Looking for Some Insight - Is This a Scam?

[+ quoththeraven]

I think the answer is "yes," it's a scam, but I'm putting this out there in case this is something other people know or have heard about.

 

Don't worry, I haven't fallen for it monetarily, just in terms of wasted time. And it all starts out with Craigslist, where I recently listed a loveseat for sale, as I'm downsizing and clearing out in anticipation of moving someplace that's likely to be smaller than where I am now. I also want to sell this loveseat before the cat staying with me at the moment claws it up; she sometimes goes after the front of one of the armrests.

 

I received three text messages almost immediately. The first two provide e-mail addresses and I correspond with them. They both wanted to pay me extra money to remove the ad. I said no, extra money is meaningless until I get it, and it takes the same time to get me the funds for the loveseat itself, but I'll increase the price, since you want to pay more (it's now $300+), and I sent both of them my name and address and said whoever gets me payment first gets the loveseat.

 

Turns out neither of them are local and both are using a mover (supposedly). The first one tells me upfront that she wants to pay me extra to pay the movers with and I say no, that's more bother and responsibility than I want to assume. So we break off communication.

 

The second person doesn't tell me until she's supposedly sent me money that she also wants to do the same thing(!!!), which involves doing a Western Union (or some such) transfer to the movers. So fine, if I get the money I'll play along. But in the meantime no check arrives and my questions as to where it was mailed from and when go unanswered, which is a big red flag as far as I'm concerned.

 

What makes it even more interesting is that in the meantime I get two fraudulent checks, one via Federal Express and one via the mail. Both are for much larger amounts (I don't know how much the movers are supposed to cost; that's something else no one's shared with me) -- low thousands of dollars as opposed to the $300+ dollars we're now talking about.

 

The first one is written on a check from a Wyoming real estate agency but has a return address of Textron in Maryland, which was the first clue that something was wrong. And nowhere is the name of either person mentioned, though the names could be fakes too. I called the real estate agency and was told it's a fraud; the check was written on a closed account and someone must have gotten hold of unused checks. I ripped up the check and stuck it in the FedEx envelope, which I still have.

 

The following week I received another check in the mail for an even larger amount ($1,825). Before opening it, I thought it might actually be the check from the person I was then dealing with, but once again her name was nowhere on it and the amount is excessive. It was mailed from a business in Georgia and drawn on the account of a non-profit in Maryland. Also I was supposed to get a cashier's check and neither of them are. I haven't called the non-profit yet (didn't even Google them); I was annoyed and busy with other things, but I suspect the story will be the same.

 

Over the weekend, I get an e-mail from the person who said she'd sent the check but refused to give me any information about it saying she was informed I got the check and why haven't I made the transfer to the mover and blah blah blah. (In the meantime she changed the information about who the mover is.) I e-mailed her the following day to say I hadn't communicated with her because I hadn't received the check and that her failure to give me any information about it wasn't helpful either. That was Sunday and I haven't heard a peep from her. Clearly she was playing me.

 

So I think I got these two funny checks because of giving out my name and address, but because there were so many red flags with the checks, which don't meet any of the requirements we agreed to, I don't know why anyone would think I would try to deposit or negotiate them. I also think the whole setup is a scam to get someone to transfer phony funds to the movers, where they end up with the money and I end up with a chargeback because it's a closed account/fraudulent check.

 

Anyone else heard of this? I'm inclined to redo my Craigslist ad to say "locals only, no movers" or something to that effect. If someone wants to do this remotely, they can arrange for and pay their own damn movers.

[Rudynate]

Reminds me of the lawyers trust account scams.

[+ tassojunior]

Yup-----"Locals only, must pick up."

[+ quoththeraven]

Reminds me of the lawyers trust account scams.

Can you explain?

[geoffk]

this scam usually is attempted against businesses. they want to buy any thing and they generally use a stolen credit card to pay for it, and they want you to pay their shipper. so since you collect the money you may think its ok to pay the shipper, but eventually the credit card holder figures out they have been robbed and they report it and the bank takes the money back from the business. you've put our the money to the "shipper" which you cannot get back because they arent a shipper they are the scammer.

[Rudynate]

Can you explain?

 

 

Someone contacts you for some bogus reason and asks you if you will park a sum of money in your trust account for them. In return, you get to retain a portion of the money. They send you a check and ask you to send a wire transfer somewhere for the amount minus your cut. The wire transfer gets processed faster than the paper check, so the attorney transfers the funds and finds out a couple days later that the check is no good.

 

A few years ago, someone emailed me from China, wanting help with some IP transfers or something like that. After a couple emails, he asked me to accept a check for half a million dollars. Recognizing the scam, I said no, and told him not to bother me again. He sent the check anyway-half a million dollars written on an account for a car dealer ship in Ontario. I turned the check over to the fraud investigator for my bank and phoned the car dealership to let them know. Then I emailed the original sender to let him know what I had done and received a suitably venomous response.

