Internet sale? Cheque it out
By Spectator-Observer Partnership | 3 Mar 2005 @ 12:00 AM
Originally written by Spectator-Observer Partnership
An internet sale that could have gone horribly wrong has seen a Hamilton man end up with the car he was trying to sell … and (temporarily) the money as well.
Steve Gregory found his left-hand drive black 1981 Datsun 280Z in the central Australian town of Coober Pedy, where it had been sitting in a shed for 17 years. It was originally owned by a US serviceman. Steve bought it and brought it back to Hamilton where he did it up. But after a time, found it wasn’t practical for his use, so decided to advertise it for sale on the internet.
His internet advertisement got a bite.
Not only that, but the person buying the car sent Steve a bank cheque for $US9500 in the mail.
The cheque appeared genuine and was cashed at Steve’s bank for $12,000 Australian.
But a niggling suspicion that something wasn’t quite right intensified when the person buying the car then emailed him to containerise the car.
But it was going to take 30 days to clear the cheque and the cargo ship sailed in a week.
Steve had photocopied the cheque, so to confirm his suspicions, he sent the number and BSB code to FBI in the US. They confirmed it was a counterfeit.
“As soon as I realised it was counterfeit, I rang the Hamilton police and the bank,” Steve said. “I now have to go to the bank and sign the money back to them.
“It appears that these people send you a cheque and hope that before you cash it, you send them the goods – my car in this case,” he said.
“You end up without the car, without the money and with a worthless cheque.
“The original cheque was genuine stock – the name was genuine, the account and the teller signature were genuine and the magnetic coding was correct …
but the check was counterfeited many times. That meant the numbers were the same on every counterfeit cheque.
“The FBI I spoke to in America said it was the first time the cheque had appeared internationally, and being a bank cheque, that’s why it was cashed out.
Had I drawn the funds down would have had to pay them back even if I had shipped the car.
“That was my first – attempt at selling anything on the internet.”
Note to sellers: Not only do you have to worry about facing criminal charges for misrepresenting or fraud, but there’s also the very real possibility of having to answer to a civil lawsuit should you get caught.
And if you lose, as in the recent case of an Australian couple sued for selling a faked car, you may even have to refund the difference between a real and fake car to the unlucky buyer.
Australian couple ordered to repay $108,000 for selling fake Ford Falcon XW GT -
See more at:
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2012 ... lwoba.dpuf
I use PAYPAL and I think they have some clout to stop fraud, only time will tell.
