Anyone run into this scam?

[Storm]

With a decent printer and good paper stock, you can make any kind of check or M.O. you want.  In Ohio, if I deposit a bad check in my account, the amount is deducted from my account when it fails to clear.  I then have the option of going to the sherrif with the bad check and filing charges, because writing a check is a promise to pay.  If the check is a fraud, they can add more charges if/when they arrest the person.  

True story:

I received a $50 Canadian bill in the mail from a respectable saddlemaker one day. I'd never seen one before, but I knew it was good.  I walked across the street to my bank.  They had to call another branch, and they didn't know whose portrait was on the bill or how much the exchange rate was.  I said to just deposit it, and left.  They called me later to tell me the amount of the deposit after they sent it to their sister bank for verification.  Canada is on the other side of Toledo, 2 hours from here.

Another true story:

A customer wrote us a check that bounced when he put a "hold" on the check after picking up his item.  The bank told us "so sorry" but didn't do anything.  Luckily, we knew where the guy lived and were able to confront him in person about the check when we saw him at a party a few weeks later.  Coincidentally, he was bragging about his new saddlebags when Little Jon cut them off his bike and walked away with them.  He didn't call the police- what was he going to say in court when we showed the bounced check?  He didn't try to get the bags back, either.  Little Jon was not a man to fight with.

Johanna

Johanna

If that is true about your bank pulling that then that is not a bank but a bunch of crooks! I mean that seriously.

On the  other  hand I love the story about cutting off the saddle bags. I did something similar to that years ago to a guy who hand me make him a custom pair of fur lined boots. Sometimes revenge can be so sweet.

[JohnBarton]

Y'all need to be careful on any kind of checks from people you don't know. I think it's a Federal Law that banks can debit your account for any checks deemed to be fraudulent or otherwise disputed up to ONE YEAR from the date of deposit. You don't get to tell your side of it - they debit the account and send the money BACK to the account the check was issued against.

When you complain they tell you to take it up with the person who wrote the check. And on top of it they charge YOU for this. About $35.

Ask your bank about it and see if I am right. This floored me when my bank told me about it years ago.

Since then I only take checks from people I feel really good about.

as for the topic. Anytime someone wants to do these complicated payment schemes tell them to hit the road.

Another one you really really need to watch out for is the double PayPal payment.

In this one the buyer asks if he can pay you through two PayPal accounts. You being the gracious and hungry seller say SURE send me the money by as many as you have......

So they send you a small amount in the first payment and put a note that it's for the goods. Then they send you the balance from another account.

Then once they have the goods they file a complaint on the larger amount saying that they never got the goods, was fraudulent, etc... PayPal pulls the larger amount out of your PP account and gives it back. You are then stuck trying to prove you sent the goods and explain what happened and they are long gone with your product and your money. I believe that PP has since dome something about this sort of fraud but I don't know what it is.

There is a website I came across a while back and I can't remember the name of it but it's dedicated to showing off people's efforts to jack the scammers. They post pictures of the scammers holding up signs that say things like "I am an idiot" and things worse than that. The scammers think that they have a sucker and they send pictures holding up signs with these phrases to "prove" to the "sucker" that they are real. It funny and brutal at the same time. If anyone knows the site please post it. Warning though it's explicit.

[JohnBarton]

Believe me Johanna is right on the money. I used to use a service that would send people an email with a "check" attached. They could print this check on their normal printer and take it to the bank and the banks accepted them EVERY TIME. Their OCR (Optical Character Recognition) readers could recognize the acount and routing numbers and that's all the bank cared about.

20/20 or Nightline or one of those shows did a special where they opened a real account and then went to the Office store and bought the check paper and made their own checks. EVERYTHING on teh check was wrong EXCEPT for the account number and routing number. Then they sent people to the bank where the account was drawn on and cashed these fake checks. Then they sent people to other banks and deposited or cashed the wacky checks there.

None of the banks - national brand banks - wanted to comment.

Cashier's Checks, Money Orders, Traveler's Check and of course currency are all regularly counterfeited. All of us in business either have or will come across scammers at some point. I have lost about $10,000 in money and goods over the past 20 years through various schemes and from just trusting losers.

Right now I am trying to collect $650 from a customer. :-( That one wasn't a scam though, just me being too trusting and the guy turning out to be flaky. He bought two cases previously without a hitch. Third time I trusted him for the money instead of getting it in advance and sure enough - no money.

[Go2Tex]

Believe me Johanna is right on the money. I used to use a service that would send people an email with a "check" attached. They could print this check on their normal printer and take it to the bank and the banks accepted them EVERY TIME. Their OCR (Optical Character Recognition) readers could recognize the acount and routing numbers and that's all the bank cared about.

Oh yeah, of course the banks accept them because they have you, the account owner, on the hook to make it good. They really have no skin in the game.

There is a reason why Jesse James was such a folk hero of his time with the "folks". heh heh. He robbed banks.

But, as long as we're bashing banks, if you have no other reason to dislike their practices, just consider the interest rate scam they all run. Compare the rate they are willing to pay to use your money, (i.e. interest on your various accounts), and the interest they want to charge you to use their money in the form of a loan. The difference is staggering. Obviously, they have overhead and such and blah blah blah. But, really, 600% mark-up?

[CitizenKate]

forward one of your Etsy convos with this person to abuse [AT] etsy.com. Etsy admin will immediately cancel this person's account. I would just ignore all future emails/convos of the same nature.

I actually did this the day I got the first message, and they immediately banned him. Then, I got ANOTHER one on Wednesday, and without even replying this time, I turned him in, too. They're getting easier to spot...

Hello seller

Am <user name>, from WASHINGTON [...yeah, right] so i will like to purchase your item from etsy. so i will like to ask you some question about your item...

