Hello-I recently posted an ad here on this site looking for Yaesu FT-221 and FT-620B units. A fellow representing himself as Paul King, WA6OQE, replied to my ad. He was using "wa6oqe@yahoo.com" as his email adr. He had several pictures of each radio. He claimed to be bed ridden and said his daughter would take care of getting the money and shipping the radios. He asked me to send the money, via Wal-Mart money gram, to his daughter at this address:
Name: Olena Jonilionis
Address: 29075 Road 68, Visalia, CA 93277
Amount: $400
Since no one has ever asked me to send money via this method some warning flags went up. The adress shown above is the real address of Paul King. He had also asked me to email him the "Reference Number" of the money gram. I suppose this is the key to his scam, with this reference number he can get the money, even with the bogus name and adress.
I asked for a phone number in order to ask some questions, and he gave me this #: 530.431.8754. I spoke with him and he had a foreign accent and did not seem knowledgable of the equipment, and seemed like he really did not want to discuss it much. I got suspicious and looked up WA6OQE's phone number and called the real Paul King, who of course knew nothing of these goings on.
So, a lesson learned. This is getting to be more common, what a shame.