So I posted a spinning wheel for sale on the local Craigslist. The Wife never liked the single-treadle feel (one foot pedal to spin the wheel), so it wasn't getting used. It's a big ticket item, $1,000 or so -- we immediately got a bite from "Veronica Stone." After some wrangling we finally got a check through DHL. T. has worked at a bank, so we did a funds verification call on the check and it turns out that company no longer had an account at the bank.
Darnit. I was looking forward to moving this thing out of the house.
The "buyer" told me to take the excess money from the check and wire it to this lady (in Alabama) to pay for the shipping company to come and get the item and ship it for them. They sent a $4,000 check -- so, $2900 in shipping?
The scam would get me to deposit the check, wire the money before the check bounced, then the check would bounce and they'd evaporate with my money. Pretty simple procedure really. We're wondering if the fact that it was a spinning wheel made them assume we were old folks, good targets. I doubt it's that subtle tho.
Officer Gervis came by the house and created a case number for me, but I don't think I'll get to engage in any elaborate sting operation like I was hoping. I am still trying to milk the various contacts for more information, phone numbers, etc. If I can get some action from any of these people and start stringing them along I definitely will, nice summer evening entertainment.
If anything interesting happens, ya'll will be the first to know.
Enjoy your scam-free day,
Bp
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9 comments:
sad that this shit goes on.
They're not even being sly, you'd have to be quite gullible to be sucked in by this one.
Bummer that it wasn't a real sale tho, was looking forward to getting it out of the house. We have only so much room for crafty stuff as you well know.
yes i know.. i gotta talk to that wife of yours about our possible tuesday crafternoon...is she crazy busy with study right now?
She's ramping up for the test on Tuesday. So, yeah pretty one-pointed. She is very into having crafternoons again, and I believe Tuesday was the day that was looking up. Give her a ring, outside interest a plus :-)
this happens all the time with wedding photographers. People e-mail us saying they want to book us for an out of town ( like New York ) wedding but they live out of the country. theya re going to send us a check for gobs of money and they want us to wire it to someone who lives here in the states who will be our contact.
Good thing we pick up on it. just smells fishy so no one that I know of has actually moved forward on it. We usually just send them to each other as a heads up.
Yeah, why not the "client" just pay the people themselves right? Not very sophisticated.
hey :)
But there are a lot of gullible people in the world, it happens here too, not like that, but with other stuff, you always got to be on your toes these days, there is always someone trying to part you from your money (mostly the government :p)
HELLO I AM A NIGERIAN PRINCE. I CAN HAS LIFE SAVINGS?
Hey tran :-)
Bentley, LOL.
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