Craigs List Scam Question

[Kevin Herber]

MY Father-in-law is selling a Shop-Smith on Craig's List. He got an email from someone in the UK saying they want it at full price ($850). They have been in email contact four + times and FIL thinks it is legit. The buyer said he wants to send a check for full price plus extra to cover shipping. He instructed FIL to not do anything until the check clears the bank.

The Shop-Smith includes the band saw and jointer. Buyer says he can't buy the same stuff over there for same price.

Anyway, this sounds like the beginning of a scam, or am I just being paranoid. If seller indeed does not want to do anything until check clears, I would suspect all is in order.

What are your thoughts and/warnings? This has a familiar ring to it but I could not find anything with a search.

[Matt Meiser]

Ask the buyer to pay through some kind of verifiable method. I'm not sure what that might be but your bank could probably help. Perhaps a wire transfer? If it is legit they should be willing. If they aren't willing, get suspicious.

[Phil Thien]

Absolutely a scam.

[Charles McKinley]

Just don't send them any money or the machine until the money has cleared.

The big scam going around now is they send you a lot "extra" and you send them a check and the goods and a month or so later you find out the check is bad. They have your stuff and your money.

There has to be a more secure way to get the money than a check. I would suggest paypal but you need a way to protect yourself from chargebacks.

[skip coyne]

SCAM !!!

check out the craigs list scam guide

http://sarasota.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

"DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON - follow this one simple rule and you will avoid 99% of the scam attempts on craigslist."

[Jeff Wright]

I received a similar email from abroad in response to a boat I am selling. The boat's price is $229,000 and the supposed buyer said he was willing to buy it unseen. The emails were strangely worded. It all sounded so fishy I ended up ignoring the last couple of emails thinking it was all a scam.

[Rob Russell]

The problem with checks is that they may clear your bank, but be denied from the originating bank and that can take weeks. There are escrow services that work for overseas - go to the eBay website and search on escrow services. Be careful about the escrow services too - there are lots of scam one out there. There is one that eBay recommends for UK transactions, so it's got to be a legit one. Have the buyer pay for the escrow fees.


Another thought - the UK power system is 240v, 50 Hz the ShopSmith isn't going to run properly over there. It really does sound like a scam.


Rob

[David G Baker]

MY Father-in-law is selling a Shop-Smith on Craig's List. He got an email from someone in the UK saying they want it at full price ($850). They have been in email contact four + times and FIL thinks it is legit. The buyer said he wants to send a check for full price plus extra to cover shipping. He instructed FIL to not do anything until the check clears the bank.

The Shop-Smith includes the band saw and jointer. Buyer says he can't buy the same stuff over there for same price.

Anyway, this sounds like the beginning of a scam, or am I just being paranoid. If seller indeed does not want to do anything until check clears, I would suspect all is in order.

What are your thoughts and/warnings? This has a familiar ring to it but I could not find anything with a search.
Kevin,
I would think the cost of shipping to the UK would cost a lot. I have shipped small items to many places around the world with out a problem. If the buyer is willing to wait an extended amount of time that it will take to guarantee that his check clears the bank, it might be legit. I would explain the situation to the bank, maybe they can give advise on how to protect your FIL. I am inclined to agree with Skip that it is, in most cases, much safer to deal with someone locally. It may sell for less but a little loss is better than a total loss. Packaging the Shop-Smith for shipment and filling out the necessary paper work for overseas shipping can be a pain as well.
South Bend metal lathes and repair parts are shipped to the UK frequently because they are hard to come by over there so the same may be true of the Shop-Smith.
Let us know what your FIL decides to do and what the out come is.
David B

[Thomas Prondzinski]

My son currently has a 4 wheeler on craigslist and got the same e-mail from the UK he will send 8500 and my son could send back the difference(he's asking 4800) when the check clears. I told him scam,do not answer anymore e-mails from him



Tom

[James Carmichael]

I think Rob pretty well nailed it. Scam.

[Bryan Somers]

Like everyone else said SCAM Something even more scary People have been arrested for trying to cash some of thes checks. I wish I had time to find the link to that story. The only good news is your father-in-law would still have his Shopsmith.

[Jim Young]

How about having the sending the money electronically to your bank? Wire transfer.

[Mark Hubler]

Did it go anything like this one? He offered to buy a tool without seeing it first!!?? Maybe a little ID theft on the side too?


Hello,
Thanks so much for your reply.i really appreciate your urgent response.I will take the price But its just that i am going on a vacation soon but can make arrangement how a check will be sent to you. When the check clears your Bank,i will make arrangement for the pickup.Send me your Full name,Address and Phone number,both home and Cell number.As soon as i have all these, i will send you a check.
looking forward to hearing from you ASAP.
Regards,

[Robert McGowen]

I second everything that Rob Russell wrote above.........

[Craig D Peltier]

I love how they word there emails too.They never have any where near proper english word arrangement.
That tells me right there scam.
My dad lead one of them on, it was quite funny.Also another guy on my motorcycle forum posted the guys email address and asked everyone to spam him.

[Bruce Page]

After reading some of the advice given in Skip's link, I'd run from this deal!

[Kevin Herber]

Good Info. Thanks a lot. I passed this link to FIL and discussed it with him. So far, no more contact from 'buyer'. FIL thinks he will never hear from him. He assures me he will do nothing until funds are completely cleared and in his hands, which he thinks will not happen.

I'll post if anything more happens.....

[Bruce Benjamin]

Good Info. Thanks a lot. I passed this link to FIL and discussed it with him. So far, no more contact from 'buyer'. FIL thinks he will never hear from him. He assures me he will do nothing until funds are completely cleared and in his hands, which he thinks will not happen.

I'll post if anything more happens.....

So, your FIL is going to go through with it anyway? Why get involved in an obvious and well known scam when you know it's going to end badly at best? The people who have answered this thread with advice about electronic transfers or waiting for the check to clear, etc., are missing the whole point. And that is that this person on the other computer is a thief and he's absolutely trying to rip your FIL off. Why let him get his foot in the door any further??? Remember that just because the, "funds are completely cleared and in his hands" doesn't mean that his bank can't take those funds back out of his hands.

Canada is another source of this type of scam. It happened to a guy I worked with when he was trying to sell his motorcycle on an online classified ad site. We finally talked him into just ignoring the emails but he really thought he could make it work if he was just careful about it. We did a little research and came up with lots of info on it. I was standing at the bank teller window a few weeks ago and overheard the poor sucker next to me and the bank teller and a supervisor talking about the check he got. From what I could hear it sounded like this scam and I heard them mention the check was from a Canadian bank but was a forgery. Not even a real check. Talk you FIL out of having anything to do with this thing.

Bruce