Hey, guys--

I recently placed an ad to sell a car that I've owned for the last 3 1/2 years, a 1984 Chevy Caprice Classic (I love old cars like that one). Because I usually have dealt with intrafamily sales or trade-ins, this happens to be the first time in many years I put an ad directly in our local suburban newspapers. Along with a phone number, sellers can also include an Email address, which to me is a nice convenience.

Of the two responses I received via Email, one of them struck me as being quite odd, maybe even too good to be true. Here's the second Email I got from this guy (this is the reply to his first, original Email that was just a Q&A one)...

Now, I've always prided myself on not being naive or too gullible, and I have yet to be scammed by anything via the Internet; however, this offer of his strikes me as being a scam, especially since I figured the price I quoted in the ad was, I admit, on the high side for a 1984 Caprice Classic (mainly because it's in superb condition and only 89,000 miles on it).

I know cashier's checks and money orders can be fraudulent, which would leave me high and dry here, so what do you guys think? I'm curious to know if anyone has ever seen anything like this before.

Randy

Yes, I'm fairly certain this is a scam. A friend of mine had something similar to this happen regarding selling her jewelry over Ebay. By what we learned through her from a police officer, whenever there is an overdraft involved in a money order or cashier's check, it usually is a scam. Be warned!

If they were so trustworthy, wouldn't they be sending you money via a MoneyGram or by Western Union and not the other way around?

Randy my guess is scam. It sounds very similar to some of the lottery winner scams that people here in Toronto have pulled on countless Americans that were covered on CNN a few months ago. In those cases people would receive notification of winning a grand prize in a lottery. All the documentation would look real using fake Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation letterhead with a small portion of the so called winnings included in the form of an official looking money order. The 'winners' were instructed to forward 'x' amount of dollars to an address in Toronto to cover the taxes on the winnings, and once that was received they would get their full winnings. Well people would mail money orders up here to cover the taxes and then a few days later would find out that the money order sent to them was invalid and they were out the 'tax' money they sent up here.

Apparently millions of dollars has been lost by Americans that way.

General rule - anything that is asking money and/or property from you, before you have the cash in hand - lookout.

Craigslist Scam list

Yours is on there...

Good call Maddog, I was just about to go check that. Craigslist does a good job of warning people about the dangers of selling things across their servers.

Hoax, and not a new one either.

Google for fake cashiers check.

Typical: http://www.carbuyingtips.com/nigerian-scams.htm

I'm pretty up on all the Internet scams, but I bet that because the last time I sold a car, the Internet wasn't around, this one to me was new.

Thanks, guys, for your input. Here's one additional weird thing that happened with this dude...

I got a call this evening from what my Caller ID said was "IP Relay." The first one I ignored and didn't pick up, the second time, I decided to answer the call for the heck of it. I picked it up, and some lady on the phone identifies herself as being from "IP Relay." She goes on to explain that IP Relay is a service where a computer operator--her, for example--serves as a go-between for two parties communicating on the phone, where one party speaks slowly, the operator types in what is said, forwards it to the other party, waits for a response, and types in this response to the other party, and so on.

I'd have to be a freakin' idiot to believe that was anything BUT a scam.

At least I can file this under you learn something new every day.

Good for you! I hope you realize that IP Relay is a teletype service, as I recall. That way, it can't be traced back to the person who created this scam. Pretty clever, if you ask me.

I'll say. I gotta give the dude an "A" for originality, at least from my point of view. When I got the IP Relay call earlier this evening, I simply said, "The car has been sold." The operator then said the other party had immediately disconnected.

BTW, is it any surprise that when I just responded to his Email a few minutes ago, it got bounced back to me as "undeliverable" when earlier in the day it went through? These bullshit artists work quick, don't they?

The IP relay is experience quite a bit of fraud lately, because anyone can do it online now. My work is in the financial industry and we've had people using the IP relay to try and wire money from someone else's account overseas. They have all the information to do the wire, but we require a password on all our accounts and the person(s) didn't know what it was.

I'm not sure where you could report this, maybe the local sheriff or fraud investigator might be interested.

I don't think there's anything my local police department can really do, though. There's no way to track this dude down.

Yeah, chalk it up to experience. At least it didn't cost you $1,000 to find out the hard way. Thank goodness!

I know. Thank God I'm not that naive.

Like mother always says, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Like my journalism teacher always said, if your mother says she loves you, check it out!