Scam?

[XCross69]

This character has emailed me the following....

Hi

i am interested in buying car and i will like you to send the pics
and also
mail me the general condition of it with the final asking price of it.

pls mail me back so that we can discuss more about it.

Thanks

So I responed with some generic info on the car, and he came back with this....


Hello
Thanks you very much for your urgent response, i have seen the pics, and i have relay it to my client and is very interested in buying it, and i have already explained everything to him about the car and .he requested for your name and address with your phone number so that he can make the check for you.because he is paying with a Money Order which is easy to cash.i will also arrange for the shipping agent who will come for the picking up at your house.when the check clears.
thanks for your co-operationl


Seller beware?

This guy hit me up on another website....not this one....

[E-ZooZoo One]

It smells more than a bit fishy to me.

[biju]

smells like....

SCAM!

-biju.

[Cyrk]

Scam...

[creeg]

Id be worried about giving out my address. dont want random people to show up at my house.

You could have them send the money order, see if it goes through. Then- and only then- once its been throughly processed and there is no chance its gonna bounce, arrange delivery.

but it does sound like a scam.

[ojmagg]

walks like a duck...smells like a duck...

[quentind]

This is going around the net. My buddy was trying to sell his Ford Escape and got the same type of reply. He exchanged info. Two weeks later he gets a money order for 18000$, 6 G's over what he asked for. He brings it to me and it looks like a scam, like it was printed off a computer. First the guys claims he is from Ireland, but the money order is from a Montana bank with a cheap looking Florida water mark that disapears when you hold it to light. The amount was hand writen, not printed. The paper was cut on 3 sides precise, but on a 4th side it looks like he tried to fake a proliferated edge like it was torn out of a "check book", which makes no sense for a money order. He took it to his bank and they said it was fake and they are investigation it asap with federal law agency. The envelope it arrived in was not from overseas, but no return address was writen. Scam.

[Pghachey]

The same thing happened to me a bout a year and a half ago. What's wierd is the letter/email you got was almost identical to mine. I did get a cashier's check and went to the bank. Feeling something wasn't right (they sent it for too much and wanted me to send them the balance back to them in a M.O.) I asked the bank to check it out. They got in touch with the local authorities, the FBI I think, and found out this was probably a scam. I basically lost $14.00, in paperwork fees, but I went with my gut instinct and foiled their plan to get my vehicle and cash. I would send any info you have so far on these people to your bank and/or local authorities. I hope it all works out for you.

[Tone]

I received $8000 in checks from overseas for my old ML parts - 1 Cashier's Check and 2 Postal Money Orders that looked legit and the bank cashed. I sat on the money for 5 weeks and sure enough, they were bad. I of course had not shipped anything and got the bank to release the balance of my funds after they got theirs - seems they don't take lightly to $8000 worth of bad checks! Wire transfers are the safest as the bank carries the liability.

[Moncha]

...because he is paying with a Money Order which is easy to cash.i will also arrange for the shipping agent who will come for the picking up at your house.when the check clears.
thanks for your co-operationl...[/I]

Outside of the grammer and spelling, the kicker for this is the above quote.
The typical variation of the "I send you money order (Easy to cash :rolleyes:, trying to get you off-guard) the the shipping agent will come pick up.. SCAM.

The way it'll work out is, the money order will be made out to you for too much $$ (The extra was to be sent to the shipper but, got to by "accident"), you are to cash the order, send the difference to the shipper (Who would never show up and may even call you and try and strongarm you in to sending the cash) and you are left with the whole pile of do-do in your lap. Even if the order cleared the first time, it would come back eventually as bad and bingo, you get stuck with it. The bad guy, goes away with something for very little effort if not nothing.

Everyone, learn from this... Especially from an out of state or country "Buyer", unless they give you cold hard cash in hand, DO NOT take cashiers checks, money orders, or even personal checks.. way to easy to counterfeit them.. If you get a scheme that looks anything like this one as described... I most likely will be a SCAM! I work around 20-30 of these a month in my little po-dunk town so in a major metropolis just think how many are done... EEEEK!

[jimbo]

I got several of these when I was selling my wife's 3000 GT vr4. The key is they always end up asking to give you more than you are asking, and get an immediate refund for the balance (the scam). From what I understand they are never really interested in stealing your car at all. The early tipoff is some kind of story involving a "client" who has already given them the check/money order for a certain amount and asked the "agent" to find them a car.

Just delete these as they come in, worthless predators.

Oh, one more thing, they often contain incorrect English grammer.

[SPAZZ]

They didn't include the fact that it would be a counterfeit payment method...but they just openly include the overpayment.
I received the below from my local online classified adds. Not anything small, but our actual large newspaper type.


