What's new
What's new

Another scam

9100

Diamond
Joined
Nov 1, 2004
Location
Webster Groves, MO
I got a call from someone who said that I had been selected to receive a grant for people adversely affected by the corona pandemic. My payment, which I could spend any way I chose and never had to repay, would be $8,900. It would be delivered and I had to receive it personally and sign for it. It took a while, but I finally got to the punch line. There would be a delivery charge of $500, which must be paid to the delivery person.

It seems that someone has learned to counterfeit cashier's checks and it seems certain that this would be one of them.

Beware.

Bill
 
I got a call today from the federal reserve. Apparently I had committed a "crime". The girl on the other end (with thick indian accent) sounded so pretty I asked her to come and live in sin with me. Thus committing crimes before man and god. She hung up. I feel crushed.
 
They need to be creative, another iteration of the "Nigerian Prince" scam.

I had an acquaintance, a former NY City accountant,"H", and his wife were selling their home, and I happened to be over there fixing a couple of electrical outlets for them, and kept catching tidbits of H's texts and conversation with a buyer about H's Craigslist sale of their expensive couch. H relates to me that someone out of state was purchasing it ($1200 for couch +400 shipping the buyer arranged), and that H had deposited the buyers $1600 check. The conversation between H and the buyer was about H sending someone the $400 "shipping" reimbursement.

Not being one to stick my nose in where it don't belong, I tried to hint to him that sounded a bit sketchy, but after a few minutes of going around with him, I said that the sellers check is likely to bounce skyhigh in a few days, and that the "buyer" would have H's good 400.

H, in typical NY fashion, adamantly disagreed with me, insisting the deal and check were fine. So my comment to H was: "...OK, look at it this way, you're a New-Yorker, and an accountant, how many people would YOU send a good $1600 check to, in order to purchase a sight-unseen item, from a seller you have never heard of..." , H thought about it for a couple seconds and said "I gotta go to the bank...". Sure nuff, he shortly came back and said the check was bad.

My Bulgarian pal has had several scams of that form for pictures she sold on Etsy. She has had sense enough to avoid them. There is a web site dedicated to Nigerian letters. Some are a real hoot.

Bill
 
The days of real cashiers checks are long gone.

BEWARE you can literally just print a cashiers check off your computer and take it to the bank.

By law it’s considered “guaranteed funds” and your bank will post that money to your account IMMEDIATELY.

In a day or 2 the check will come back BAD (big surprise) and your bank will reverse the transaction and REMOVE that amount back from your account.

But by then you’ve already spent the money on fancy things.


Where the scam comes in play is the bad guy will ask you for REAL money or items in exchange for the “cashiers check”.

For example your selling your car for 10k$

I like your car for sale.
I’ll pay your price (10k)
I’m sending payment (Not just a check a cashiers check!)
I’m out of state/country so I’m having shippers Pick it up.
I’m going to give you 2000$ extra to pay the shippers. (12k$)

Can you please deposit the check and pay shippers and keep the rest thanks.


You lose your car AND you pay to ship the damn thing TO THEM
 
On the other hand, I bought a tug from photos off Craig's for $20k, sent them a cashier's check which was good, they deposited and a couple months later I picked it up and headed north. Learning to drive a tug was kind of a shock, they have a mind of their own.

So not everything on Craigslist is a scam. And not every cashier's check is a fraud, either. You have to use your intuition sometimes ....
 
I know why cashiers cheques are gone........I enquired at the bank ,the fee for a cashiers cheque is $15......no way Im paying that ......emailed the seller ,and he agreed to accept a transfer ,which he d never done before .
 
It seems that someone has learned to counterfeit cashier's checks and it seems certain that this would be one of them.

Beware.

Bill

"Learned to?"

Bill?

"In the industry" it is known that "bank", Teller", or "Cashiers" checks have been easier to counterfeit than personal checks ever since "big bang".

BFD.

They work anyway because BANKS have, and USE, "out of band" methods to check the validity with each other.

