Does this smell fishy to you?

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Eric Pennal

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I'm advertising my Harley on CycleTrader.com for $14,750, with the idea of negotiating down from there. I got an e-mail from a guy who sounds like he's acting as a dealer or agent for an interested buyer, asking for my lowest asking price. I told him $14,250 was the lowest I could go (still expecting to negotiate).



Six days later he replied with the following response:



"Am sorry for the late reply. My client has agreed on the price and will send payment. i will make arrangement for a pickup agent. My client will send you a cashier check of $21,300. When you receive the check, deduct $14,250 for the Bike, the difference of $7,050 should be sent via Money gram transfer to the agent who will undertake pickup, shipment and other expenses. I hope it is in good condition? Please confirm this and provide the following details

PAYMENT INFORMATION:

1. LEGAL NAME IN FULL.......

2. ADDRESS..............

3. PHONE...............



Regards



Scott"





If I accepted a Cashier's Check, I would certainly wait at least 10 days for it to clear before I delivered the bike for shipping. Is this a scam? I know not to send money to get money (the surefire way to tell if it's a scam). The buyer is willing to spend $21,300 for a $14,250 Harley he's never seen in person. That's the main reason this doesn't smell right to me. Could this guy be legit - and I'm just too cynical?



If he tells me he's in Nigeria, I'll run for the hills! :lol:

 
That is a common scam. The cheque will be a counterfeit one. I know those offers happen all the time on the F150 site I participate on.
 
Olaf hit this on the head. The check you will get is a fraud. It will look and feel very real. The bank will not cash it as the funds nor account does not exist....
 
I work at a property management company and we get people trying this all the time. Sometimes we will have them send the check just for fun to see who can get the biggest check and how much the scammer will try to get. They just want you to give them the "change" or their "partner" the change. We have got some large checks for down payments on rental homes.
 
What you should do is tell him to send you 50s in a brown envelope via FedEx for 21K and you will give him back 7K. When he replies and says that is crazy...say yeah just like your stupid scam your pulling...LOL
 
Run away. Now. Don't look back. :)



I got the same thing within hours of listing my popup on MSN. I played the guy along for a few days though.... just to have some fun, then at the end I told him it was a cash deal only, no check or money orders, unless he was willing to let the check clear first. Amazingly, I never heard from him again -- until about 6 months later I emailed him out of the blue in reference to the boat he was inquiring about (I don't have a boat at all) and got the same BS.



 
Eric,

It's a classic scam. They don't want the bike, they want you to put the stolen or forged check in your account and send them the extra money. There will always be short deadlines so they get your check cashed before your bank finds out their check is worthless.



Simply tell them that you will only accept a check for the amount of the sale only, and the bike can be picked up only after the check clears, or they can send you a money gram for the amount of bike and they can pick up the bike after they send the money.



Tell they you will not send any money to anyone and they will need to make all the shipping arrangments and payment for shipping themselves. All they need to do is notify you as to who the buyer is and who will be picking up the bike.



You can bet tyou will never hear from them again.



...Rich
 
Umm yeah!!!



Same thing happened when selling the ranger. His name was scott too!!!:lol: Had the same arrangements too. Didnt email him form then on. He was in Canada.



Good luck
 
It's a very common scam.



They send you a counterfeit cashiers check for more than you are asking. You deposit it. It appears to clear you account. You send the balance due back to the scammer.



He cashes your good check and low and behold, the "issuing" bank rejects the counterfeit check and your bank charges it back against your account leaving you out several thousand dollars.



Go to the FBI website. Several years ago while trying to sell a car someone tried this on me. I reported the email address to them on a link they had for this particular scam. Don't know if they ever do anything or get anywhere with it.
 
Thanks to everyone. I knew my fellow ST'ers would help figure this one out for me.



Even though the red flags went up, I didn't want to miss a sale due to my natural skepticism.
 
Eric. I will give you $20,000 in Enron stock for the bike. Just leave the keys in it tomorrow night and I will come by and pick it up. :rolleyes:
 
I rec'd the same type of response to an ad when selling my f-150, it's another scam that will leave you holding a worthless check and no vehicle
 
I always wondered what would happen if you sent a fake cashiers check to them as well. Would they then try to sue you? I wouldn't put it past some idiots out there!:blink:
 
Contact your local Postal Police. I know they are looking into similar scams here in NY. They will set up a fake address ( so you dont use your real address) for you to have the check mailed to and they will try to track it. On the other hand - What would happen is, you would get the check, wait for it to clear, and in the mean time they would pressure you & threaten you to send them the $7,050. They would make it known that they know where you live since they have your mailing address.Their check/ money order would never clear and you would be out $7,050.
 

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