Hello.
I am interested in immediate purchase of your item,but before i proceed on
this transaction i will like to ask some question as follow. i can only raise
cashier check or money order for the payment of your item so i will like to know
if the item is still available and also if is in good condition Please your
answer on this, will enable me to issue your payment to you asap 1) Do you
accept a ( Cashier Check / Money Order ) as a mode of payment? 2) What is the
firm price of the item? 3) Will you let our shipping company to come to your
house for the pick up of the item? 4)I will want you to kindly get back to me
now with your contact info where you want the payment to address to.i mean your
name and address and your contact phone number. 5) Will you be able to send the
excess fund back to the shipping company via western union money transfer same
day you recieve the check. 6)Your name and address that the payment will be sent
include your e-mail addess with it.
Regards..

[Moncha]

Ok, now that IS an idiot!!! They don't even understand the concept of the scam in itself...

ScAmMeRs are bad enough, but this is a clear example of a copy cat scammer.. What a nincow-poop!!!!

Thanks SPAZZ for the additional info.

Be carefull out there!!!

[SPAZZ]

this was a reply from z idaho.com classifieds

I notified them, they said thanks & they forwarded my complaint to the proper department. I hope they bust that idiot.

[BOSSKE]

this thing happened to me a couple a days ago. Guy mail me a "check" on $6000 for my dad's old car ( which is $2000). He was like: take your part and send rest of the money here and there for shipping. I was lucky that I wanted cash in bank so they realize that all that was SCAM. If I just deposit check on my account I would lose car and $6k. (because when bank find out that check is fake they take your money).

There is one more thing that happened to me just the other day.
Guy is selling a 2003 BMW X5 (worth $33000) for $17500. He "lost" his job etc.. He doesen't even have a phone so he e-mail to me.
And he wants $8500 up front for car before he even show me this car.
Apparently, car is locked in garage in Phoenix,AZ, he lives in New Jersey, and he place add in Alaskan newspaper.
Sounds good to be true huh?

[IndianaVX]

wow, this just happened to me on ebay today..... check this out. had pics, and description on the listing, stating no zero feedback bidders. 200.oo deposit to be paid with paypal, balance paid in 7 days, and pick up in 14 days. had a buy it now option, which this fool used. so heres what i get in my email.......

"I will be sending payment of US $200.00 for my item.


Dear maroonghia,

I will be sending payment of US $200.00 via Money Order/CashierCheck shortly.

Hello, How are you today.I am interested in your item and i do wish to know its current condition.Send me more pictures so that i can assess its physical conditions.What is your final asking price and will you accept MONEY ORDER/CASHIER'S CHECK as means of payment.Get back to me with the requested informations Fullname,Addrerss,Cite,State,Zipcide,Country and Contact Phone#..I await your response, Regards, Moore.
Print postage for this shipment online
You can easily print postage or a label for US Postal Service and UPS.


Item # Item Title Qty. Price
330037432212 Porsche : 924 1 US $800.00
Deposit due: US $200.00
Balance (Less Deposit): US $600.00 "

to start with, he used buy it now, and then is telling me he is interested??
so anyway, i call the number that is posted, and its a guy in florida, (bidder is from mississippi, maybe} said that he has gotten several calls about auctions that he has not had anything to do with. used whitepages.com to do reverse address lookup, goes to a concrete finishing company, and the number listed is a fax. errrrr. bad thing is, my surgury is in two weeks, i could use the cash, had several people looking to bid,(the listing was for a 7 day auction, and this idiot ended it after a day) and now i cant relist it for 14 days, or until the unpaid item dispute kicks in. talk about going from one extreme to another, happy that i sold the porsche, to having an even worse headache because this fool.
i dont even know what makes sense anymore.
RANT OVER.
watch out, no matter where you are.

[IndianaVX]

oh, by the way, my "cousin in law" works for the indiana attorny general....i cant wait to give him the detals on this. Steve carter, the attorny gen. for indiana is a hater of this kind of stuff. he was instrimental in the "no call list"

[kpaske]

It's one thing when these guys send you annoying e-mails, it's another thing entirely when they screw up your eBay sales with their scams. I hope they catch that guy, or eBay comes up with a better scheme to prevent that from happening.

[etlsport]

:mad: yea.. a buddy of mine just listed an alienware laptop on ebay starting at 3400.. he got a bid of 4500 within hours, then an email from the bidder saying oh i wanted to bid 3500, can you send me the extra 1000 in the mail? of course he didnt, but nobody was going to bid that high so it pretty well screwed the auction.. not to mention the annoying emails from people wanting him to take it off ebay and mail it to nigeria... hes still got it if someones interested :bgwg:

[VCAMILO]

The same scam is going on in Roomates.com TOO FUNNY!