Absent those verification methods, Lybarger's Corollary applies:

"All else being equal, YOU LOSE!"
 
I sell cars since 2013 for my father who has a dealership licenses deal, primarily used C\L until Facebook Market came to play. There are many-many scam on C\L and FB but with the experience I have it is so easy for me to spot the fake buyer. So a few things I learned in these years by selling and buying anything.

1. If the deal looks too good - its 80% a fraud just don't fall, everything has a buyer just wait for it. If you need money quick you have to sell for 20-30% lower the market price and people like me will buy for cash no problem.
2. Try your best to sell for cash with actually meeting a person, unless the person agrees to trust you and wait for about a week or so for a check to clear 100%.
3. Do not accept PayPal - payments can be reversed easy.
4. And the most important - trust you gut!

There are many things - if I want to add something else I'll post again
 
On calls like that I am going to ask them to have the delivery person bring it in a wheel barrow, if the delivery person needs to be paid he can take it off the top.

On the calls that you need to pay by gift card or bitcoin, I do not know how to do that kind of stuff. I have $5000.00 in cash and can meet you at the local sheriff's office in 15 minutes. If that is not enough the sheriff can arrest me and we save him the trouble of looking for me. That is a win win for everybody.
 
When I get the scammers

“Hello is item stil available? I’m ok with the price of item, I will be paying cashiers check for item hope this is ok?

I tell them yeah I can do that but item will be held for 7-14 business days.

It gets fun when they try to figure out what’s going on but still scam
 
I've been lucky, I've sold on forums and a large internet auction site rhyming with ebay for I think 21 years now, for 15 years I insisted on USPS money orders but finally relented and started taking Paypal. Never scammed. I did sell a car a few years back. The VP of a bank bought this badass red, 6 speed, AWD BMW for his son. He proposed a check, and I countered with cash. He wasn't sure if he could get ahold of that much cash but in the end his kid wanted the car, and the banker somehow found $12k in cash. (?!) Win, win, win. Hope that car is still serving them well.

PS, the auction site rhyming with ebay wants my bank account info now that their Paypal deal is over, it's been real guys, but uhhhmmmm no. Guess I'll crawl under a rock again, I always paid Paypal $2 to send real checks because I didn't want them to have my bank account info.

You can call me grandpa, I'm okay with that.
 
Does anyone know if the delivery person is in on the scam, or is it just your friendly UPS guy collecting a COD for an empty box full of rotten ground beef and defective marital aids? I assume it's the latter.

It's a scam, but maybe a slightly new one that I haven't learned the specifics about.
 
Best One I had

Does anyone know if the delivery person is in on the scam, or is it just your friendly UPS guy collecting a COD for an empty box full of rotten ground beef and defective marital aids? I assume it's the latter.

It's a scam, but maybe a slightly new one that I haven't learned the specifics about.

There are a ton of clever people out there looking for your money or whatever, I was selling on Craigslist and they sent me a Postal Money order, I was fairly dubious but played along, the money order looked correct, so I went to the Post Office and handed them over and asked if it was good. The clerk looked at me funny and stated it was fine. I asked him if he could check, and he demurred, stating he did not know how to do that. I looked in the back behind him and there was a poster with stolen money orders listed by number, I pointed it out to him, he went and checked, and was stolen.
I knew it was fishy, but had to prove it, go with your gut if it seems fishy protect yourself.

Had I deposited it in my bank, and shipped I would have been out.
 
It doesn't have to be hard, though.

Yesterday I saw something for sale that I wanted. Texted the seller, 2 out of 4 still available, do you want them.

Yes, fine, when can I come?

Tomorrow is good.

OK send me the address and I'll be there around 1100.

Get the address, turn up, goods as described, load into truck, pay cash, drive off.

Maybe 15 minutes from arrival to departure, 2 people happy.

PDW
 
The first time I saw this thread title, and the poster, I read AS9100D not 9100...

I thought to myself "Oh, we're just being open about this now, eh?"

I was kind of excited to think he came back :D
 








 
Back
Top