| Car buyer scam
I recently advertised my wife’s car for sale on the internet. In doing so I attracted the attention of some Nigerian Advance fee fraud 419 scammers.
I received emails from three men named “Williams Kenny”, “James Bluwie” and “Martins Mark”. All of them wanted to buy the car for export. In the case of Martins Mark, to Sweden.
They had other similarities in common, they were all illiterate and all wanted to pay by cashier’s cheque and all wanted to overpay. I was asking a very reasonable EUR 14,000 for the car for a quick sale but all of them wanted to send me a cheque for more. In the case of Martins Mark it was EUR 4,000 more, with the others 3,000.
A quick review of banking practices in the USA and Europe (as opposed to the EEU) showed why. In the USA a cashier’s cheque is as good as a banknote; in Europe it’s as good as toilet paper until it has been accepted by the issuing bank.
What the scammers wanted was simple, I should deposit the cheque in my account and then forward the balance, the difference between the face value and the car price, to the scammers “shipper”, or in the case of the vastly more novel Martins Mark, to a lawyer in Malmo, Sweden. Martins Mark even called me from Malmo (IDD code +46) and I could see from his number that he was actually calling from Nigeria (IDD code +234). His Swedish accent needs work too.
In America I could have deposited the cheques and a day later have had cash in my account. I would then have sent a Western Union money order (which really is as good as cash) and a little later I would have had the full value of the cheque withdrawn from my account when the bank realised that the cheque was a forgery.
The first cheque to arrive was from James Bluwie. It was a clumsy photocopy of a real cheque, what made it amusing was that the cheque itself had, in minute writing along the bottom, instructions on how to tell if it were genuine, i.e. it should have a metallic strip, watermarks and should shade gradually from light to dark left to right. It was plain grey and had no strips or watermarks. The next two were both in colour and way more convincing, though my bank has a fraud specialist and had no problem in identifying them as fakes.
I forwarded all documentation, including Martins Mark’s lawyer's name and address and Williams Kenny’s UK phone number (a mobile) to my bank, which takes a dim view of these things. They have forwarded the stuff to the CIA and some Luxembourg based anti-fraud agency.
So. Given that this scam cannot work in Switzerland why am I telling you this?
Several reasons. Mainly because it is a hassle, and it can happen whenever you advertise anything on the net. I have recently read about it being applied to pet dogs, horses, art works, a garden shed and, of course cars. Also, if you were curious enough to pay in the cheque you would probably be subject to something around CHF 150-200 in charges. My UBS branch told me that their charges would be CHF 40, but that if the cheque had been a UBS cheque they would have also charged me CHF 140 for processing the drawer side rejection. They assume any bank would charge the same.
My advice is obvious. If you are approached by someone who sounds too dumb to be true, and wants to pay over the odds for something you are selling, they are probably scammers and you should simply blow them off or ignore them.
If they sound convincing, google their name in quotes e.g. “williams kenny” with no capitals. If they are scammers the chances are that they have used the name before and you’ll get a hit. If they don’t it may be worth asking your bank to authenticate the cheque, but bear in mind that two of mine looked genuine at first, even to my bank manager, so you want an expert opinion.
The Saint always used to say that you can only con someone who is either greedy or stupid or both. Try to be neither.
 | 
Linear Mode
