 15, 2004)

Thanks Ship,

I’ll contact McMaster-Carr but if you do happen to mention it on your daily call to them that would be appreciated.

I just love that last email message - I must get that one (or at least a variant of it) on a weekly basis. I am just waiting for the Australian dollar to slump in relation to the greenback or for yours to improve (which ever comes first). Then, I will respond and cash in on the millions in US$. I had one offering me up to $500M

I mean - come on, who honestly believes these people?

Must admit however that some of these scams and virus peddlers are getting a lot smarter. We have had a few people get caught out here with emails coming from (what they thought to be) their bank requesting that they send confirmation of their account number and details back to the sender so that the account can be verified.

The email looked legitimate enough with the logo and formatting and disclaimers etc.

The other recent one was the use on an encrypted zip file in which the password was sent in the email. Anyone opening the zip folder and running the contents was infected. The problem is that anti-virus software cannot look inside of encrypted files. Thus, no warning was generated.

Another big issue now is the ability of some viruses to cloak their source when propagating through email. They do this by forging the “sender” details using an address form the infected host’s address book. This is why Dave reported people stating that he was sending viruses to people. It was not Dave’s computer that was infected or even Dave responsible, it was someone who had Dave’s email address in their system. 

ONE major problem here is that these email addresses are finding their ways onto blacklists. I just received an email from the institution in which I work which states:

Hi all

We've had quite a few users on dialin send out large amounts of spam or
virus email. As of today, we are blocking connections from dialin users
to mail servers outside of the xxx.xxx. network block.

After a few days of logging of the traffic that would be blocked by this
change, we haven't seen any valid configurations that would stop
working.

If any users on dialup are suddenly unable to send email, ensure that
they have their outgoing SMTP server set to xxxxxxxxxxxxx
(xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx), although any xxx.xxx. IP address will work.

This has become urgent as xxx's mail system has been blacklisted by the
Spamcop systems, which is causing significant problems sending mail out.
We'll only get off the blacklist if we stop sending out spam and
viruses.

Cheers

Now, it is obvious that there may be some users engaging in such activities but given the organisation, I would strongly doubt this as it would be detected and appropriate actions taken.

Anyhow – food for thought.


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## ship (Apr 15, 2004)

Say, what "deals" are the rest of you getting?" This is a form of comedy in itself.

Getting "late payment" as a subject with far other things as the subject. Hello, if my payments are are automatic thru the internet thus you contacting me, how can they be late??? Wonder how any scam artists make a buck, must be a lot of stupid people out there beyond the virus people that need to be kicked in the nads for each person they effect as punishment. One could think of such punishment as quality thinking time. You bothered these people, hmm, they are really bothering you in response. At one point we did get hit by a virus. Shut us down for a half day. That was a bad day, on the other hand, that hacker if not clever enough gets to spend quality time with Joe Bob who is very lonely over a prolonged period intamately. Ah, there is uses for prison and underfunding to it. Yea, such people need job training and help. Nope, some people just need their rear's kicked. Work on the other hand blocks about 600 virus submissions a day. Since I'm nowhere near that in submissions much less junk mail I'm not too concerned and entertained by the attempt.

Actual commercial messages in boosting my sales - thanks guys but I don't sell things, something from Susie Choi with "new products" but nothing I want or would speak of, "Dalsay S Molas/Trust/EBC is out of the office" - who ever that is, Stuff for Interest Rates having just fallen again given my need to be ripped off in consolidating my lack of debt into a high interest and interest paid first before the principal loan. People wanting to implement updates into my home page that can't spell, Life insurance, people offering 95% discounts on Microsoft and Adobe software. 

Lots of viruses from This message has been processed by Brightmail(r) Anti-Virus using
Symantec's AntiVirus Technology.

message.txt .exe was infected with the malicious virus [email protected] and has been deleted because the file cannot be cleaned.


For more information on anti-virus tips and technology, visit
http://www.brightmail.com/antivirus .

with attachments of course, like I actually sent the message. 

Than stuff from china lighting.net saying stuff like: From: <www.chinalighting.net>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: 友情链接,共创商机
Date: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 12:15 PM

这是用超文本格式编写的邮件，请使用超文本方式浏览。

Thanks guys, I'll be sure and purchase your lamps. At best the message is in Chineese a format my E-Mail might read but I can't.


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I want to say adios

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For note, I'm at best at weight if not under it, but I'll be sure to add you to my block senders list with the rest. Thanks for your help in my weight loss and other supposid personal problems which are not fodder for this forum but somehow people think I'm interested in.



