Brian Dorber (UK), anyone heard from him? What do you think?

A few days ago I answered to an ad in Repti-mart.com for 5-6 feet albino ball pythons.

Your Name: Dan
Your E-mail Address: Agarcia@itctel.com
Subject: Albino ball pythons for sale
Message: Brian~nl~~nl~I'm Very interested in buying the whole group. Please send me pictures. Can you ship to the U.S.?

I received the following reply
Name: Brian Dorber
Subject: Albino ball pythons
Date: 09/06/2005
Message: Hello Dan, Yee i ship to the US with no problem.I will need you to send your email to enable me attach and have the pics send to you. Thnx,Brian.
Then I replied in turn with:

Your Name: Dan
Your E-mail Address: agarcia@itctel.com
Subject: albino balls
Message: Please send pictures to agarcia@itctel.com. If you can include something in the picture to be used as reference for the size of the pythons that would be great. agarcia@itctel.com~nl~~nl~Please send me your complete information (address and telephone number so we can finalize details).~nl~~nl~Thanks,~nl~~nl~Dan

Today I received the following reply with the pictures attached

Hello Dan,
The pictures have been attached look it up and i included a bill to
indicvate that they are all 5feet long.
My home adress is,
45 Robin hood avenue,
Wasorp Mansfield notts.
NG20 OHW,
U.K.
Phone +447031840168. you can call me as soon as you get this mail so
we can finalize details.
Thnx,Brian.

Dan,

If you grab the IP he sent from out of the email headers you can check it here..

http://www.arin.net/ in the whois search. It should come back if it is a UK IP. If it doesn't, check it here.... http://www.afrinic.net/ and it should come back if it's a Nigerian IP.

His grammer would be a red flag for me. It's typical Nigerian.

Anybody notice the one with the bill is a Burmese not a Royal/Ball?

Originally Posted by DAND

Anybody notice the one with the bill is a Burmese not a Royal/Ball?

Yea, not too bright are they.

This is what his IP shows after I tracked it down:

% This is the AfriNIC Whois server.
inetnum: 0.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255
netname: IANA-BLK
descr: The whole IPv4 address space
country: EU # Country is really world wide
org: ORG-IANA1-AFRINIC
admin-c: IANA1-AFRINIC
tech-c: IANA1-AFRINIC
status: ALLOCATED UNSPECIFIED
remarks: The country is really worldwide.
remarks: This address space is assigned at various other places in
remarks: the world and might therefore not be in the RIPE database.
mnt-by: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
mnt-lower: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
changed: bitbucket@ripe.net 20010529
changed: bitbucket@ripe.net 20020625
changed: hostmaster@ripe.net 20031014
changed: bitbucket@ripe.net 20040422
changed: bitbucket@ripe.net 20040504
changed: hostmaster@afrinic.net 20050205
remarks: data has been transferred from RIPE Whois Database 20050221
source: AFRINIC
organisation: ORG-IANA1-AFRINIC
org-name: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
org-type: IANA
country: EU # Country is really worldwide
address: see http://www.iana.org
remarks: The IANA allocates IP addresses and AS number blocks to RIRs
remarks: see http://www.iana.org/ipaddress/ip-addresses.htm
remarks: and http://www.iana.org/assignments/as-numbers
e-mail: bitbucket@ripe.net
admin-c: IANA1-AFRINIC
tech-c: IANA1-AFRINIC
mnt-ref: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
mnt-by: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
changed: bitbucket@ripe.net 20040417
changed: hostmaster@afrinic.net 20050205
remarks: data has been transferred from RIPE Whois Database 20050221
source: AFRINIC
role: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
address: see http://www.iana.org.
e-mail: bitbucket@ripe.net
admin-c: IANA1-AFRINIC
tech-c: IANA1-AFRINIC
nic-hdl: IANA1-AFRINIC
remarks: For more information on IANA services
remarks: go to IANA web site at http://www.iana.org.
mnt-by: AFRINIC-DB-MNT
changed: bitbuckent@afrinic.net 20050101
changed: hostmaster@afrinic.net 20050205
remarks: data has been transferred from RIPE Whois Database 20050221
source: AFRINIC

As far as the picture of the Burmese he only said it was as a reference to verify that in fact his albinos were 5 feet (???). By looking at the head/body proportion it seems those balls are 3 footers at best.

Regards,

This is his IP 216.139.185.60

Regards.

Originally Posted by The BoidSmith

This is his IP 216.139.185.60

From http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm?GetLocation:

Lagos, Nigeria. What a shock, huh?

This guy is a little more "prepared". At least he knows to differentiate balls from burmese pythons (he said it in his e-mail). Granted he has little clue about their adult size. I'm probably going to play with him for a while.

Regards.

Please be careful. It seems this person is not your “average Joe scammer”. He has done his homework. He has set his price for albino balls not ridiculously low but approximately at 50% of the ongoing market price for babies (although what he advertises are large adults). This might make some people feel more at ease thinking it’s really a bargain. He is also informed about the CITES paperwork requirement, and the legal status of ball pythons. Be extremely careful! Here is the latest e-mail exchange:

----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Dorber
To: Alvaro Garcia
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 9:09 AM
Subject: Re: Albino pics and my burmes bp


Hello Dan,

All you are going to be needing for the export of the reptiles is the CITES export paper II permite,health certificate,insurance certificat,certificate of origin and all other document related with export for exotic pets.

All this paper work will be provided to you as soon as payment is made and this document will cost you $200.For the shippment, i ship directly with British Airways.The albinos cost $1000 each.Shipping for all 6 will cost $500.

However i will be needing your full information.
Your full names..............
Home address................
Phone number(s) night and day......................
Proposed airport of delivery............................
Direct fax number..........................................
VAT number or Tax information ......................

Notify me for payment details.
thnx,Brian.
Alvaro Garcia <agarcia@itctel.com> wrote:
Brian,

I have been trying the # +447031840168 and it doesn't go through. Maybe we should proceed just by e-mail if that's OK with you.

Thanks again,

Dan

There is apparently a real Brian Dorber and this individual from Nigeria is using his name to scam people, from what I understand Brian Dorber hymself. He is not a member of fauna and will ask permission to post in this thread to try to clear things up. In the meantime can someone give me a hand locating the origin of the IP address of this e-mail?

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Thanks,