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No, I didn’t get scammed but my boss’s daughter has a roommate that was. Just something to be aware of and I think most of us are smarter than this, but like to put out the warning/advice anyway.
This young girl had an item for sale on Craigslist for $200. A woman contacted her that wanted to buy it and the girl told her to send a check. Well the woman made the check out for $2,000. The woman then emails the girl saying she made a mistake in making out the check for so much. She told her to write her a check for $1,800 and that would take care of everything. Well the young girl did what the woman wanted. Well guess what–that check was no good for any amount and this young gal just got milked out of $1,800!
The thing for this gal to do was to tell that woman she would send her check back and she could issue another one for the proper amount. But her being young, college age, thought she was doing the right thing and this woman just took advantage of her being so naive.
Just letting everyone know there are all sorts of scammers out there figuring out ways to separate you from your money.
unfortunately that’s the oldest trick out there.. a lot of times they will do that with fake money orders..
I had someone send me a money order for $4000 for a $300 ebay item, then told me to cash it and send them the remainder..
well there’s obvious ways to tell when checks or money orders are fake.. watermarks and such.. needless to say I sent them a message and told them I had reported their fake money order and scam to the local authorities.. and since fraud by check or money order that crosses state lines is a federal offense.. I reported it online to the FBI.. even though I wasn’t out anything it was annoying.. and they never contacted me again and their ebay account was removed..
Could she contact the cops and maybe get the woman on fraud? It sounds like she has the woman’s real name. Or possibly the bank could help. That is an expensive lesson for the poor kid. Some people are just scum.
Poor girl. I don’t suppose she took a photocopy of that check before sending it back.
Such scum out there… 👿
From what I gathered from my boss, the girl wrote a check for $1,800 to the woman and she was to cash that check for $2,000 but of course, it wasn’t any good. I was just saying that the girl should have just sent that check back to the woman and tell her to write another one for the proper amount–that’s not what she did. I’ll ask my boss what she did if she reported it to anyone. Then the woman could have used a faked name and probably has stolen ID to open an account.
It’s sad that people fall prey to these POSs! My boss’s daughter is in college out of town and I’m sure the money her roommate lost was money sent to her by her parents for her various living expenses. Yes, a very unfortunate and expensive lesson she learned. 👿
I have heard that before, I guess it happens more than we all know, thats why I am always really careful when I find something on Craigslist especially if its not in my area…the person on the other end has to HAVE Paypal or I either pass it up or not go ahead with the transaction.
Marzena
II have never bought anything on Craigslist because you hear so many times about scams and dishonesty on it. That is a shame what happened to that young girl
I’m sorry to hear about that. Sadly this is one of the oldest scams there are when it comes to buying/selling online. It used to happen on eBay too before eBay made it so you are not supposed to accept personal checks anymore.
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My art: featherdust.comI dunno, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for someone who fell for such an obvious and especially threadbare scam. The least she could have done was try to cash the check before writing her own for $1800!
You may flame me now… 😳Greater Basilisk wrote:I dunno, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for someone who fell for such an obvious and especially threadbare scam. The least she could have done was try to cash the check before writing her own for $1800!
You may flame me now… 😳If I was going to write a refund check I’d either cash it or deposit it first myself. I wouldn’t go on “blind faith” and I wouldn’t have done it when I was in college either.
Urg, its so sad that we have to be so suspiciuous of everyone and everything thse days but if you aren’t you get scammed.
Even if she went to her bank and tried to cash the check most likely she would be able to. Banks will cash them for you and *then* process them so you don’t find out till a week or more later that the check was actually bad and you are responsible for the money.
There is a great website that has tunred the tables and is ‘scamming the scammers’: http://www.419eater.com/
I love scamming the scammers site! I’ll show it to my boss and he can send it to his daughter to give to her roommate. Unfortunately, I find it all too common for young people, especially those whose parents have lots of money, fall victim to scams. Guess not used to thinking on their own! They seem to be so trusting–after all mommy and daddy will send more money if there’s a problem. I was amazed at the amount of money this girl had in her checking accounting. At that age if I had $500 in my checking accounting, I thought I was rich!
I figured most of us are smarter than this, but just to post as a warning that the old games still work for these people and are still out there!
Crimson Vision wrote:Even if she went to her bank and tried to cash the check most likely she would be able to. Banks will cash them for you and *then* process them so you don’t find out till a week or more later that the check was actually bad and you are responsible for the money.
Oh, really? Checks aren’t used here in Europe so I don’t know much about how the system works.
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