Posted on 10/04/2007 5:59:50 AM PDT by radar101
Selling something on eBay or Craig's List? Watch out for who's signing the check to buy it.
Tens of thousands of Americans are being targeted by the latest scam sweeping America, many of them targeted online through Craig's List and eBay.
Scammers overpay with counterfeit checks that look so good most banks accept them. It's only after victims have sent the overpayment amount back to the scammers that they learn the checks are no good, and they are out the money.
U.S. Postal Service officials say they have seized more than $2 billion worth of high-quality counterfeit checks coming from Nigeria, England, the Netherlands and Canada.
But, they say, many more phonies are still getting through. . That's the kind of check Jill Parker, a pharmaceutical company manager in Richmond, Va., got in the mail.
Using Craig's List to rent an apartment she owned in Chicago, she was contacted by someone moving from London.
"He was going to send me a check for $25,000," she told ABC News. "I was to deduct what he owned me for the first month's rent and the security deposit, and I was to wire the balance back to his agent, who was handling his furnishing."
She took the check to her bank and called a few days later to see if it had cleared. Told that it had, Jill, as agreed upon, wired the remaining $21,000, thinking she was ahead $4,000.
"Everything looked great; everything went fine until about a week later," she said.
The bank informed her that the check was no good and had been returned not paid. And Jill, not the bank, was out the money.
American banks say they are required by law to make the money available well before a final determination is made as to whether the check is good.
"Certain funds, for example, have to be available on the day after deposit," Nedda Feddis, senior federal counsel for the American Bankers Association, told ABC News. "And the fraudsters are taking advantage of that rule."
Good Morning America Video: Phony Check Scam Hitting America There have been tragic consequences.
Chris Soens, suffering from health problems, thought she got a dose of good news in the mail when she won $90,000 in a supposed European lottery.
Once the check had been deposited and posted to her account, Chris wired back $40,000 for what she was told were fees and taxes.
When the check was discovered to be a phony, the bank told Chris she had to repay the entire amount.
Her sister, Rebecca Woodworth, says it led to suicide.
"I think she was devastated," she said. "I think she was plunged into depths of despair knowing that everything she had was gone."
The problem has grown so large that the U.S. Postal Service is launching a nationwide TV campaign starting tomorrow to warn Americans about the dangers of the bad check scam. The Postal Service has also set up a new Web site to educate the public on check fraud: www.fakechecks.org.
fi it sounds too good to be true, or if a simple transaction becomes complicated, then get out fast.
I put some furniture up for sale and got one of these reponses. I told the guy to pound sand. I ain’t no financial broker, money launderer, or whatever.
Attached is my tax return and payment. You may notice that I have made the payment out for $27,500 more than the tax due. Please deposit the overpayment into account number 1234567879 at the Bank of Nigeria.
Thank you, Schultze
The IRS doesn’t have a sense of humor. Trust me, I know from personal experience........
NEW scam? This one is two year’s old.
All scams are old but they are new to their victims.
Do not send a check or money to anyone until the check you have is cleared and you have your money.
Personally, I wouldn’t have sent back the overpayment in the first place, lol. I was born and raised in Brooklyn.
Let them sue me! ROTFLMAO!
I got an email like this when I listed a piece of furniture on craigslist ... $4K more than I was asking ... buying many other pieces, send overage to a Well Fargo account blah, blah, blah
Looked fishy .. one simple google search and I replied with a list of links about their scam ... along with an invitation to to kiss my a55.
That's not good enough. Under this scam, the check does clear and you have your money. Eventually, however, the phony check is denied by the bank it was supposedly issued on and yhe shortfall is charged to your account.
I got a phone call one day at my business - long distance from Nigeria. The man wanted to know if I had any antique clocks for sale, I said yes - several of them. He then gave me a credit card number and said to go ahead and send them to him.
I thought to myself - what is going on here? He didn’t even ask if they were in working condition or anything. I never responded to it & he called my business several times after that, but I hung up on him.
I can’t believe people are stupid enough to fall for these scams. You never get something for nothing.
Yes, it should be obvious that if the buyer sends a check that is wayyy over the asking price and he/she wants a refund, something is amiss.
I had someone try this with me when I had a puppy for sale.
He wanted me to “ship the dog to Dallas.” I replied that I’d be happy to drive the dog there myself to ensure she got a good home. No reply.