At least with my answering machine, it's set up so those advertisement calls get thru the computer making the calls and the sales person gets to waste their actual time with the perspective non-otherwise answering machine customer. They than in spoofing the calling computer actually waste their time in thinking I picked up the line. he he he, every moment they say hello, hello is there anyone there? You have won a all expensises paid vacation... is a moment they are wasting as much of their time for pay as mine when I get home from a real job. I don't mind such calls given I don't use that home phone number otherwise anyway, and it gives my cat something to listen to during the day. Just don't call him as much as I used to. Work pays for the cell phone and the home phone charges for any call over 100 per month no matter the duration. It's thus the computer line. Call it all you want, doubt I'll pickup. The more time you wast on my answering machine, the less profit your company makes in an other than honest way. Too bad e-mail can't be arranged in that way. Charging for E-Mails sent has at least some advantage.


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## Mayhem (Apr 15, 2004)

ship said:


> Say, what "deals" are the rest of you getting?" This is a form of comedy in itself.



I just love how you can get so many tell you that either they can reduce something or make it bigger for you!


ship said:


> Wonder how any scam artists make a buck, must be a lot of stupid people out there beyond the virus people that need to be kicked in the nads for each person they effect as punishment. One could think of such punishment as quality thinking time. You bothered these people, hmm, they are really bothering you in response. At one point we did get hit by a virus. Shut us down for a half day. That was a bad day, on the other hand, that hacker if not clever enough gets to spend quality time with Joe Bob who is very lonely over a prolonged period intamately. Ah, there is uses for prison and underfunding to it. Yea, such people need job training and help. Nope, some people just need their rear's kicked.



First off – bugger DMXtools’ nomination for President. If you want social reform vote for Ship! Sorry John – but the revenue that could be made from public nad and arse kickings on the courthouse lawn would go a long way towards assisting health and education.

I was discussing this recently with a friend (SPAM and stuff – not the kicking) and in Australia we passed an anti-spam law (this week) in which the maximum fine is something like $1.5 million per day that they spam. Sounds great in practice but all the spam I have received has been from the US or elsewhere. This law applies to Australian companies only and it is estimated that they account for 2% of all spam.

A friend of mine made the mistake not so long ago of replying to the “unsubscribe” line. DO NOT DO THIS as all this does is alert the spammer that your email address is valid and they will send more and sell your address to other spammers. Within a week or so, his spam mail tippled and he was forced to close down his email account and start a new one. You may have noticed that the emial will either be sent to you or sent to a whole range of users at the same ISP or the same name at different ISP's What they do is generate huge numbers of possible email addresses and then remove those they return as "unknown" and confirm those who relpy with "unsubscribe". 

The thing that really does bug me is the amount of SPAM that arrives via regular mail or via the phone (as Ship has mentioned). Why is this not considered SPAM? Here are my two tips, which, with any luck will get you taken of their lists. I have done this now for a couple of months and do not get as much as I use to.

1. Anyone who sends you unsolicited mail and is kind enough to include a postage paid reply envelope should not have their money wasted by you throwing it into the bin (this just costs them the price of the envelope - once it returns via the post - they get billed for the postage). Here is what I do. I put all their crap (and the crap from the other people who didn’t give me an envelope) into the reply paid one and post it back to them. Now one of their employees can spend the time sorting, and throwing away the junk.

2. When the phone idiots call, I greet them with a “Sure, can you give me a sec to turn down the TV”. I then put the phone on hold and walk away. I have call waiting so if anyone else calls the phone will ring and I can answer that call. Leaving the idiot still on hold. I think 15 minutes or so is the record that someone stayed on the line. They then got my “not interested (click)” as I hung up.

The way I see it is that if they are going to waste my time, I may as well get some satisfaction out of it


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## ship (Apr 16, 2004)

Too bad you yourself need to be a naturally born citizen to become Prez. until the Terminator -Govinor of California himself changes that law. McCain or Ventura for Prez in my opinion as the only honest and worthwhile people so far in politics. Too bad all around since that's not possible.

We don't want me for Prez, I would trust Tools more than just whisper in his ear if still possible once his staff started filtering his calls as with all politicians that might at one time been real, than quickly loose it once they start looking to a 40 year career or more in "government service" or representation as one of the people during that time away from them. Sure, Hillery is a NY person, what are you all stupid or was the other person possible that much worse? That's about the problem with politics. Not choosing the person most appropriate, but the lesser of two evils.

I read a lot of Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October, amongst other books in the series) thus gain the Jack Ryan as Pres. concepts if I did not have them already. Really this Jack Ryan "Everyman" is all we could wish for but never will have. (Plus planes flying into buildings was not exactually a surprise given this at least a year before hand written about? Who is it he gets his ideas from again?)


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