janelle

Online shopping scam targets sellers


by Rebekah Dryden
KWCH 12 Eyewitness News
Thursday, February 16, 2006



If you’ve ever thought of selling something online, you’ll want to hear about a scam that’s getting so sophisticated, it’s taking banks days to catch up and leaving consumers like you to pick up the tab.

“Initially, I placed an ad at an internet site to sell a vehicle that I was trying to get rid of,” says Ron Pastore, “and I got an e-mail, and it stated that the party was interested in purchasing the vehicle and it said to stop my attempts to sell it-that they were speaking for it and that they’d be sending me a check.”

When a check for more than $5,000 arrived, Pastore thought it look legitimate. “In our system of finance,” he says, “cashier’s checks are good-not to say that people haven’t created fraudulent checks in the past, but these looked good.”

The check was for more than the price of the vehicle and the buyer said he wanted Pastore to wire the excess cash to a third person for shipping fees. Just to be sure, and because so much money was involved, Pastore asked his bank to check it out before depositing it into his account.

“The representative at the bank thought it looked good, but thought we should at least put a hold on it, if nothing else,” Pastore says, “and took as much as half an hour to locate [the issuing bank] and when they checked the routing number and the bank account, they didn’t jibe and so they said it was probably not good at that point.”

When the buyer called, Pastore told him his check was no good. “[He] offered to send me a check for twice as much,” Pastore recalls, chuckling a little, “so, you know, $10,000 in a worthless check, to see if that would work to suck me in.”

Pastore is able to laugh it off because he didn’t get caught up in the scam, but thinking about what he could’ve lost is sobering. “I did go back to the internet site,” he says, “and they had posted a scam notice that there were people sending [phony] cashier’s checks out.”

The checks, just like Pastore’s, were for over the amount. The scammers, posing as buyers, wanted the sellers to deposit the checks into their bank accounts and send the overage to a supposed shipping company.

“So, not only are they out that amount of money,” says Pastore, “but apparently, when they get ahold of the account number of this seller, they’ll deplete that person’s bank account as well.”

The scheme works because, in most cases, the victim’s bank deposits the fake check, makes the funds available, and doesn’t figure out until days or even weeks later that the check is phony.

Judging from the check Pastore received, he says it’s easy to understand how consumers and even bank tellers could be fooled. The scammers have managed to create some very legitimate looking checks-right down to the watermark on the back that reads “original document.”

Pastore says, if he hadn’t gone out of his way to ask for help at the bank, the teller probably would’ve just deposited the check into his account and he wouldn’t have known what was going on until it was too late.

“So just do your homework,” he advises, “and protect yourself as best you can and check things out because you never know when someone is going to try to make a victim out of you.”

Experts say if you’re selling something online it’s best to use services like Pay-Pal instead of accepting checks. If you do receive a cashier’s check, don’t just take it to a bank teller for deposit-go to a customer service representative at your bank and ask them to call the issuing bank and make sure the check is legitimate.

adorkablex

Of topic, but sheesh.. it's sad when even journalists have bad grammar.

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janelle

I hope it was a typo but you never know now a days. LOL