purchaser scams
 

OK -Here's the scenario -you list a car for sale, immediately someone contacts you wanting to purchase it for the asking price, no PPI, no additional pics. Says he will wire the money. So, obviously too good to be true. But what is the scam? What happens when I say sure, wire me the money and when my bank says the money is there you can have your shipper come get the car?

If it's a scam... it is probably to get your acct or routing numbers. Likely the fellow is just excited to purchase the vehicle. Tell him he's got dibs until you can sort out a more reasonable form of payment. Reminds me of the "Rich prince from x country, just need you to take some $$ of money off his hands."

Wih the 911 market it might not be.
But, if it says something like I'll send funds via Paypal. Buying for father or family member. Work in oil rig off shore and cannot see in person. Will send rep to pickup. It's a scam.

I went through some of this when I sold my 240Z to a gentleman in Norway. Researched the wire transfer bit, my bank assured me that the routing info that I would give to the buyer could not be used to withdraw funds, only to deposit. And despite the claims from a few people, most people (including my bank) said there is no possible way for wired funds to be "recalled" or reversed. Once they are in your bank, they are yours.

Not saying that this is not a scam, but that using wire transfers is not part of the scam.

Worried about routing and account numbers? Just open a new account just for that purpose and then xfer the funds out right away after it clears.

I just did that last week. Sold a 911 to a guy in Slovakia. Opened a savings account. money wired to the new account, cleared 4 days later. Transferred to a different account. Not reversible like PayPal funds. Made me nervous too at first. A lot better than taking a cashiers check or PayPal like I did on the last two international transactions. Only pain is dealing with the shipper.

I had this happen last summer. The same day I posted my SC for a price I didn't expect to get someone from Amsterdam offered me full asking. I ignored it as a scam but he was persistent. In the end he was for real. He wired me the full amount and arranged the shipping. Be cautious but don't assume it's bogus.

I work for a financial. Wires can be reversed, but generally only within a few hours. I recommend a temporary savings account for the funds to go into then move the money to your regular account. It's tough to wire money out of someone else's account, but not impossible. It's quite easy to ACH money out unfortunately. There is more recourse with ACH, but the thieves are getting pretty good at disappearing.

So many scammers. Whether looking to buy or sell. The classics mentioned above. few posts on this forum, asking for personal information etc. scam. This is big time evident when you post want to buy.
Stay cautious my friends

Even "verified funds" can be reversed AFAIK.
Sometimes weeks later.

When the funds originate from a PayPal account opened with a stolen credit card:
Between you and the bank, guess who loses?

I have a account for wire transfers, and I keep $5-20 in it to just keep it open. Then I get the money wired to that account, take it out and transfer to different acct. Have done it more than a dozen times with car and truck sales. Once the money is out of that acct. its yours!

When I put my RX-8 up for sale, I had three people text me within minutes offering to pay me full asking price through PayPal. I told them that my e-mail address for the PayPal account was: onlinescams@fbi.gov.

Is there an automatic 4 day hold on the transfer of funds/availablity of cash when doing a wire transfer? Just make sure the "buyer" doesn't come to pick up the car before you have his money transferred to a different account or $100 bills in your hand.....You could lose his money, and your car !

^^^^ THIS^^^^^^ Do not make the assumption the bank will absorb any risk on your behalf. I don't care what they say in person, if the funding source is discovered to be false or have "zero" balance guess what the next step is? They immediately debit your account for that amount.

There was a factual story recently about this very subject where some person with a supposed verified account and routing number wires (from off shore) a substantial amount for a car / motorcycle. Seller sees $$$ arrived in his account, releases vehicle and title an shipper picks it up. Then something like 2-3 weeks later bank calls seller and says the account where the funding came form appeared to be legit but was not.

Now bank tells seller account is debited for entire amount need to work out how to address that. Vehicle is gone, with the title and seller is effed.....................don't think that won't happen. Last wire transfer I received was from Italy for a bike I sold on Ebay. In the ad I stated wire transfers only for balance and I would hold it for 7 business days before releasing the bike to shipper. In most cases when shipping overseas there is some delay when the deal is complete and when the shipper arrives to pick it up.

At my bank, once the funds have been wired -- they're available.