How much is the last price your item [You read the listing, didn't you?]

Will you like to recieve cashier cheque as payment [Read the listing. No.]

why do you want to sell it [That's a good one... duh, to make some money?]

Are you the true owner of the item [No, man, I just sell other people's stuff.]

if so you can mail me true this email..... <email address> [!at] yahoo.com

Etsy informed me this person had multiple accounts and was spamming hundreds of sellers; all those accounts were immediately shut down.

As to the question of how banks work in cases of credit card or check fraud, they do hold whomever accepted the transaction liable in the case of a fraudulent transaction. You may not think that is fair or legal, but not only is it legal, it is normal procedure for even the most "reputable" banks.

Think about it - whatever they do, it's going to be unfair to someone, whether it's the business who accepted a fraudulent credit card transaction or the independent artisan who accepted a bad check. For that matter, it's really no more fair to expect the banks to eat fraudulent transactions, because they are no more responsible for what happened than the person who accepted the transaction, maybe even less so. But the person who is primarily responsible for the fraud is nowhere to be found.

So in view of that bit of harsh reality, it is incumbent on us as business people to be careful who we do business with, and how we conduct business to protect ourselves.

Back to my original post... it's been 10 days now since the first guy said he sent the check, and I haven't seen it, nor have I heard from him, so it looks like he was lying about having sent the check and meanwhile has moved on to greener pastures.

Thanks for your input, everyone. Hopefully, a lot more of us are aware of this and will know how to avoid getting duped by these schmucks.

Kate

[DaveT]

Best not to get into this kind of deal at all. BTW, when I worked for a bank call center it was not unusual for a check to come back as a forgery a month or more after being deposited/cashed. Even money orders came back as fakes. I deal only in US Postal money orders (Very hard to forge, and any post office can verify authenticity) or paypal.

Dave T.

[crissy]

its a scam, and happens to me on craigslist! all the time I just delete. I buy with checks often to avoid the credit card stranglehold, usually tell seller to let check clear and always offer referrals from the site like this one that I have already done business with. no matter what the situation there seems to be a criminal available to scam anyone willing to take the chance.

[whinewine]

I just recently got a call from Colorado from a man with a very foreign accent ("hallowww, my name is [something banft??] & i call about your tires. You get price to ship me & call me back, OK?" I asked, why don't you buy tires there? & he replied, "I cannot get here." :wtf: Well, the 2 tires in question are slightly used & mounted on used 13" rims off an old car I no longer own ('92 toyota tercel), & I just want to let the entire set go for $35. These tires are also commonly available new and any junkyard generally has 13" 4 bolt rims, even in Colorado, probably for just a few dollars apiece. It would cost probably in excess of about $100- $150+ to ship the tire/rim combos... Now they are listed on craigslist (what a bunch of creeps- soliciting sex & 'hey, my unemployed brother made $1 Million per second & so can you just email him at www.boyimamoron.com), but since craigslist has me listed anonomously I figured this didn't come from that source. Additionally, I have the tires listed on a local 'dial and deal' program which also has an internet listing & it does have my first name & phone # published, so that's where I figure this troll got my name & #. I did a reverse phone number check & found out that his cell number originates from a town near Denver Colorado, but his name was unlisted, so I never called him back & he never called me back (in spite of the urgency/desperation of his call the night before). So if you get a weird call like this, be very aware that this is probably a scam, and don't bite. And if you list something on your local 'dialndeal' radio program, check to see if there is a website through the sponsoring local talk radio station (many do, anymore).

[JohnBarton]

As to the question of how banks work in cases of credit card or check fraud, they do hold whomever accepted the transaction liable in the case of a fraudulent transaction. You may not think that is fair or legal, but not only is it legal, it is normal procedure for even the most "reputable" banks.

Think about it - whatever they do, it's going to be unfair to someone, whether it's the business who accepted a fraudulent credit card transaction or the independent artisan who accepted a bad check. For that matter, it's really no more fair to expect the banks to eat fraudulent transactions, because they are no more responsible for what happened than the person who accepted the transaction, maybe even less so. But the person who is primarily responsible for the fraud is nowhere to be found.

So in view of that bit of harsh reality, it is incumbent on us as business people to be careful who we do business with, and how we conduct business to protect ourselves.

Kate

To be perfectly clear I was in no way suggesting that banks should eat fraudulent checks and money orders.

I do find it way over the top however to CHARGE their customer $25/35/50 etc.... when the person who is depositing the check does not have the bank's resources to verify authenticity. The bank SHOULD have a clearance time frame in which they verify the authenticity and when the BANK has verified it then the funds are good and they STAY good.

That's my only point as someone who has been in business for himself for 20 years.

It is not right and not fair to make the presenter of the check liable for up to year for the face value of the check. It is not right to assess high fees to the presenter for the type of transactions that cost the bank pennies to process.

Let's use another example.

Imagine that you had a counterfeit $20 bill which you didn't know it's counterfeit. You take it to the bank along with ten other 20s and deposit it. The bank teller runs all the 20s through the detector and it spits out the fake. So then she keeps the fake and deducts $40 from your legitimate $200 worth of deposits as a "fee" for handling no-value monetary paper. Would you accept that? If so then I want to be your bank.

The way our financial system works it's ALL GEARED to put all the risk on the seller with the bank taking no responsibility but charging all the fees.

Of course when I take a check from someone I am taking the risk. However when I give it to my bank and my bank says it's good then I have to trust that my bank has done whatever they are supposed to do to talk to the other bank and transfer the money to my account. AT THAT POINT there should be no more question.

That's my only point.

[Three Gun]

Kate,

I would take all of the information to your local post office master as this constitutes "Mail Fraud" and is a Federal Crime. The post master can get postal authorities involved and they will hunt this clown down.

Three Gun!