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wood714

wood714

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I have a biker friend that's 54 years old. He worked for the postal service for years till he got disabled, and claims to have attended some college.

He listed a car for sale on craigslist, and got one of the classic craigslist scam offers. Lady is out of town and can't pick up the car, but will send him a check for his asking price, plus $50 for his troubles, and an extra $2K for the movers that will pick up the car.

Told him he knew it was a scam, but he said he was going to wait for the check and deposit it and see's what happens.

He got the check a few days ago, deposited it, and the bank said it was a legit check. I told him it doesn't matter what the bank says now, that it will bounce on him in a few days. Even sent him this.

i-KcXDF24-L.jpg


He totally ignored me, and took $4K yesterday out to buy an old truck.

Dude doesn't have the funds in his account to cover the check when the bank discovers it's not valid.

Wondering what the outcome will be.

I did everything possible to help him out except for trying to beat some sense into him.
 
wood714 said:
I have a biker friend that's 54 years old. He worked for the postal service for years till he got disabled, and claims to have attended some college.

He listed a car for sale on craigslist, and got one of the classic craigslist scam offers. Lady is out of town and can't pick up the car, but will send him a check for his asking price, plus $50 for his troubles, and an extra $2K for the movers that will pick up the car.

Told him he knew it was a scam, but he said he was going to wait for the check and deposit it and see's what happens.

He got the check a few days ago, deposited it, and the bank said it was a legit check. I told him it doesn't matter what the bank says now, that it will bounce on him in a few days. Even sent him this.

i-KcXDF24-L.jpg


He totally ignored me, and took $4K yesterday out to buy an old truck.

Dude doesn't have the funds in his account to cover the check when the bank discovers it's not valid.

Wondering what the outcome will be.

I did everything possible to help him out except for trying to beat some sense into him.
Click to expand...

The outcome you just lost a friend. Once he realizes the shafting he took by not listening to you he will never be able to look you in the eye again!
 
Your friend will soon be schooled on the difference between a check clearing (about 2 days) vs. the bank actually collecting the funds (about 5 days). I never quite understood the value in the term of a check "clearing", seeing that a check isn't really good until the bank gets its money. Longer for International of course.
 
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Did somebody actually show up and get the car?

Usually the scam is an overpayment and then the victim kicks back money by Western Union. No scammer actually wants to deal with a vehicle.
 
sigp220.45 said:
Did somebody actually show up and get the car?

Usually the scam is an overpayment and then the victim kicks back money by Western Union. No scammer actually wants to deal with a vehicle.
Click to expand...

Not yet. There may be details he's not shared with me.
 
wood714 said:
Not yet. There may be details he's not shared with me.
Click to expand...

I suspect the next development will be the buyer having a family emergency and requesting a refund by Western Union. Of course your friend can keep $500 for his trouble.

The seller should then say “No refunds. I’ll hold the car for two weeks”. By then the check will bounce and he’ll have to figure out how to cover what he withdrew, but at least he won’t be out any extra.
 
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I still can't believe he fell for it. I always thought he was kinda not a fool, hell his wife was a school teacher, and went along with it.

Book smarts...street smarts, either would know it's a scam. People have been talking about it for years.

When it all goes down, he'll probably find a way for me not to find out, but word travels fast.
 
Wow and some folks must enjoy being the recipient. Hope for his sake he gets away clean, but better show him where a stash of aluminum cans are.
 
This makes me sick to read. You would think a former postal employee would be wary of scams; we were made aware of those types of things happening in our community.

If he is out due to a disability he isn’t drawing full retirement either.
 
wood714 said:
...
He totally ignored me, and took $4K yesterday out to buy an old truck.

Dude doesn't have the funds in his account to cover the check when the bank discovers it's not valid.

Wondering what the outcome will be...
Click to expand...

After reading the thread twice, it seems to me nothing has happened yet, right?

He got the check, deposited the check, withdrew money, bought a truck.

He hasn’t given up his car, the check hasn’t bounced, there is no actual evidence yet that any of your suspicions have any basis in reality, or did I miss something?

I agree it looks ripe for a scam, but you also look like a busybody. Before you take the story to the internet and denigrate your friend’s intelligence, you might at least wait until there is some confirmation that you’re right.
 
YOU TRIED.

Time to call it a day IMO. Any further help likely won't be accepted or wanted. If they ask you, that's another story. Nothing good seems to come out of craigslist, except the FOR FREE section. ;)
 
It can't be done...

I don't know who actually said it first but...

"You can't cheat an honest man" always rings true to me.

