Just in case you haven’t heard of the cashier’s check – shipper scam here is how it works.
You place an item to sell online such as a RV. A potential “buyer” contacts you via text, email, or other method you have the buyers contact you. Wants to buy it at your listed price and will send a cashier’s check for the full price plus and extra amount (such as $5,000) to pay the shippers that will pick up the RV. Once the check “clears” you are to send the extra $5,000 to the shippers so they can “get started” right away. You check and see that the deposited check is added to your account balance the next business day, making you believe the cashier’s check had “cleared”, so you send the $5,000 to the “shipper” as requested. About 2 – 3 days latter your bank notifies you that the check was returned and deducts the whole amount from your account. You will also find that the $5,000 you sent can’t be returned and no one has ever heard of the shipper you sent money to. You have been scammed for $5,000.
This scam is based upon a bank’s policy to make cashier’s checks amounts available the next business day making unaware customers think the check has cleared. The amount of the check being available does NOT mean the check has cleared. Even cashier’s checks take 3 – 5 business days before the check has cleared and funds transferred from one bank to another. The scammer will press very hard for the shipper’s money to be sent right away so you will send it before you find out the check was a fake (3D printers are making some good embossed fakes).
Two key give aways that this is a scam:
1) Doesn’t make sense to send the seller “extra” money to pay the shipper when the buyer could send the money directly to the shipper.
2) The biggest indication of a scam is that the action required by you must be done right away (before you find out it is a scam). Real business transactions do not require haste.
HTH, Dana:))
