Check out these scams and beware!

[Twitch]

Here's a link I accidently found full of ways that folks are being scammed buying/selling collector vehicles. It makes interesting reading if nothing else.

http://www.classicsandcustoms.com/discussion/allmsg.asp?1=1&ThreadId=2012

[Matt Harwood]

It's the same scam over and over:

<span style="font-weight: bold">Step 1:</span> Prospective (often foreign) buyer offers <span style="font-style: italic">(sight unseen, mind you)</span> asking price plus a little extra, ostensibly for shipping, for his "agent's" fee or because he has a "customer" in the US who owes him money.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Step 2:</span> Very authentic-looking check is issued.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Step 3:</span> Very insistent E-mails from buyer demanding a "refund" of excess funds or for excess funds to be immediately transferred to agent/shipper. Frequent statement: <span style="font-style: italic">"It was a bank check/cashier's check, so it's good right away."</span> Western Union money transfers are always complicit in this. If they insist on a money transfer, <span style="font-weight: bold">be suspicious!</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold">Step 4:</span> Mark sends refund and possibly the item being sold, no questions asked. Bogus check bounces 10 days later and mark is out of luck with no hope of getting anything back.

Honestly, I don't know how many people have fallen for this, but the numbers must be <span style="font-style: italic">staggering.</span> Who lets a valuable piece of property go without waiting for the check to clear? If your next-door neighbor was to purchase your car with a personal check, you wouldn't sign the title until it cleared--why trust these incredibly bogus offers from overseas?!?

Do nothing until the check clears. Better yet, call the bank listed on the (bogus) check and ask if it's legit--most fake checks conveniently include the bank's <span style="font-style: italic">real</span> phone number. Don't do anything until that money is firmly in your account--be sure to move it to another account as soon as it does clear, so you don't get caught in a charge-back scheme, too.

Don't get caught looking!

[Twitch]

Dude, I know what you mean. It's just so easy to take control of the situation and call the shots like a bank funds transfer. Do they figure the greed in people makes them impulsive?

I just was stunned that this thead on scams had a life of its own and just went on and on.

It's like that dumb email that everyone in the galaxy has gotten- " I am Mabootu Moogumbo from Mooajuki and have a check for a zillion dollars..." I know that's been going for like 10 years. And even though everuone in the galaxy knows the scam, everyone in the universe doesn't!