When I sold my 914-6 vintage race car the buyer asked if he could pay by US Postal money orders. I said yes and when I talked to him on the phone he said that Puerto Rico has limits on how much you can send out of the country each day? He said he could send 10x $1,000 money orders every other day so I checked with my neighbor who is a retired postal inspector and he said they do have rules like that. He said the bank will be able to verify the mo's with the PO when I take them in so all will be safe. That is what I did and after getting the full amount I set up the car in a trailer for shipping with his company from Florida. Other than several trips to the credit union it went well.

I did have a person from Bulgaria, two from Russia and one from Malaysia and all wanted to wire funds but I turned them down.

Sold my last 911 to someone in the UK. Opened an account at a bank just for that transaction. After the wire came in, I got a cashier's check and closed the account.

Just sold my 1983 911 SC for $19K cash today. Do not ever do a wire transfer. Do not give your account numbers per my banker. If a foreigner is wanting to "wire" you funds it is a scam.

Congrats on your sale, but the rest of your post is way off base (having sold plenty of cars via international wire transfer, like many other here). As has been offered here freely several times, if giving out account numbers gives concern, open up a new account for the transaction, cash it out once the wire is final, and close the account.

LeeH: With some banks it's that easy.
Others will put a long hold on deposited funds.

My bank automatically places holds on my new deposits, despite many times the amount held in reserves for years and years.
It is a pain.

I don't believe that is necessarily a bad thing.
Thieves could potentially work both sides of a fraudulent transaction, and leave the bank holding the bill.
Again and again and again.

There was recently a huge international bank heist in the news: BBC News - Cyber bank robbers steal $1bn, says Kaspersky report

Absolutely correct. When people buy houses, they wire a heck of a lot more into a bank account, sure, usually done through escrow co.

This is a final post on this -DO NOT TRUST WIRE TRANSFERS. They can and will be reversed. Cash only. End of discussion. Thanks!

Having the exact thing going on now. What's the angle here?

I have account with no money into for this type of thing. Any thoughts on this ?

Funny when I bought and sold cars via wire transfer my credit union said it was the safest way to do business. They explained the routing numbers given between banks (If the are members of the same international banking organisation) do not contain your account numbers. All they contain is the originating banks number and the receiving banks account number. The sending bank by sending the money guarantee's that the money is there. Your bank deposits the money in your account. There is no way the money can be reversed unless it can be proven that you were part of defrauding the sending bank somehow.

I sold my SC to a fellow from Belgium. He paid a deposit into our PayPal account and then wired the rest to a bank account we rarely use. Once the transfer was confirmed by our bank, I took the CASH and put it into our regular credit union account.
Once this was done I informed him that the car was his and he could send the truck for pickup.

1 day later I got the call from the shipper and gave them the pertinent details for pickup. I signed the title as seller, took pics of it, gave it and the keys to the truck driver then drove it onto his trailer. Done deal!

The Guy is asking for a copy of the title.

emailed is there a hazard in that?:confused:

Well, if the person is trying to run a scam, having a real title to email someone else or post with their ad will make it seem more legit.

But, on the other hand a legitimate buyer who's worried about being scammed would want to see a copy of the title before buying.

Scammers suck, makes it tough on buyers and sellers.

A wire transfer is NOT reversible. I use this all the time for high dollar transactions on our brake kits from overseas customers, as we get many fraudulent transactions.

You give them your routing and account number ( often they also need a intl wire code) and they transfer funds. You cannot transfer funds OUT of an account with this info.

I have heard of one scam around this. With that information someone created a fraudulent check. Should that happen you would not be liable as account and routing information is not secure, given it is clearly printed on every check you ever wrote.

You could make a copy, redact a few numbers and write the date and recipient across it.
Have the car in the background photo.

If digital, change pic from .jpg to .bmp to .jpg which erases the original data (I think).

This should be enough to show you are legit.

Chris is right, wire transfers can't, short of a court order, be reversed once accepted by your bank. They can cancel the transfer but only if the accepting bank has not done their part, and the account holder would never be aware anything happened, no money would have shown up, etc. Once you see that money in the account, it's yours. You can transfer it to another account if it makes you feel better but not necessary.

When I helped a friend sell his 911, the buyer was out of country and wanted to wire the money. Of course I was skeptical, but after looking into it endlessly, its about as 100% safe as you can get, even more so than cash with all the forgery out there.

If you ask me, wiring money is WAY more risky for the buyer. Once it's sent, its gone.