Googled it and came up with the following:

You can't cheat an honest man is really a phrase that means an honest man would not get himself into a situation in which he can be cheated. He holds himself to a higher regard and when an offer may arise that has questionable circumstances, he walks away. It is the same as in you can't fool an honest man. The origin of these two almost identical quotes traces back to when gypsies used three cups with a stone under one of them and you had to pay money to guess which cup the rock is under. It was said back then that the honest man would walk away, while those in need would stay and play.

See also P. T. Barnum: There's a sucker born every minute


As I like to tell folks when confronted with a scam, I may have been born at night... but not last night!
 
Craigslist is a great way to buy and sell.
I have used it for a number of transaction including Real Estate.
Repeat - but I like this story!
The Real Estate buyer says will you take cash for the down payment? About $12,000.
Yes I will!
She shows up at my lawyers office with a big wad of bills.
When we get to the count, I actually help her count.
Let’s face it folks, counting money is something I’m good at!
Ginger the Paralegal watches us count.
Finally she says, we don’t take cash.
I say, I do take cash. All I can get!
 
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THE PILGRIM said:
Did he ship the car?
Some of the folks in Nigeria might actually want a Plymouth!
Click to expand...

The car is a Volvo C70 retractable hard top. Everything that could go wrong with a car has happened to it. Something was wrong with the front end, and he was changing one tire every 500 miles.

He called me tonight, and said he thinks it could be a scam...acted like I never mentioned that fact to him before. Also said he never took any money out from the check, dudes broke all the time, so I knew he didn't have the cash on hand for the truck.

C70
i-vv5pjKT-XL.jpg
 
A good neighbor friend ran into some once in a lifetime money. Foolishly I tried to coach him to debt free easy street(his dream). Got him into paid off 10 acres, decent home,paid for car and a couple of necessary toys. He cruised for about a year while slowly whizzing the rest away. A year after that he has gone from having the tiger by the tail to can't escape its jaws.

After a long head shake and brief disappointment; realized that some people enjoy their misery. Yep... he's back to whizzing and complaining how life has dealt him the miserable hand of owing his earnings to the creditors. He doesn't even count his blessings of debt free acreage and home. (Head shakes in disbelief)
 
One problem with these scams is that the checks often use the bank routing and account numbers of legitimate businesses. The initial clearance by the bank just establishes that it's a legitimate account with funds to cover the check. Later, perhaps weeks later, the business reconciles their account and discover the forgery. Then it flows back down hill to the person scammed. Around here the bank usually sets up a loan to the scam victim and allows them to pay it back (with interest of course) is they can't immediately reimburse the bank.

I have had to deal with many victims and can only shake my head at their decision making. Even had one who was selling a car send $500.00 to a "car transporter" in China who was going to pick up the car for the buyer.
 
It amazes me that people fall for these things but, then I saw that the guy owns a Volvo LOL... I had someone try to buy a 1911 off of me through gunbroker about 3 states away...
 
A guy I worked with years ago fell for the IRS "overdue tax" scam a couple of years ago. he is a chemical engineer worked and travelled abroad for years.
First they convinced him to send about $15,000.00 in Walmart gift cards! then came back for another helping which amounted to around !0,000. more. He finally woke up and notified the local Sheriffs office but too late and nothing they could do about it anyway.
He may have had a bit of a guilty concience, and was getting along,in years too.
Steve W
 
My dad was a doctor. When he was in his sixties he went to a "Free Lunch Seminar" put on by some fly-by-night insurance salespeople. After a one-hour meeting with them, he came home and announced that he was going to take $500,000 out of an investment account and give it to them to put in a super-duper new kind of annuity guaranteed to always beat the market and never lose a cent. I told my dad that it sounded too good to be true and that he needed to slow down and do his due diligence before handing such a huge sum over to strangers. He was adamant about following through. Luckily, I was able to do some research on the husband/wife sales team and discovered that they had been fined and run out of several states for bilking elderly people and I put a stop to it.

It wasn't until after my dad died years later that I learned that he had fallen for a scam involving the Nigerian Lottery or some other crazy thing. My dad's widow explained that she tried to talk him out of sending a check for $5500 or so. She begged him to call me to get a second opinion, but he was convinced that this one was the real deal and wouldn't let her call me. I still can't believe he fell for that one.
 
Respectfully, I have many friends but would rarely if ever, discuss this level of my personal business with any of them - your friend sounds like a slightly dysfunctional individual from the beginning.

I’d bow out and not render any judgement, good, bad or indifferent in another grown man’s interactions.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Dunno about the bank in question in Post #1, but my bank won't allow drawing on deposited funds for 7 days. Electronic transfers from government/pension entities excepted.
 
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