If a bank clears a check, it becomes the banks problem not yours.
First of all, if the price is thousands of dollars less than bluebook, it is almost certainly a scam. If the ad does not include a location, then you can be even more certain it is a scam.
To be absolutely certain, all you have to do is Google the title of the ad.
For instance, there is an ad on Craigslist right now titled "1998 ECLIPSE GSX Mitsubishi Loaded ALL WHEEL DRIVE! - $4000."
When you Google this title, you discover that it is listed on dozens of local Craigslist subdomains. You are looking for a local vehicle. If you live in Pennsylvania, you probably really aren't interested in a vehicle located in New Mexico, Florida and California simultaneously.
If you respond to the ad, they will tell you that they are getting a divorce and live overseas and they can ship the car to you and they are selling it so cheap because a judge ordered them to give money to their ex-spouse, and they want to screw her out of what it is worth.
When you ascertain that an ad is a scam, be sure to flag it by clicking on the "Prohibited" or "Spam/Overpost" links on the Craigslist page so it can be removed to protect people who aren't as smart as you.
Anyone who’s just going to deposit a $25,000 check without doing a funds verification with the originating bank is a deeply foolish idiot, and while losing however many thousand she sent off without waiting for the check to clear may be a harsh way to learn her lesson, at least she learned it.
I got one such scam offer check for some furniture I’m selling on Craigslist, and although I had requested a bank draft or money order from the seller, what was obviously a Quicken-printed check arrived via UPS.
The bank name was printed as “XYZ bank” with a lowercase “B”, and it was drawn on a bank in Wisconsin, sent to me from Kentucky, for someone purportedly in Nevada. The routing number matched the bank name, so I called the bank to verify it:
Bank: No problem sir, what’s the account number?
Me: It’s 73625
Bank: ...
Bank: ... and what’s the rest?
Me: That’s all there is.
Bank: I’m sorry sir, all our account numbers have 10 digits.
So needless to say, the check wasn’t going to clear, and I wasn’t going to sell my furniture.
Instead of learning how to put condoms on bananas, our elementary school-age children should learn about banking procedures.
If you get such a counterfeit check, turn it over along with supporting evidence to your local Secret Service office - they’re the ones responsible for investigating and prosecuting interstate financial instrument fraud.
Follow this simple rule when selling to strangers and you may miss out on an occasional sale, but you will not end up the victim of one of these scams
I continue to be amazed at people who fall for this stuff. everybody thinks there are people who just throw away money.
Too bad Bush is a lame duck. So many countries, so little time.
amazing. makes one wonder if the process has become automated.
At least with a credit card you’ve got some protection from the card issuer.
I’m sure it has become automated - some guy was leading into a scam for this same set of furniture I describe above, and when I sent him my mailing address for the check, he e-mailed back and said:
“Please put your address in the following format
NAME
ADDRESS
CITY
STATE
ZIP
I wrote back and castigated him for being such a lazy con-artist and incompetent scam-ware programmer.
Looks to me like they're right.
Checks are always only cleared provisionally. THis is explicitly addressed in Article 4-214 of the Uniform Commercial Code:
"§ 4-214. RIGHT OF CHARGE-BACK OR REFUND; LIABILITY OF COLLECTING BANK; RETURN OF ITEM. (a) If a collecting bank has made provisional settlement with its customer for an item and fails by reason of dishonor, suspension of payments by a bank, or otherwise to receive settlement for the item which is or becomes final, the bank may revoke the settlement given by it, charge back the amount of any credit given for the item to its customer's account, or obtain refund from its customer, whether or not it is able to return the item, if by its midnight deadline or within a longer reasonable time after it learns the facts it returns the item or sends notification of the facts. If the return or notice is delayed beyond the bank's midnight deadline or a longer reasonable time after it learns the facts, the bank may revoke the settlement, charge back the credit, or obtain refund from its customer, but it is liable for any loss resulting from the delay. These rights to revoke, charge back, and obtain refund terminate if and when a settlement for the item received by the bank is or becomes final."
THis is the essence of how the scam works. Your check shows up as cleared because it was provisionally accepted by the "issuing bank." The "issuing bank" then discovers the check was a forgery and charges back to your bank which in turn charges back to your account. Meanwile, the check you send back is cashed and spent.
