Posted on 07/17/2003 9:58:58 PM PDT by TheMole
not really. this has been around for years. even my leftist, i don't care about money, professors have joked about this scam. how dumb could this person be?
on the other hand, the first time i heard about the scam was on a news feature focusing on an accountant who had lost most of his life's savings due to the nigerian scam... sometimes edumakashun doesn't help.
You'll understand if I'm a bit vague about specific methods and practices, I hope, but it really depends on what you mean by "reasonable time". If by "reasonable time" you mean "immediately", then you're probably better served by using ACH transfers or Western Union in the first place.
This is really a serious problem... it threatens to end the utility of cashier's checks and money orders.
Ultimately, the long-term solution is to eliminate paper altogether. It's the only way in the long run - paper just makes fraud too easy.
on the other hand, the first time i heard about the scam was on a news feature focusing on an accountant who had lost most of his life's savings due to the nigerian scam... sometimes edumakashun doesn't help.
Hmmm, no kidding.
That really is something I had not thought of.
What would happen if you take the check directly to the issuing bank and have them give you the cash; would you know then?
Back in the long ago, this would actually be accepted.
My grandfather once told me a story about buying a mule with a check written on a torn-off piece of a grocery bag, since he had run out of printed checks. It was a small town, and the seller and banker were both good friends of his, so it was no problem.
You might still be able to do it if you didn't mind the processing being delayed.
-ccm
Strictly speaking, you ought to still be able to do something like that. Generally, a valid check has 5 main elements: 1) the name of the payee; 2) the routing number of the bank it's drawn on; 3) the account number it's drawn against; 4) the signature of the account holder, and; 5) the dollar amount of the check. Well, probably 6 things - your bank would undoubtedly appreciate it if it had a check number as well, although you might be able to get away without that. As long as a piece of paper has those 5 things, it should be treated as a valid check, although it would probably be wise to check the laws and banking regulations in your state to make sure.
It might be amusing to produce your own check as payment for something, just to see how well it would work - put those things in the proper format on a 3"x5" card or something, and see what happens. It may be a legal, valid check, but you can probably expect a lot of phone calls as it works its way through the system ;)
Tradegy's obviously gone, but what are the other two lists?
Which means she's good at basket weaving, chugging a beer,getting a job as a LIEberal hack aide and drooling on a Kennedy.
Otherwise, she is ill prepared for life. That degree ouitside D.C and $3.00 might get her a latte at Starbucks.
She has obviously been "in the red" for some time now.
I admit that the woman was not the sharpest knife in the drawer for dealing with a Nigerian used car salesman, but, it does bring up an interesting point. In a transaction, when is the money actually yours? I've been thinking about selling my car myself (also traded-in in the past) and was trying to figure out when to let the buyer drive off in my car. If I demand a Cashier's check and walk the buyer down to my bank to deposit it, I'm still not guaranteed that the transaction is completed. If the CC was a forgery, then I'm out an automobile.
Help me out! How do I handle a private automobile sale properly???
I'll tell you what we did recently, actually - we weren't selling a car, but several large appliances, through the classified ads here. Fridge, stove, and a washer/dryer set. And I told them up front that I would accept cash, check, or certified funds as payment, but that I would need a photocopy of their driver's license with the last two, and they had to be from a local bank - no checks or money orders drawn on the First National Bank of Upper Volta, or any of that kind of thing. Turned out that all three of them paid with personal checks, so while I was copying their licenses for ID purposes, I also put in a call to their banks, asking for funds verification - when I got the okay from the bank, I said "Here you go, it's all yours - need any help loading it up?" And then as soon as they were driving away and out of sight, I got in my car and drove directly over to their bank and cashed the check.
I did that for all three buyers, and never had a problem with any of them that way. Besides fraud, it avoids a lot of other potential hassles - one lady that I work with sold an air conditioner through the paper, one of those window units. And she deposited the check she was given as payment, only to find out a couple of days later that the buyer had stopped payment on the check, allegedly because the air conditioner was "broken". Turned out that it was only "broken" because when they were unloading it from their car and bringing it into the house, they dropped it and it fell down a flight of stairs.
Remember, though, this kind of fraud is still pretty rare - the odds of you encountering someone who intends to defraud you are pretty low, and with some basic common sense, you can greatly reduce the risk even further, even if you can't really eliminate it at all. If you are really and truly worried about this kind of thing - perhaps you're selling a rare and/or exotic automobile to potential collectors for a lot of money - you can always offer to place the car in escrow pending the completion of payment. That way, both you and the buyer are protected against fraud in the transaction...
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