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.
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