I have ordered my Acura Tl about a month ago now and in the same time, I am trying to sell my old car on the internet. I have had in one month 3 scams on it, I get excited about someone being interested in it and then the scam. "Can we send you a check for over the amount of the car and then you wire the rest back to us", I am sure you all have heard of this. But what gets me is not that this has happened to me once but 3 times already. At my bank someone actually fell for it and the bank got took for 5,000, ouch.

 

That's bizarre. One piece of advice: don't keep your hopes up about selling it through places like cars.com or autoweb.com or E-bay Motors. Chances of selling a car through those is close to zero and the hassle is tremendous, as you've already started to find out.

 

I don't know if they are more reputable, but you might try autotrader.com or just put it in your local newspaper. You could also drive around with "for sale" signs in it. That got me a couple calls once before.

 

What's the scam here? Do they steal from your bank account when you wire the money? Why not just send them back a check for the amount over? And of course don't do anything until the check clears...

 

The scam, I guess what I understand from my bank is that they sand you a Cashiers check and then tell you to wire a certain amount back as soon as you get your check. Well the check is a fake so when you wire your money, wired money is as good as cash. And then you have no money from their check and plus you are out of the money you wired them. My bank tells me that they are responsible for that wired money not the people.

 

Tell them that if they wire you a certain amount you can send them a cashier's check for whatever amount they're looking for in "change"... reverse it on them

 

I sold my car on cars.com within a week. I received quite a few calls

 

That happened to me at least four times when I sold my old car. Here's what I did: I wrote back to them, said I was extremely interested, and asked them to call me at the number I provided.

It was the number for the local office of the FBI.

 

I sold my car through autotrader.com, but did get a number of those scam calls. Listing in the Washington Post three times got me nowhere. I think, with all the cheap financing and other incentives around, the market for used cars is very slow, especially in an affluent area and if your car is a stick. But if you really want to get reamed go to CarMin, where I was offered $2800 for a car that I sold, on my own a couple weeks later, for $8000.

 

I just had the same thing happen to me. I ended up taking the car off of Autotrader.com and trading it in.

 

Trading it in is my next option. But I rather sell it, lets hope.

 

Did you try Carmax? I'd at least go get a quote. For my old car (a 2000 Monte Carlo) blue book was $6200, dealer offered me $5750 on trade and I ended up selling it to Carmax for $7500.

 

Holy crap!!! :wow:

Same thing JUST happened to me! :wow:

Thank god I wasn't dumb enough to wire money to the punk before the check cleared. The cashier's check, of course, bounced and the bank charged me a $5.00 fee for that!!! Bastards!!!

 

Guess your not familiar with it...They don't send you a check. They "Wire" the money to you. They then try to have you "wire" the difference back to them (quickly- within a day or two). Then a few days later, your bank informs you that their initial wire to you was "invalid" and that no money actually went into your account. Of course, the money YOU wired to them went just fine and there is ZERO possibility of getting your wire $'s back. Your SOL. VERY, VERY old scam that's been around for nearly 3 years now.

 

I talked to my bank and they said that a wire is actually the best way, because once you are wired the money, the money is there and there is no returning it. That is why they send you a cashiers check wich is a fake and then they want you to wire the money becuase once you wire the money your money isn't coming back. A wire is as good as cash.

 

The whole concept is retarded anyway. Why would someone want to send you *more* than they're supposed to, and who would believe that is legitimate?

A fool and his money...

 

Well, they tell you that they are buying a car for a business and they are the ones that find the car and transport it to the buyer, so they tell you that the buyer just wants to send one check for the whole deal, the transportation cost, their fees and the cost of the car. So it sound legitimate on a person that isn't expecting it. I hope with this tread we help other people not fall into this scam.

 

Send them a "bad" check back...hahaha!!!

 

Anyone that falls for something like that needs to have their wife hold their wallet

 

I've heard that some of the "better" fake checks actually take WEEKS to bounce. Your money is long gone, yet you're still responsible for the bad check. In this day of computerized everything, it seems like checks could be instantly cleared anywhere in the world, with the banks taking the risk (as the system should be essentially risk free).

 

Exactly. I can't believe people actually fall for these

 

Guys - Your missing my point. THEY CAN DO THIS WITH WIRES AS WELL AS CHECKS. No Shi... The wires can be bad and your bank won't catch it until a couple of days later. Wires are NOT as secure as some think.