Now here is the real life story of an internet fraud that should not happen to any person. 

It is December 15th 2007. The internet is crawling with deals of electronics and, most dominantly, the newest generation of video game systems. Looking for the best deal is always the goal of the online shopper and I was trying to find a Wii for one of my close friends. I found mine on Facebook, with a link to a website that looked legit, they were willing to sell Wii's for 300 a piece. Having stood outside a GameStop for nearly a week, I was more than ready to take advantage of this. I contacted the people and they told me that they would have the shipment made as soon as they got the money through Western Union. First Warning. Well, I sent a payment of $300 to an address under the guise of a Spanish name, and about four days later I received an email telling me that their was a mistake and they shipped out three separate shipping orders to me, one Wii each. They sent me UPS Tracking numbers, which I found out later were preliminary account numbers, and said that they would release the packages to me as soon as I sent them another $600 dollars. After informing them I did not have the money for both but I would be able to send $300 for one and ship the extra Wii back to them. They informed me that would be fine and I sent them another $300, again through Western Union. When they got the money they "informed" me there had been a change in management and they told me that I needed to send them the extra $300 and it would be delivered the next day. After sending and not wanting to lose $600 I sent the extra $300. 

I then received another email that told me that they had delivered the 3 Wii's to the wrong address and they had now sent me 3 Wii's and 3 Ps3's and required me to send them an extra $500 for the PS3's, in an email worded as though they were doing me a favor. I was through sending them money and told them I was going to call the authorities. It was then January 3rd , 2008. They told me that they were not going to refund the money and told me that I was bluffing and I was being rude to them and I was doing nothing more than trying to scare them. I did not talk to them for 2 weeks. 

In the meantime, I began receiving emails from an email claiming to be the EFCC, which is an anti-fraud agency in Nigeria. They were an email from Hotmail so I knew right away they were not real, but I listened to them. They told me they had found and apprehended the person who was trying to fraud me on the Wii’s They informed me, with details, on that they had captured him and he was willing to send the money back to me but there was a need for me to send them money to fill out paper work. I told them I was not interested and they told me to check them out and see if they were real or not. After emailing the website in charge of the EFCC and not getting a response, I did not do anything and began to receive angry messages from them telling me that I was not making the smart decision and then going on to tell me one of their men had been injured while trying to catch the man who was frauding me. I told them not to contact me again.

Right away, I was contacted again by the people who originally told me they were going to sell me the Wii’s and told me that in order to stave off federal involvement, the company had made and executive decision and were going to refund my money. They told me they were going to send it to me in the form of a money order that one of their clients were going to send to me and I was supposed to send the excess money on in the form of Western Union again to someone else in California, not the original people I had sent money to. I recognized this as a money laundering scheme and waited for the check. It came a few days later. It was in an envelope that was postmarked from Mexico. 

The check was alone covered by a piece of newspaper written in Spanish.
 
It was a badly cut check from a bank in Connecticut. I did not cash the check but took it to the police and had them look at it. They told me it was fake, as I had suspected and told me they that had I cashed it, the bank may have taken it, but by the time I had sent the money on, I would owe the bank $5000. The “company” kept pressuring me to send them the excess money and I was also contacted by the EFCC people again asking me to reconsider. I did not reply to either party and started receiving several emails a day about the status of the money. Eventually, about a week later, both stopped sending me emails at the same time and I have not heard from them since. Since many of the emails were sent through my college account, they had to go through the people at my college to get the IP addressed from the emails. They did not tell me if there were any conclusions made, but to this day I have not heard from either party or from the police on anything they have been able to do about this situation.

This is my Christmas story of 2007, of the time I lost money trying to get a Christmas present for a friend.