1KULC7

Currently I have a car for sale and recently got an offer from person living in W. Africa. I posted my concerns here and did more research. Well it was part of a scam, but I wanted to share this with the forum. Following comes from a friend who is a Special Agent at the US Secret Service, Financial Fruad Division:

"In my opinion this is undoubtedly fraud! What will happen is the W.African
purchaser will send you a counterfeit check in the form of a personal check or
cashiers check. The check will probably even be for more than the actual
amount of the car. The purchaser would then ask you to send the overage of
funds to him via Western Union. Even if the bank tells you that the check is
good, I still would not do it. I have seen the bank make bad decisions before
and then they try to take recourse against you!! I have seen a million of
these. In the last year, a number of these scams have been perpetrated by W.
Africans through car purchase schemes.

I can assure you that in no way is this legitimate. Under no circumstances
should you sell your car to this guy. In fact, I would be extremely wary of
selling a car to anyone residing in a foreign country unless they wire funds to
your account.

Rest assured that this guy is one of a few hundred thousand W.African
fraudsters attempting this type of scam.

Don't get caught up like the rest of the stupid Americans who fall victim.
THIS IS NOT LEGITIMATE!"

I hope this helps anybody who might have a car for sale on the net......by the way, NO money or the car was not exchanged, I still have it for sale and am glad I got great responses back from this Forum, and some of my friends. If it sounds to good to be true, it is.....run away from it.

Regards...

;)

Fevre

Saw something like that going on through e-bay. The bank screwed the people telling them the founds where immediately good so they sent the overage to the scammer only to find out the certified check needed to clear like any other. I think the people where :crazy: for not realizing it was a scam so I did not feel too bad for them.

Smokehouse69

I can't tell you how many times in the last couple of years I've gotten email (and even snail mail) from individuals passing themselves off as West African business men, or Doctors, or Clergymen, or Royality, claiming that if I would do a small service for them they would make me rich. The small service is usually some form of the old pigeon drop, where they send you a check to cash. All they want is X and you keep the rest.
I am certain that somewhere there are people stupid enough to bite on this and have gotten reamed somehow or another.

Fevre

Forgot about that fax we get every so often. :rolleyes:

Paul L

This scam has been around a long time. And well reported in the press. I do wonder why people continue to fall for it. It's normally Nigeria but this week I was blessed with a double whammy by e-mail. Both Nigeria and the Congo want my money.

PRNDL

I saw your post in Off Topic and I think a lot of the responses warned that it was likely a scam. Glad you came back with this warning/confirmation.

One additional caution. Your friend states that the only way to safely receive payments from overseas would be to have the money wired to your account. Fine, but to do that you would have to give the other guy information about your account, like the account number and branch address. I would NOT do that!!! :eek: MJ

(I just went back to your original thread in OT and I see ElGuapo made the exact same point about the danger of a wire transfer)



[Modified by MNJack, 8:11 PM 1/30/2003]

Paul L

The RCMP in Canada have been onto this one for at least five years. They have an anti-scam unit.