[+ quoththeraven]

Someone contacts you for some bogus reason and asks you if you will park a sum of money in your trust account for them. In return, you get to retain a portion of the money. They send you a check and ask you to send a wire transfer somewhere for the amount minus your cut. The wire transfer gets processed faster than the paper check, so the attorney transfers the funds and finds out a couple days later that the check is no good.

 

A few years ago, someone emailed me from China, wanting help with some IP transfers or something like that. After a couple emails, he asked me to accept a check for half a million dollars. Recognizing the scam, I said no, and told him not to bother me again. He sent the check anyway-half a million dollars written on an account for a car dealer ship in Ontario. I turned the check over to the fraud investigator for my bank and phoned the car dealership to let them know. Then I emailed the original sender to let him know what I had done and received a suitably venomous response.

Okay, I recognized this from the first paragraph. I just don't normally think of that as a way to use an attorney trust account.

 

Lesson learned. "Locals only, must pick up or make arrangements with movers yourself , cash, certified check or teller's check ."

[+ Travis69]

It is a scam. Someone tried the same thing on a friend. My rule on craigslist or any selling site is CASH ONLY. Money orders, certified checks and teller's checks can be forged. I would also recommend meeting at a police station for the trade off but that might be difficult with a sofa. Good luck but be SUPER CAREFUL!!!!!!!!!!!

[+ sniper]

Also if you deposit the check they can get your account number and then do things.

Honestly, if the money isn't make-or-break, I prefer to let stuff go at fire-sale prices to people I know. I don't find the extra money I could have gotten anywhere near worth the time effort and risk.

[bigvalboy]

I think the answer is "yes," it's a scam, but I'm putting this out there in case this is something other people know or have heard about.

 

Don't worry, I haven't fallen for it monetarily, just in terms of wasted time. And it all starts out with Craigslist, where I recently listed a loveseat for sale, as I'm downsizing and clearing out in anticipation of moving someplace that's likely to be smaller than where I am now. I also want to sell this loveseat before the cat staying with me at the moment claws it up; she sometimes goes after the front of one of the armrests.

 

I received three text messages almost immediately. The first two provide e-mail addresses and I correspond with them. They both wanted to pay me extra money to remove the ad. I said no, extra money is meaningless until I get it, and it takes the same time to get me the funds for the loveseat itself, but I'll increase the price, since you want to pay more (it's now $300+), and I sent both of them my name and address and said whoever gets me payment first gets the loveseat.

 

Turns out neither of them are local and both are using a mover (supposedly). The first one tells me upfront that she wants to pay me extra to pay the movers with and I say no, that's more bother and responsibility than I want to assume. So we break off communication.

 

The second person doesn't tell me until she's supposedly sent me money that she also wants to do the same thing(!!!), which involves doing a Western Union (or some such) transfer to the movers. So fine, if I get the money I'll play along. But in the meantime no check arrives and my questions as to where it was mailed from and when go unanswered, which is a big red flag as far as I'm concerned.

 

What makes it even more interesting is that in the meantime I get two fraudulent checks, one via Federal Express and one via the mail. Both are for much larger amounts (I don't know how much the movers are supposed to cost; that's something else no one's shared with me) -- low thousands of dollars as opposed to the $300+ dollars we're now talking about.

 

The first one is written on a check from a Wyoming real estate agency but has a return address of Textron in Maryland, which was the first clue that something was wrong. And nowhere is the name of either person mentioned, though the names could be fakes too. I called the real estate agency and was told it's a fraud; the check was written on a closed account and someone must have gotten hold of unused checks. I ripped up the check and stuck it in the FedEx envelope, which I still have.

 

The following week I received another check in the mail for an even larger amount ($1,825). Before opening it, I thought it might actually be the check from the person I was then dealing with, but once again her name was nowhere on it and the amount is excessive. It was mailed from a business in Georgia and drawn on the account of a non-profit in Maryland. Also I was supposed to get a cashier's check and neither of them are. I haven't called the non-profit yet (didn't even Google them); I was annoyed and busy with other things, but I suspect the story will be the same.

 

Over the weekend, I get an e-mail from the person who said she'd sent the check but refused to give me any information about it saying she was informed I got the check and why haven't I made the transfer to the mover and blah blah blah. (In the meantime she changed the information about who the mover is.) I e-mailed her the following day to say I hadn't communicated with her because I hadn't received the check and that her failure to give me any information about it wasn't helpful either. That was Sunday and I haven't heard a peep from her. Clearly she was playing me.

 

So I think I got these two funny checks because of giving out my name and address, but because there were so many red flags with the checks, which don't meet any of the requirements we agreed to, I don't know why anyone would think I would try to deposit or negotiate them. I also think the whole setup is a scam to get someone to transfer phony funds to the movers, where they end up with the money and I end up with a chargeback because it's a closed account/fraudulent check.

