Scam when selling your car - watch out lads and lass's!!

[splintermcinnes]

some one has tryed to scam me for my car, so i though it best to warn you as its here where he saw my car for sale.

he called himself pete galley and said he was from switzerland. cut a long story short, he said he was having trouble getting cash, he said a colleage in the uk owed him cash, he would send a cheque for 6500 to me, i cash it, take what i was asking for the car and send him the difference via his exporters. Hmmm sounds dodgy!

i asked him for full details of the exporters he was using, didnt get an answer, anyhoo, a cheque turned up for 6900, from a council bank account natwest, a uk cheque, but it was airmailed from the ukrain!! took it straight to natwest, i bank with them, to check it out to see if was indeed as thought, and low and behold it was a fake! so the guy has my address, but i sent him an email saying it sounded like money laundering, which i got no response from! he did ask a few days latter if i got the cheque, but the fraud department at the bank have said not to reply anymore.

The police didnt really do anything, they said the bank handle this now, but if he gets threatening to go back. But they said as soon as they have been sussed, they just try and move on to the next victim.

I was savvy and saw it comming, others might not.

Be carefull Guys.

Matt.

[Goto10]

That scam is as old as the hills, they hope people will send them the difference - the cheque usually clears after 3~5 days as normal so everything looks OK - a while later (days, weeks, can even be months) it then bounces and you realise you've just gifted them £xxxx and possibly even sent them your car/other expensive item.

[splintermcinnes]

Still got the car, not out of pocket, and the cheque is in the hands of the fraud department. All gravy.

[tonigmr2]

Still interesting - you say it looked like it came from a council bank account?

[Martin F]

cheers for the heads up matt, did they have a user name? , just out of interest

[JohnnyC]

the cheque usually clears after 3~5 days as normal so everything looks OK - a while later (days, weeks, can even be months) it then bounces

I think it's about time the banks sorted this out. Why does it take 3-5 days to clear (the cheques aren't sent on the back of a horse down to London anymore)? and why so long for it to bounce - what's the point of the clearing in the first place

Come on bankers, justify the bonuses my taxes have been paying for

[matt_mr2t]

The whole clearing thing is IMO obscene in this day and age.

If we can use something like paypal which instantaneously transfers money then why the hell cant the banks do likewise?

This is the digital era FFS!

And this scam is at least 10 years old and IIRC started out, as most do, with the nigerian crooks.

Another one is someone see's an advert then asks if you want to pay X amount of money to have it advertised in many different places. Needless to say it doesnt.

[cantfindausername]

Couldn't agree more... which is why I was over the moon to see that my banks (halifax & natwest) are now doing "Faster Transfer" payments which take upto 2 hrs before the money is available. About bloody time!

[splintermcinnes]

he didnt have a user name, he emailed my directly seaying he'd seen my add, and he didnt say where he had seen it as its advertised in various places!

And yeah the cheque was sent from the ukrain, but was an english council's natwest account, cant remember which one as the cheque is with the fraund people of natwest.

i sopke with the poice over this and they explained about how it works, ie people can cash the cheque, sent the cash keeping 'what their owed' then later it turns out it bounces and your liable for the hole ammount, and you might of sent your car away awsell!!

Bullit dodged! there some right C***ts out there. I did get scammed once, but im somewhat more savvy to it now! if it sounds dodgey, it generally is! keep sharp people.

[HighwayStar]

When Miche was selling her mini to buy the mk3 we put it up on pistonheads and had two of these 'offers' within the first ten days. I think I'm right in saying that the website has details of the most used scams to act as warnings, I certainly had read it there and we just ignored the mails (other than informing PH).
Glad you saw through it.

R.

[nuttasie]

glad you saw thru it.But i am slightly confused.I thought that if a cheque cleared then everytrhing was ok as it meant the money was there for them to take??

How can it bounce later if it as already cleared and shouldn't the banks be accountable for it if thats the case.?

could some one explain more please as it as implications for anyone accepting cheques as payment.

[Goto10]

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/p ... aid-34.htm

Although it seems things may have improved somewhat lately....

Following a report by a working group of the Office of Fair Trading in 2006 [10] maximum times for the cheque clearing cycle for most banks will be introduced in UK from November 2007.[11] The date the credit appears on the recipient's account (usually the day of deposit) will be designated 'T'. At 'T + 2' (2 business days afterwards) the value will count for calculation of credit interest or overdraft interest on the recipient's account. At 'T + 4' one will be able to withdraw funds (though this will often happen earlier, at the bank's discretion). 'T + 6' is the last day that a cheque can bounce without the recipient's permission - this is known as 'certainty of fate'. Before the introduction of this standard, the only way to know the 'fate' of a cheque has been 'Special Presentation', which would probably involve a fee, where the drawee bank contacts the payee bank to see if the payee has that money at that time. 'Special Presentation' needs to be stated at the time of depositing in the cheque.

Not sure how this covers you if it turns out that the cheque book was stolen and not whether the balance was sufficient at the time (which becomes irrelevant again)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque

[nuttasie]

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/p ... aid-34.htm

Although it seems things may have improved somewhat lately....

Following a report by a working group of the Office of Fair Trading in 2006 [10] maximum times for the cheque clearing cycle for most banks will be introduced in UK from November 2007.[11] The date the credit appears on the recipient's account (usually the day of deposit) will be designated 'T'. At 'T + 2' (2 business days afterwards) the value will count for calculation of credit interest or overdraft interest on the recipient's account. At 'T + 4' one will be able to withdraw funds (though this will often happen earlier, at the bank's discretion). 'T + 6' is the last day that a cheque can bounce without the recipient's permission - this is known as 'certainty of fate'. Before the introduction of this standard, the only way to know the 'fate' of a cheque has been 'Special Presentation', which would probably involve a fee, where the drawee bank contacts the payee bank to see if the payee has that money at that time. 'Special Presentation' needs to be stated at the time of depositing in the cheque.

Not sure how this covers you if it turns out that the cheque book was stolen and not whether the balance was sufficient at the time (which becomes irrelevant again)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque

Thanks for posting this,made very interested reading.

cheers
sie