Ok....here's the skinny on how one scam works. Or at least one of the scams people are using. (Sorry in advance it's so long of a post). This one is different because it targets the person selling the car.
They want to buy your car and pay MORE than you are asking for your car. Why would they do this you say ? They supposedly have a friend who owes them money and in exchange for you being the middle man they will give you MORE than you are asking.
So if you are asking 10K they offer you 11K because their "friend" owes them 12K. So do the math.
12K - 10K - 1K= 1K left over that they want you to WIRE to them. Now here comes the fun part....
They say they will send you a cashiers check for the your amount + XYZ. They want you to WIRE them the difference.
The banks will deposit your check but the term "clear" is deceiving because banks HAVE to give you access to the money from any checks you cash within 5 days of depositing it and most banks don't even wait that long. So you go 5 days and you don't hear anything from your bank you have access to the funds and you think it's all great.
Then a few more days go by and you hear from the bank that the check didn't clear. Checks are still paper dude and any number of things can be done to slow down their processing including using ink to fill in the numbers on the bottom of the check. That totally screws with the computer that reads the check. Then the check has to be manually processed in some cases further delaying you finding out it's no good.
At this point you are out of any money you wire them plus whatever fake money you spent + bank fees.
Red flags are the fact that they give you a check but want you to WIRE them money....
I only post this in the hopes that it helps someone avoid alot of heartache.... There's a good writeup about this in Smart Money magazine a while back. It wasn't related to Ebay and cars but the scam was identical.
They want to buy your car and pay MORE than you are asking for your car. Why would they do this you say ? They supposedly have a friend who owes them money and in exchange for you being the middle man they will give you MORE than you are asking.
So if you are asking 10K they offer you 11K because their "friend" owes them 12K. So do the math.
12K - 10K - 1K= 1K left over that they want you to WIRE to them. Now here comes the fun part....
They say they will send you a cashiers check for the your amount + XYZ. They want you to WIRE them the difference.
The banks will deposit your check but the term "clear" is deceiving because banks HAVE to give you access to the money from any checks you cash within 5 days of depositing it and most banks don't even wait that long. So you go 5 days and you don't hear anything from your bank you have access to the funds and you think it's all great.
Then a few more days go by and you hear from the bank that the check didn't clear. Checks are still paper dude and any number of things can be done to slow down their processing including using ink to fill in the numbers on the bottom of the check. That totally screws with the computer that reads the check. Then the check has to be manually processed in some cases further delaying you finding out it's no good.
At this point you are out of any money you wire them plus whatever fake money you spent + bank fees.
Red flags are the fact that they give you a check but want you to WIRE them money....
I only post this in the hopes that it helps someone avoid alot of heartache.... There's a good writeup about this in Smart Money magazine a while back. It wasn't related to Ebay and cars but the scam was identical.