 

Anyone else heard of this? I'm inclined to redo my Craigslist ad to say "locals only, no movers" or something to that effect. If someone wants to do this remotely, they can arrange for and pay their own damn movers.

 

Yes it is a scam. Just happened to a friend of mine. She was remodeling her home and was throwing out a 1950's yellow stove. Perfect mid-century. I encouraged her to sell it via CL, which she did for $300. The phone rang immediately. The caller wanted it, but it was being shipped to a designer in Palm Springs. He would send her a cashiers check for the amount of the stove ($300) plus an extra amount for shipping. The check arrived and it was for $2800. The buyer said that he didn't know how much the shipping was going to be so he wanted her to deposit the $2800 into her account and as soon as the check cleared, she was to take her $300 out for the stove plus another $50 for her trouble, subtract what the movers wanted and then deposit the overage into his account which he gave her an account number for. The check was from a designer in California and the website was all legit.

 

THE SCAM. She called her bank and the fraud department got involved. What happens is that although the $2800 was made available to her in a few days, the actual check would not clear for at least 10. After the funds were available, she would receive a phone call from the shipper telling her that shipping costs would total about $700. The overage would be in the neighborhood of approx $2000, which she would deposit into the buyers account.

Unfortunately in 10 days when the check really didn't clear, she would be on the hook for the entire $2800, and the scammer would walk away with $2000. The check with the designers name was a forgery and the phone number went to a phone that was a store bought burner phone from Walmart. All dead ends and untraceable.

 

So yes... C.O.D. "Cash only, locals only." Pick it up and take it away. Oh yes, and besure to have a bill marking pen handy. (Available via the internet). A friend of mine sold $500 worth of stuff at a garage sale to a guy and all 5 $100 bills were counterfeit.

 

It's a scandalous world we live in...

[+ poolboy48220]

I'm more inclined to use freecycle unless the thing I'm disposing of is obviously worth a lot.

 

My father sold my mother's oxygen concentrator on Craigslist after she died. It went to a woman far away, somewhere in Oregon maybe, she said with that she could work her waitressing job again. They worked out a payment schedule, he received the first few payments but then nothing more. He was philosophical about it, thinking he'd done a good deed and didn't mind not getting the rest; months later, the payments started up again and I'm pretty sure he got the full amount they agreed on.

[+ Hoover42]

Someone contacts you for some bogus reason and asks you if you will park a sum of money in your trust account for them.

So they expect that the average random customer actually has a trust? Or am I mis-understanding this?

[Rudynate]

Okay, I recognized this from the first paragraph. I just don't normally think of that as a way to use an attorney trust account.

 

Lesson learned. "Locals only, must pick up or make arrangements with movers yourself , cash, certified check or teller's check ."

 

 

I suspect it isn't a proper use of a client trust account. I haven't heard of attorneys being disciplined for falling ofr this particular scam, but I think they could be.

So they expect that the average random customer actually has a trust? Or am I mis-understanding this?

 

 

These are attorneys they are contacting. The "trust account" is a client trust account. Most attorneys have them, I think.

[+ quoththeraven]

It is a scam. Someone tried the same thing on a friend. My rule on craigslist or any selling site is CASH ONLY. Money orders, certified checks and teller's checks can be forged. I would also recommend meeting at a police station for the trade off but that might be difficult with a sofa. Good luck but be SUPER CAREFUL!!!!!!!!!!!

Good point. Assuming, as I do, that the fraudulent checks I received had something to do with this, someone went to a lot of trouble for something that in no way adds up. Maybe I'm more careful or detail-oriented than most people, but how did they expect checks drawn on business accounts coming from entirely different addresses with no obvious connection to anything not to raise red flags?

 

Tis a puzzlement.

[Nvr2Thick]

Good point. Assuming, as I do, that the fraudulent checks I received had something to do with this, someone went to a lot of trouble for something that in no way adds up. Maybe I'm more careful or detail-oriented than most people, but how did they expect checks drawn on business accounts coming from entirely different addresses with no obvious connection to anything not to raise red flags?

 

Tis a puzzlement.

 

Usually they're working the law of averages, answering many ads and hoping to come across someone foolish or trusting. One big giveway will be if they never refer to the loveseat -- all communication is about the "item." They're usually cutting and pasting the same communication to multiple ads, and not taking the time to see what's actually for sale. Often the offer will state that they're shopping on behalf of someone else -- a son, daughter, brother, husband...

 

I was once selling two concert tickets on Craigslist, posting the ad on Sunday for a Wednesday show. One of the responses I received was from someone who wanted to buy the "item" for her husband, who I should contact for shipping instructions by the end of the week.

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

Unfortunately, I have seen this scam happen to too many customers at the bank where I work. We are regularly training our staff to be on the alert for someone making a deposit and asking to wire money out at the same time, or buying a cashier's check from the deposit. Most times they have never met the person that mailed the check or to whom they are sending money.

 

Some people complain when the teller asks too many questions. But when something doesn't smell right, they are just trying to help someone from being another victim.