Scam for selling/buying online

I'm usually the last to figure things out, but I was almost scammed this weekend.

I have posted an ad for my boyfriend's truck on every online classified and forum I could find. I get an email from a "buyer" the other day that says he is interested in the truck. My ad is asking for $2800, but they wanted to send $6800-$7800. I was to take out the $2800 and wire the remaining balance to a shipper who would then pick up the truck. Something didn't seem right about it because the person wouldn't give out any information about himself, like where he was from, etc. I did a bit of investigating on the net by myself and found several warnings of this as a major scam. These people send a counterfeit cashier's check to the seller who in turn cashes it. The seller then wires the money to the "shipper" who is actually the buyer. Next step, the bank calls and says the check was counterfeit and the seller is responsible for the entire balance. I've changed all the ads to say we will accept cash payments for the amount of the vehicle ONLY.

So if you are as trusting and naive as I am and sell things online, beware.

Abby, good for you for catching this, but I have to say anyone who's willing to pay TWICE the value of the vehicle to have it shipped is a da*ned fool and anyone who wants ME to arrange the shipping for them is even dumber. That definitely would have sent me to do more investigating. Thanks for the warning, though.

If you still have a copy of the email, forward a copy to the FBI and the US Postal Service. They'll be able to determine the origin if the email from the headers on it. Chances are it's an offshore country like Jamaica or Barbados. This is a variation of a scam that's been around for years online.

Glad you caught it.


Jeff & Susan

Glad you caught it! I'm also somewhat gullible but I think I would be suspicious of that.

I raised an eyebrow at the fact they trusted me to pay the money to have the thing shipped..thats what made me suspicious in the first place, but now I feel like every interested person is up to no good lol. They say they were from Holland, but who knows. I forwarded the emails to the FBI, Consumer Protection Services and the Attorney General just because it insulted me that I even thought about doing this for a few minutes.

I have gotten 3 other similar replies since then and have written back asking if they read the ad thoroughly and then stated again we will only accept cash in the amount advertised. Haven't heard from them again so they know I've got their number.

I read in a news report of a couple who got hustled out of almost $20,000...They had to use their daughter's college fund to pay the bank back.

Thanks for the heads up. Glad you didn't get caught out.

Me too!!! My boyfriend would be none too pleased with me to be hosed on that much money..my new project is to figure out seller fees on ebay