Ebay and Craigslist Scammers
July 30, 2008 by Karen Weideman
Filed under financial matters
If you sell anything online, then you need to be aware that you may be contacted by scammers. They will claim to have interest in your product and they may even offer to send you a cashier’s check for a large sum above what you are asking. They’ll say the extra amount is for your troubles, the shipping to another country, or some might even ask you to cash the check and send them the excess. AS IF!!!!
Unfortunately, many have fallen for these schemes and lost large sums of money. Here is an example of a scammer email. Actually, this is one that my husband received this week.
Hello
I am interested in immediate purchase of your ITEM .After several consideration over the advert placed on the website, my client has really shown interest in it and would really want to buy the item. I will however like to see the pictures; showing the parts, full body and most importantly the condition before finalizing the buying process. I wont be chanced to come down to inspect the ITEM so kindly provide me with necessary details regarding the said ITEM. I will as well appreciate if you can reduce the price cos I’m highly interested in buying itHoping to hear from you
Thanks.
You may notice that Mian Dans didn’t even bother to change the item information in his scammer letter template.
Have you ever received emails such as this one?
MY hubby has gotten a few of them – he sells his RC cars and planes and parts to get new ones… He emails them back and messes with them. It amuses him to no end.
If you do sell an item at auction, and get a cashier’s check for more than the amount, DON’T TRY TO CASH IT, “just in case”. You could get arrested and end up spending thousands in legal fees.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/05/eveningnews/consumer/main587162.shtml
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=7174
In fact, given the rampant forgery in cashier’s checks, I’d advise not accepting them as payment at all.
YES! I actually got a $4,000 check in the mail. Real-watermarks, company check, asking me to be a secret shopper, cash the check-then send money (for the govt to test sending money outside of the country). I looked up the company on the check. It was an actual co. in UT. But the address was NY. I googlemap’d the address & the address was for a meat co!
I then, googled the secret shopper scam. Boom!
You cash the FAKE check (which takes days to clear) but by that time, you’ve sent them the money. You’re stuck owing the bank.
After finding out yesterday that my husband and I have had our identities stolen and thousands (almost 40k) racked up in charges on credit cards….it seems like nothing and nobody can be trusted anymore.
What a sad world we live in where nothing is sacred and unable to be touched by the thieving hands of scam artists.
We’ve been trying to sell a truck on Craigslist & have been getting tons of these stupid emails, frustrating!