Luckily I've read ll about this scam, its actually in my opinion the banks fault.
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Hello,
Am from dublin , am so much intrested in buying your car placed on the advert.The car has been a car am looking forward to buy for my son as bithday gift ok , please dont sell it out .My client in uk
owing me £9,500 will send you the payment via cheque/draft ,
please deposit the cheque for clearance immediately you have it ok , as soon as the paymnet cleares after 3/5days deduct the price of the car and send my balance to my chief accountant in the uk so that he can pay for shipment of the car and keep the rest funds in my company's account .Why i want him to make out the paymnet to you is because i want a fast transaction , and as you understand that a payment within the uk will clear in 3/5days , but a payment from dublin to uk will take days like 3/4 weeks to clear ok .My shipping company will come for the shipment of the car and change of ownership immediately cheque/draft cleares to your account ok.Sorry i cant come for the viewing of the car because am busy here .Is the car in good condition? please get back to me with the condition of the car and any more pics if available, i will need your following details so that paymnet can gets to you in latest 7days time .

Details as follows :.........
NAME AND ADDRESS..............
PHONE NUMBER....................
Best Regards,
Yemmy.


You can call me on my number +4407031840426 or +447031840426 please.

NB:I want to add 100pounds to the price of the car ,just to secure the sales.

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They pay the money into your account, the money is visable in the account, you send it back and then the bank phones up and tells you, you owe them so much as the cheque was a fake. Seriously Watch dog reported on this.

 

Yeah, this stuff has been posted before. It is a well known scam that IIRC is even listed on Autotrader site itself in some form of guide.

Hopefully eveyone is aware of this, but there is no harm in making sure

 

This is known as 419 fraud. Try a google search on "419". There is loads of it going on - not just with cars.

 

Nothing new - been done many times before. Not sure why you think it's the banks fault. Anyone can write an email like this. The bank is merely processing a cheque. I'm not sure how they could be held responsible for this (or how they could check). The responsibility must, at least be equally on the individual who falls for this kind of scam. It's been around for ages. If some thing looks too good to be true, it probably is...

 

You'd think their spelling and grammer would get a little better with time

 

Oh great...now the Irish are at it

 

yes, their spelling and grammar is atrocious!
take a look at www.419eater.com
i read a link on SNet some time ago from a baiter's web site dealing with sale of karts and cars on ebay. had me in tears of laughter! if i can find the link to the thread i'll post it up

***found the thread...
http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthrea...ight=eat+sheet
http://www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk/temp/scammers.html

 

oooh look, a mobile phone number...

 

Wouldn't that number imply the guy is actually in the UK?

 

because the bank clears the cheque.. thus you tend to trust its real.

 

when i sold my audi in feb on ebay i had an email the same as that from a guy in south africa supposedly. lets just say i didnt bother with him.

 

But the bank doesn't clear the cheque, they show it as uncleared funds, then take it out when the cheque turns out to be dodgy. IIRC they cannot take the funds back from you AFTER they have cleared the cheque, which is why they have a slush fund to cover their backsides.

 

This is the prepay scam... unlike 419 you get a cheque, it'll just be forged

If your bank isn't on the ball (most of them know about it nowadays I think) you could get the cheque, cash it, withdraw the money really quickly and not do anything. The bank will be pissed off when it bounces, but if you're willing to have them threaten and harass you (after all, it's their fault they didn't notice) it could be a nice little earner.
you cash a cheque to make sure its valid, not your fault if the banks not up on the scam

 

You say cash it. You can only cash a cheque that's made out to cash. If that is the case they are paying cash and the bank are at fault, however they would need to be at the bank to do this so may as well give you the cash. This means so far your bank account have not used so fail to see how your bank can give you a hard time.

I suspect however the cheque is not made out to cash but to you, and therefore you cannot 'cash' it, you 'pay' it to your account. If you then spend the uncleared funds you're pretty dumb.

if you spend uncleared funds it is your fault. End of story.

 

"They" can obviously make the cheque out to anybody - no point sending you a cheque made to "Mr Smith". Just tell them your name is "Christopher Ash" or CAsh for short and take the cheque to one of these high street cheque cashiers. Then deny all knowledge - they are hardly going to report you to the police.

 

OllyK - great, however, if they made it out to CASH, then it's not a scam is it? They are paying for the goods. So this thread is not a scam warning but a how to sell your car thread.

 

Considering many of these Nigerian scammers are sufficiently dumb as to have their picture taken with "Coc*sucker" on a board in front of them, how many do you think would pick up on being told to write a cheque out to Christopher Ash?

They don't care what it is made out to as the cheques are usually stolen, if they get anything back they have made a profit, if they get nothing back, they have lost nothing.

TBH - in my original response (which was intended to be tongue in cheek), the cheque cashier would actually be the one to loose out. I suspect they would require ID before handing over the cash and that you may well have a visit from a rather large guy called Winston, weilding a baseball bat when the cheque goes rubbery

 

All banks cash cheques made out in your name, it's just that they take three working days to do it. As I said before, and as pimmo2000 also says if they do clear it, and you then withdraw the funds, no matter how threatening the bank gets, they have the problem, not you.

 

read the small print on your account terms and conditions. "uncleared" funds are those show as available to draw against subject to clearance. this will usually happen 3 days or so from deposit (sometimes same day if you're lucky). after 5 days or so (can't remember how many), the funds are "cleared funds".
if you draw against uncleared funds, then the bank will have the ability under the terms and conditions to which you agreed when you opened the account, to come after you for the money - ie to take the money from your account and if that means you go overdrawn, then you start incurring fees for interest, debt recovery letters etc which in turn affects your credit rating, your ability to get a mortgage at a decent rate, credit cards etc etc
unfortunately, you can't beat the banks!