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- Location
- Santa Clarita, Ca
Hello all! There is a very popular scam going around the internet targeting people selling cars trucks boats,etc. Basically if you advertising an item for sale on the internet like on recycler.com or a similar site someone will send you an email saying they are from Europe or South Africa or some other country and want to purchase your vehicle. They will have you send pictures and will send you several e-mails but usually wont call. Then they'll tell you they have a cashiers check or money order for a few thousand dollars over what your asking price is and say they have arranged shipping and set up an appointment for someone to pick the vehicle up. In the mean time you'll get a fed-ex package that looks very official with a very real looking money order or cashiers check with a real account number thats been stolen. They will request that you send them the extra money back via western union. So the unsuspecting victim deposits the check into their account and everything will go through because the account number is legit but stolen, then the victim will send the western union money order back to the supposed buyer. Once the money order has been sent, it cannot be cancelled or traced. So the crook gets 3k or 5k cash and walks away with usually with no intention of picking up the vehicle. A few days later the other victim whose account number was stolen and printed on a fake check realizes their account has been drained, the bank figures out what happened and now your a few thousand dollars in the hole. I have seen this several times first hand and theres not a whole lot that can be done. I have had 3 attempts tried on me when selling vehicles but luckily I was already aware. I'm writing this because this morning I had 2 different attempts on a boat I'm selling and it just fires me up! The other thing that contributes to this is that its always someone with a free yahoo account that does not require a credit card or any I.D. verification to open the account. Hopefully this will help at least 1 person not get scammed.
