I smell a scam

I'm currently trying to sell my car. (Just a side note, its a great car. Its just way too big for me and I don't want to pay insurance while the car is sitting dormant for months. If you're keen, mention this blog post and I'll give you a 10% discount! HAHA)

I've had a few phone calls and emails of interest, but nothing solid. Then I get this too-good-to-be-true email from someone in the UK expressing interest in buying my car, unseen, but needing to know it had no mechanical faults or major accidents. No, I said, it has not. Wonderful, they reply, I will pay you via paypal and my shipping agent will take care of the rest!

I am suspicious from the first email, (however this is not unusual for me as I'm suspicious of anyone who merely pays me a compliment.... what do THEY want?) because why would someone go to the trouble of importing a run of the mill Mitsubishi to the UK? Do they not have average family sedans in England? HAHA.

Then the way certain sentences were phrased in the second email made me go... hrmm, this was not written by someone for whom english was their first language. While their grasp of the english language was better than most of the bogans I've encountered during my lifetime, it was the awkward turn of phrase and almost nonsensical over supply of needless information that made me think......STRANGE THINGS ARE A FOOT AT THE CIRCLE K.
Anywho, putting on my deerstalker hat and donning my bubble pipe, I never let down my guard and reveal NOTHING (much like my swimming attire) but being the money hungry whore that I am, I thought if this person actually deposits the full amount into my Paypal account and it clears, they can feed my car to the Easter Show truckasaurus for all I care.


Then I get the glorious 3rd email - Oh no, there seems to be a problem in this all too perfect transaction!!! The shipping agent only takes payment via Western Union, and my buyer is apparently too retarded to be able to pay this fee. Could I pay the fee in advance which I will then be fully reimbursed for? Then inserted is some convoluted mathematical equation showing the way the fee is worked out based on the selling price of the car plus some percentage signs and decimal points to make it seem like a legitimate equation in which a fabricated fee is actually created.

Any other faux blonde with only a year 12 2U mathematic level education may have been duped by these seemingly genuine figures, but not this chick. What these would be scam artists fail to realise is that I ignore ANYTHING involving stupid equations because I hated maths class (I mostly skipped it to work on my painting) so once they threw in that spanner, I'm like, THE DEAL IS OFF. Also, I'm not really blonde. My hair is actually dark brown. I think. So the joke is on them.

I can't let anyone try and trick the trickster. The mature thing to do would've been to delete the email but I like to have the last word and am not mature. I wrote back in my most firm but polite and professional tone, that I would be not sending a single red cent to any Western Union account but they are most welcome to send me the entire price for my car and once the money had completely cleared into my account, the transaction would then be dealt with via my solicitor.