[oldster]

After buying the tC, I put the RSX on Autotrader.com. A man contacted me about buying the car two days ago and said he was dealing for someone who wanted to buy. Today he said they would buy and he would send me a cashiers check for $5,000 over my asking price and I was to cash it and send the $5,000 to the man who would ship the car back to them.

If you are ever selling your car, don't fall for this scam. The cashiers check is a fake and all they are trying to do is get you to send $5,000 to an accomplice. They usually try and put the deal off to Friday, so the cashiers at the bank won't be paying attention or won't have time to find you if you are gone for the weekend. Anyway, you get stuck with the $5,000 check you sent to his partner.

My wife works at a bank and was telling me about how this happened to a kid about a month ago, so I was looking for it when it happened to me. Tell your friends...it may be years before you or they want to sell a car, but it could happen to them then.

 

[TCrazy]

I had almost the same thing happen to me when I was selling my car. Some foreign guy emailed me and said he was going to pay me 20k for the car in a check and i had to ship it overseas. There was more to it but the red flags went up immedeatly. - t

 

[basilisk4]

Good call, oldster -- 'cause if you had taken that check and it had bounced, your only recourse would've been against the thief, and good luck finding him.

Rule of thumb: don't hand over the title until there is cash in your hand. If that means that you and the buyer go to the bank together and have the check cashed in front of a teller, then so be it. Whatever it takes, though, don't accept anything other than cash before you give away your title.

My dad was adamant about this when I sold my car just a month ago, and this was the kind of thing he mentioned. Thanks for the heads-up, oldster.

 

[zoltiz]

Classic scam. Sometimes these cashier's checks clear in your bank, but a week or two later they come back as fake (by this time you already don't have your car and sent the thiefs their "cash back"), so you get hosed for your car and some cash. Not too bad for the frauds

 

[whosthatrussian]

thanks for the heads up, oldster. Good to know.

 

[nrhanson]

The exact same thing happened when I tried to sell my car. The guy wanted me to ship it to his "customer" that was in Australlia. After I refused to deal with him unless I spoke to him and got cash he never contacted me again.

 

[Eric]

Good to know... kinda like the Nigerian email scam

 

[j44thor]

Here is a good resource for info on a lot of different scams.

http://boston.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

 

[wolo]

Originally posted by Eric@Sep 2 2004, 08:13 AM
Good to know... kinda like the Nigerian email scam

I hate those. I get some variation in my work email a few times a month.