Info: A New Kind of Money Mule Scam

Here's a new twist on a well-established scam: take note and add it to your list of "behaviour that should make me suspicious". This information is gleaned from a post over at ScamFraudAlert. It's a variation on the "payment processor" job, where you wind up being stung in exactly the same way without ever becoming an "employee". The scam goes something like the following.

1. Excellent offer on some kind of goods arrives via spam.
2. Victim is lured to the scammers website by the offer, and decides to buy something, since the prices are unbeatable. Victim divulges credit card details to the fraudsters at this time: this is bad move #1, but there is no immediate fraud on the card.
3. Fraudster contacts victim saying that the credit card payment system is down, and they aren't sure whether the payment went through or not, but offers a refund just to be sure. This refund is actually stolen money, transferred out of a compromised third party Internet banking account. Victim does not know this and accepts the refund, thinking that this is first-rate service.
4. Fraudster then suggests to victim that some other means of payment might be better, such as Western Union. You all saw that coming, didn't you? The fraudster offers to deduct the cost of the money transfer from the transaction, so the victim feels like he's not paying any extra.
5. After a while there is no sign of the goods arriving, but the bank does notice that the funds transferred during step #3 were stolen. They reverse the transaction, so the victim is now officially out of pocket. The fraudsters keep whatever money was sent to them via Western Union, and they have the victim's credit card details as a bonus.

Lesson number one in this should be "never under any circumstances purchase from someone who adertised to you using spam".