Hi guys!

One of my friends who had put up his plot for sale received this call;

My name is x and i have seen your plot for sale.

Is it yours? Reply - yes.

Now; am a recruit at kenya army lanet barracks nakuru and an athlete.

I have a sponsor in UK who wants to buy me a car but i need a plot instead and have requested them to buy me a plot instead of a car .... so that when i get money, i built my own home.

I want to transact this business today and so i request your bank account number so that i can tell them to wire the cash.

I have told them that i will send your number so that they can contact you.

Afew minutes a call comes in.

He was in a meeting and requested to be called later.

Never called back.

He had given his e- mail address and they wrote an e-mail requesting the same.

Is this true ama this guys are conmen??

Any one else experienced this?

What are the risks of giving out your account details to strangers?

Be careful, once you give account details, your acc will be cleaner than your sunday school teacher

Do u ever receive junk mails from guyz from west africa countries telling u about wiring funds to ur account? Try that sir n ur done.Experience is the best teacher.

am property manager and someone called me from Dubai requesting to buy a house on sale at Umoja,we discussed and cause he was away such that we couldn't do the direct transactions i send him all my details including bank accnt,i was surprise to get a call from the bank that there is some transferring my money to another account they knw wanted my approval that am aware of that transaction.BE CAREFUL WHEN SUCH DETAILS.

There are no guarantees that it is safe to give out your account no.
read this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7174760.stm

In other cases.. eg in Europe, it usually 'identity theft' ... google that to find out more.

But the 'fishy' part of your story is this person requiring account details before he/she has verified the plot is genuine, has seen it, has done a search, etc... Doesn't sound realistic.

All the same I know there have been many a conman with those "Armed Forces personnel" stories.

Another one with similar lines goes like this,

A friend of mind was doing catering for weddings and social functions so he used to give out his business cards indiscriminately.

So one time he got this call from a guy who tells him they have previously met at a social function and had a deal for him. The guy says he knows of a mzungu friend of his who plans on getting married this coming weekend but didn't have caterers for the job and so he thought this could be a good deal for my pal. He says the only thing he wants is a commission (10%
)for getting him the "client". My pal says no problem and they meet in tao, though he doesn't seem to remember the guy but biz ni biz. they agree to go to the mzungu guy with the wedding hapo steers ya jevanjee.

When they hook up, true there's a mzungu there waiting and he explains to my pal that he is getting hitched this coming weekend and that he badly needs the services of a caterer and since he doesn't have the time to sample other caterers he goes for my guy PAP! They do all the calculations and the cost (inclusive of the cut for the broker dude) is like 3ook. So the commsion for the broker is 30k. The mzungu says that they meet in the afte when he will have gone to the bank and get my pal a deposit of 150k.

Sasa hapa ndio maneno inakuwa elephant!

After they leave steers, the broker dude now tells my pal that he will not be available in the afte due to previous commitments.He tells my pal they go to the bank and he gives him his cut and that he will call him later in the day they celebrate. Na since the dude even has a vehicle hapo inje he looks "trustworthy"

Luckily my pal didnt have 30k on him so after much haggling the dude was even willing to take 5k and the rest later. My Pal now realised something was amiss. So he told him to wait he goes to the bank around the corner. My pal runs and runs and never looks back. We drunk two crates that night me and my pal kwasababu hio pesa tayari ilikuwa ishaenda!!!

There are many instances where account numbers are unwillingly given out for e.g when filling income tax returns,filling IPO application forms,paying utility bills by cash transfer,forgetting transaction slips at the ATM
or even discarding the slips as they are...Can someone be defrauded through this route?

I don't buy that story either! Think about it; we are always issuing cheques and they have all our banking details and a specimen signature to boot! It would be very easy for a con-artist to have the cheque photocopied by some clerk at KPLC or the water co. etc. and use those details to clean you up.

I would very much want to know how a con can withdraw funds from my account without my signature.