Car space owners.
Beware of Germans bearing dodgy cheques.
Conor writes:
I just wanted to share an attempted (and quite convincing) scam that was tried on me. I placed an ad on DoneDeal a couple of weeks ago advertising a parking place.
A gentleman from Germany contacted me about it and wanted to rent it up front for two years as his business was relocating him to Dublin and the business was able to pay for it up front.
He sent me a cheque and I lodged it to my account. At this point he told me he wanted it only for one year and was looking for a refund of half the value and to pay it to his account.
It’s quite a sneaky scam because on lodging the cheque the money appeared in my account and was accessible to me immediately. The kicker is as it’s a foreign cheque it can take up to 10 days or even longer to clear.
Needless to say I wasn’t willing to send him any money till the cheque cleared. I haven’t heard from him since telling him this!
I was fortunate not to fall for the scam but others I’m afraid will be not so lucky. Is there any chance you could put a warning on your site about this?
And if anyone is looking to rent a car park space in city centre I have one available ;) The email address he was using is now shutdown.
GotterdamminFIGHT!
You must be the only person that hasn’t heard of Advance Fee Fraud – https://www.google.ie/search?q=anvance+fee+fraud&oq=anvance+fee+fraud&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3047j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#safe=strict&q=advance+fee+fraud
I’ll send you a cheque if you tell me how it works.
But its not the same right? He didn’t send any money up front.
Sending money would defeat the purpose. The scammer sends a cheque for more than the asking. Before the cheque clears they ask for some of it back. The cheque never clears so any money sent to them is lost.
People still fall for this?
Careful of those Nigerian Princes, they’re not Kosher either…..
People fall for lots of things because lots of people aren’t dealing online all the time.
My mam’s trying to sell her car. Meself and the brother fired an advert up on Donedeal having never done this before. Sure enough after two days an enquiry comes in, asking very few questions but wanting a very quick sale, money to go via Paypal.
We weren’t too enamoured with the idea, and yer man wanted to seal the deal within 48 hours. It was THAT more than the paypal thing that set alarm bells ringing, so obviously we go and google ‘paypal’ and ‘car’ and sure enough the browser is hopping with stories about the scam.
My point is…whatever about Nigerian Princes – we all used to get those emails unsolicited so you were on awares of them, or you would be now. They were regular. People don’t sell cars (well a lot of us don’t) every day of the week.
Anway, all’s well and so forth. I’m not condoning stupidity; we stopped, gathered our thoughts and said ‘hang on’…and hopefully others would too, but i can see how if you were desparate for a quick sale…
In other news, it’s a lovely 2010 A3 5 door, used only to drive to golf and bridge… :)
“Meself and the brother fired an advert up on Donedeal having never done this before”
Only took two of you?
“used only to drive to golf and bridge… :)”
Yeah in second gear all the time.
nobody entirely to blame for a fupp-up! :)
2nd gear? Ah now, that’s unfair. And untrue.
That’s not Advance Fee Fraud
It’s Cheque Overpayment Fraud
http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/node/203
Oops… I should have read the link I posted;
‘When an individual rather than a business is the victim of such a fraud, it is known as advance fee fraud.’
Mmmmm, I beg your pardon.
We all make mistakes.
“A gentleman from Germany contacted me…”
– I hate to be the one to break this to you, but he may not really be German.