I got an email from this woman, Jane Dozier in the UK. She wanted to know my final price for my car. I sent back a price. There was no other discussion about mileage, condition no haggling etc. Then today I got this:

>
>Our agent who is coming up with the shippers is going to inspect the vehicle when they arrive and we warned him i mean our client that there will be no refund of money after the payment has been made to you and he said that we should go ahead and get the vehicle for him.We have just finalized payment issues with our client this
>evening for the vehicle, and he has informed us that he is expecting a
>refund payment of a vehicle that he had earlier ordered and paid for about a month ago, but the order was later cancelled, because when the agent went to pick up the vehicle, he inspected the order and discovered that the vehicle was not in any good condition, so the order was cancelled,and then he filed in for a refund of his money. My
>customer now intends to use his refund to pay for this your vehicle
>that he now wants to buy. Due to company policy and book keeping,this
>refund payment which he is expecting, can only be made out in this
>one whole amount, that is the full amount which he paid before,because the company policy only allows a refund payment in one cashier check, so he has to instruct for the check payment to be drawn to you.So he has informed me that payment will get to you in a cashier check.He is expecting a refund payment of $26,900.00USD,so when the payment gets to you,you are required to deduct the cost of your vehicle which is $18,500.00USD and return the remaining balance of $8,400.00USD back to our client for him to be able to offset shipping charges,tax and other commission charges.
>After all payment has reached you and balance sent back to our client, the agent will come for pick up, while you send other the
>receipt and other title papers to our client via courier. You are
>required to forward your payment information (1) name,(2)address and
>(3) phone number for payment to be made to you immediately.Take care
>and remain blessed.Make sure that the address is correct to avoid the
>fund entering in any wrong hand.We will give you a call but that
>should be when the shippers must have started coming for the pickup
>for you to direct them on how they are going to reach you.Please one
>more thing you are required to remove the ads of the vehicle in the
>web.Awaiting to hear from you so that we will finalize everything
>about this transaction.
>Thanks,
>Management.....
>Jane.

Maybe because Dubya fractures the english language, the rest of the world assumes we are all stupid in the US.

 

Hey, You should feel slighted! - they normally offer me a share of millions to act as a local agent to retreive an off shore inheritance held in escrow.
Thanks for the head's up.

 

Why do you think I am so POed ? They didn't offer me millions. . . darn! I really was gettin ready to order my new Ferrari and Turbo.

 

This is a pretty well known scam. Amazed that some still fall for it. duh

 

Hard to understand their wording, there. It sounds like they send a cashier's check first. How does this scam work?

 

Yeah, I think you should at least try to report it.

 

Cashier's check? I must be missing something... what have you got to lose here? If the check clears, you have your payment. I don't see how this is a risk.

D

 

In this scam, the cashier's cheque is bogus - but you don't find that out until after 10 days or so after cashing it when your bank lets you know.

By then, the perps have your cash or your car.

 

It will be a BOGUS Cashiers Check!

 

There was another one form a guy who was selling me a REALLY cheap Jag. I was going to let him believe that i sent a money order and everything BUT another person reported him to ebay, and they kicked him out too soon!!!

 

I see... so you could tell them that you will wait 10 days for the check to clear, and if they don't like it they can go elsewhere... In any case, it seems that it ought to be pretty straightforward to find out if the check is any good. Perhaps you could go to the bank it's drawn from and try to cash it there. That's what I do when I have any question about a check.

D

 

Dave it's generally an offshore bank.

Another scam uses Wester Union or another wire transfer type service. They 'sell' you something cheap, claiming they had to move out of the country and left the car/bike/whatever behind. You wire them the money, often in the name of an escrow service. They let on that the wire transfer people will hold the money until you have the item and everything looks good, but the truth is all they need is the ID number for the transaction and they can go pick up the $$$. So you send them the money and instead of them releasing the item to you, waiting for it to ship or be picked up, etc. they just take your money.

-Joel.

 

Great. So even secured funds aren't secure anymore.

 

Accept the offer, and take the cashier's check to your local postal inspector to investigate.

 

Bogus cashier checks are a major problem with today's nifty computer printing technology. Most people don't bother with the word games like the above, they just smile and hand you a worthless scrap of pretty paper.

I know a young guy who sold his first car, a mint low-mileage Buick Grand National, for a very high price. Unfortunately he got burned by a falsie and now has a beatup old VW Golf.