Tell anybody who wants to send you a check (or ‘cheque’) that you don’t take checks, that they will have to wire the money via Western Union (or perhaps PayPal), and that once the funds are in your hot little hands, you’ll ship them whatever it is they have bought.
Simple expedient to keep them from hitting you: state in your eBay and craigslist ads that all payments must be for the exact amount of the transaction, overpayments will not be refunded and all payments must clear before the item ships. (All sensible policies anyway.)
The last time I bought something on ebay, I used Paypal. Some very clever sob figured out a way to insert a false Paypal page right in the middle of the legit Paypal pages. I had to change my credit card number. So it has become automated to some extent. I now only send and accept Postal Money Orders.
Truer words were never spoken. How many college kids, young military, young marrieds, etc get into financial trouble because they just weren't taught about finances? It isn't done in schools and most parents don't do it either. I wish mine had.
That was my thought too,and I was born on the plains of MN.
Selling yo crap on craigslist ping.
“I continue to be amazed at people who fall for this stuff. everybody thinks there are people who just throw away money.”
There are - and they also prey on the lazy, the greedy, the aged, and the ignorant. It all works on the same principle of spam - if you get one reply from a million e-mails, the profit is worth it (or the amount of e-mails you can verify as “live”, and then sell, is worth it.)
I used to respond to these thieves, until I realized that I’m providing them with a working e-mail with someone at the other end, that they can sell. No more. They don’t care, anyway - I’ve read interviews with them, it’s not illegal in their country, so go ahead and swear at them - they’ll move on to the next potential victim.
I’ve bought a few things off of Ebay and Craigslist, now I’m more leery as most of the responses to ads are scammers, and most of the sellers are either scamming you with fake escrow or overpayment scams, or are selling stolen goods. (Or, like a few cases here in NorCal, setting people up to be robbed.) So far I’ve been lucky, but I’m more careful now. I’d simply refuse to sell to anyone overseas from now on, as a rule, and stick to it.
Ebay works well if you scrupulously follow the rules. I’ve made a total of 6 sales on it. Every time somebody has requested me to short circuit the rules or has sent bogus correspondence that was neither a bid nor a legitimate question. I’ve rejected those overtures each time. It’s a lot like driving a winding mountain road: if you stay in your lane and observe the traffic laws, everything is likelky to be OK. Otherwise, you can be in deep trouble.
Agreed in all respects.
These SOB’s will also target people breeding dogs or horses. They go on the net looking for lists of breeders and target those people.
Thats kind of what I was thinking. I might send it back, but it would be months later. If someone is stupid enough to give me an interest free loan I’ll take it. Actually I have sold stuff on E-Bay. I only accept money orders, no personal checks, and I cash them before I mail the product.
I always include something along the following in all my eBay auctions: “scammers, malcontents and whiners not welcome”
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Greed.
That is how scammers get businesses and how they steal from people. They apply the tactic of eliciting and massaging the base emotion of greed.
Judging from the experiences of these people and many, many others, I’d have to say that you are in error on that.
funny how they always tell you how smart you’d be if you did what they say. and folks will go crazy twisting logic to try to go along thinking that they’ll beat the scheme.
it’s usually the people who think they’re smart who get taken. the stupid folks simply throw the propoosal away.
Have you noticed that all the nigerian type scams that come in the email also stress that you should “keep quiet about the transaction” until you have the millions of dollars you don’t deserve in your account which, of course, will never happen? They are trying to get people who aren’t too bright to not tell someone who might be and who will turn them in.
Another:
Don't ever give me a check for more than you owe me. If you can't manage your check preparation competently, you're probably a crook.
Just saying.
Appy, long time, I was going to write the samething, I was renting a condo at WVU. and recieved 2 checks for $4500 each, I asked the sender if they thought I was stupid.
Sound advice.
If it were me, I would tell them that I would not accept a check at all, or never more than the amount, or any check accepted would require a 30 day waiting period.
The whole idea sounds fishy....why would anyone want to write a check to me for more than the amount they owed me? Do I have a trusting face?
Hell, I would not trust me.
So she had an apartment for rent that required four thousand up front. When someone sent her a check for twenty five thousand asking for the remainder to be returned, she didn’t think anything was fishy?
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