But I am amazed at how often I am contacted by buyers who try to get me to fall for scams that have been around for more than a decade. Despite the warnings, obviously people are still falling for it so I will outline a few here so hopefully you wont fall victim to these scams.
Lets say you list an item or service for sale on Craigslist, it does not matter how big or small, but in this case we will use a car since it is one of the more commonly targeted items. You put an $8,000 asking price on the car and you are contact by a buyer. Usually, they will say they are out of state or county on business but they want the car and will mail you a check right away for the full asking price.
When you get the check, it is made out for more than the asking price. Sometimes a few hundred dollars up to a several thousand dollars. The buyer contacts you and will give you a variety of different excuses for why they check was written for to much. Most of the time they will say they need the car shipped or someone is coming to pick the car up for them. They will tell you the overage is to cover those expenses and you can keep an extra $1,000 for you your trouble. They ask you to deposit the check with your bank so you know the check is good, keep the cost of the car plus your $1000 and send the remainder of the money by Western Union to the shipping company or the person who is picking the car up.
Anyone would be suspicious at this point. But here is how it works. You take the check to the bank, and since it is always an international check for such a large amount the bank will put a hold on most if not all of the funds. But, the Federal Government puts limits on how long a bank can hold a check before it is forced to release the money to the depositor. Regardless, of whether of not the check has cleared the other bank. With international checks this often takes as long as six weeks. I believe currently the maximum amount of time the bank can hold the funds is five days.
So you check your balance and the money is available so you think it must be legit right? Wrong!
But often times people wanting to be inherently honest take the several thousand dollar overage and Western Union the money over. And then then the contact stops with the buyer. They never get the car and you never hear from them again.
A few weeks later the bank contacts you and tells you the check was counterfeit and you owe them the full amount that the check was written for plus a service charge. Hopefully, you at least left the original $8,000 in the bank and did not spend it yet. Whatever amount of money you have in the bank, whether it be your savings or payroll deposit the bank will seize. You wont be able to get one cent from the bank until you pay them the full amount. And there is nothing you can do about it.
You contact law enforcement, they will write a two paragraph report and they wont even look into it. Because the person you were talking to is based in the Middle East, Jamaica who knows. But they are outside the United States jurisdiction and nothing can be done about it. And with Western Union they don’t track who picks up the money so that is a dead end regardless of where the money was picked up.
When I was a Detective I worked a case where a woman advertised a partying planning service. She was hired for a few of $10,000. She even went to LA and met the man in person who gave her a business card and everything. He wrote the check for $20,000 saying he made a mistake and asked for a portion of the overage back telling her to keep the 10,000 plus a little extra. This young lady and her husband did what some others have done, and decided to keep all of it. She went to the bank made the deposit, and a few days later when the check cleared went on a spending spree. She blew $20,000 in the next month before the bank realized the check was fake.
I was called by the young woman’s mother about the case. While in a way, I don’t feel bad for the young lady because she thought she was ripping off a legitimate customer, I felt horrible for her sister. You see the mother was listed on both of her daughters bank accounts as a secondary account holder. So the bank was legally allowed to seize the funds of any account holder of the account that owed money. So the sister who had nothing to do with this, and didn’t even know it happened had her account frozen. She had just deposited her scholar ship money for the upcoming school year in her account.
I spent days making calls to high ranking members of the bank and Federal governing bodies of banks trying to get this fixed for the young lady. The Feds say while it was probably not the nicest thing to do, legally the bank could do what they did and it would be their decision to release the funds. The bank would not budge. They wanted there money and would not even consider working with the sister so she could have some money to go to school.
There are several different versions of this scam out there, so even if it sounds different than this story, never, ever accept a check from a Craigslist buyer. In fact you should not accept checks from anyone unless it is someone you know and trust.
Craigslist is a great way to sale unwanted items, but be careful. Always meet in a public place and take someone with you as robberies during the sale of items on Craigslist is on the rise.
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