Posted on 08/08/2005 1:10:59 PM PDT by summer
TALLAHASSEE - Attorney General Charlie Crist today issued a consumer alert warning Floridians of an emerging scam in which con artists target individuals trying to sell their vehicles and other items.
The Attorney General’s Office has received numerous complaints from consumers across the state reporting the overpayment scam. In this scheme, a thief selects the victim after browsing through classified ads for a car or other large-ticket item offered for sale. The thief pretends to be an interested buyer from out of town and sends payment in the form of a cashier’s check, money order or personal check. The payment typically arrives in an amount greater than the purchase price.
The con artist then asks the seller to wire the overpaid amount to another party or back to the “purchasers,” sometimes explaining that the purchaser lives in another country and the third party will use the money to ship the vehicle overseas. After the money is wired, the original check bounces or turns out to be a high-quality counterfeit, and the innocent consumer loses the money....
(Excerpt) Read more at myfloridalegal.com ...
FYI.
Yep.... my daughter got one of these offers on a car she was selling... The purchaser claimed to live in London and was going to wire enough to pay for the car plus shipping via his agent which my daugther was to pay when the agent came to pick up the car.
I told her to tell the buyer that to forget all the money transfers and wire the money to his agent and have the agent bring some $100 bills and they could go to the bank verify the bills and have the papers signed and notarized. She heard not another word.
This scam is on Snopes also.
bump
After the funds clear, he can have the excess back :)
.. and the car too.
people actually allow large ticket items to go without waiting for funds to clear? not too bright.
My Brother-In-Law had to be talked out of getting caught up in this one. He thought sure we were just trying to keep from selling his vehicle (which he has customized nicely). That was here in CA, and recent.
A friend of mine was approached when he tried to sell his flat-bottom race boat. Offer from Spain, legit looking money order came, for an amount greater than the asking price. He went to deposit the money order and the teller decided to call the bank it was issued from.... it was not legit.
The scammer was seeking to have the friend "forward" the "excess" funds to a 3rd party.
I get a lot of emails to buy my condo like this all the time.
If it is to good to be true, think Nigeria...
When someone emails you saying they have millions of dollars and they are using a "free" email site. Be concerned.
Right...it's hard enough to find a seller on Ebay who won't send a $6 item until the check clears...
They are actually talking about two different cons: 1. a fraudulent sale of an item that does not exist and 2. a Nigerian 419 check overpayment scam.
With the fraudulent item sale the scammer will try to convince the buyer to wire them a deposit or go through a fake escrow website (usually hosted in China). In either case the buyer is out of their money AND if they used the fake escrow site their identity is probably stolen.
The 419 check overpayment scammer will send a fake cashier check drawn on an international bank. US banks are required to credit the account within 7 days but it can take up 35 days for a foreign cashier check to either clear or bounce.
So what happens is the seller deposits the check into their account, the bank credits it, they forward the overpayment to the shipper or the buyer and they never hear from them again.
A few weeks later the check is returned, the bank will take the money out of the persons account and they are out of any money they forwarded to the con artists.
So the bottom line is never pay for big ticket items that you have not seen in person, never accept cashier checks drawn on overseas banks and if you're going to use an escrow service use www.escrow.com .
99% of the fraudulent item sellers are located in Romania and 99.99% of the 419 overpayment scammers are in Nigeria.
Remember, everyone (except the perpetrator) thought they were looking at real cashier's checks or money orders.
As I've heard it told -- this was happening on eBay a year or two ago -- the seller would take the paper to his bank, and the bank would say cashier's checks and money orders could be turned into cash without any delay; no need to wait for them to clear. The bank cashed the paper, and the seller had the cash in hand. So, why not release the car (and refund the overpayment)?
It was only after the bank would try to send them through the system that it would discover the instruments were bogus. The bank's recourse was to go back to the seller -- their customer -- and get their cash back (ALL of it). The seller was stuck with a worthless piece of paper, no car, and a lot less cash than he started with.
A skilled thief will use real account numbers to make the check clear until the real account holder notices the charge. If timed right this can take 30-60 days. By then the thief is long gone with your cash and the item.
This con is as old as checks and unfortunately still works.
It has happened here in Southern Indiana, also. An older lady fell for it and lost some money. This was a couple or three weeks ago. I agree with the one poster that if they want the car, they meet at your bank and bring cash. I would meet somewhere besides my home. I wouldn't them scoping out my house either.
He was very lucky. I've heard that some of these scams start with a legitimate cashier's check, on a foreign bank of course. They copy the check or make a forgery so the check has a bank number which will seem to be good. A call to the bank will probably get an OK for the check. They can do this several times before they take the original (good) cashier's check back to the bank along with all of the suckers' checks for deposit or cash.
Thanks for the info. I will add CA and IN to the topics.
Oh, cheap shot. We have no monopoly on con artists or dumb asses. Except perhaps in Broward and Dade counties /snicker
lol
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.