Offline Website Sale Scam

chakotha

This is banking related I think.

Does this sound right?

An aqcuaintance is an artist and has a website showcasing his work.

He recently received a contact from the website stating interest in a painting costing circa $2000. After a few exchanges relating to estimation of shipping charges the customer sent a cheque for $5000.

Apparently after realising the mistake the customer sent a panicked email requsting that the remaining $3000 be sent back to him by Western Union.

As soon (~6 days) as the cheque cleared and the funds were deposited in his account my aqcuaintance did just that.

The customer then sent another email requesting to cancel the transaction for now citing personal circumstances for needing the money back.

So my aqcuaintance sent the other $2000 back, again by Western Union (I know).

This was last week. Now my aqcuaintance's bank have turned around and said that the cheque BOUNCED and they have taken the funds back out of his account leaving him the equivalent of $5000 on the red.

Can they do this? Surely if the cheque hadn't cleared they shouldn't have put the funds into his account. For all he knew it this a genuine cheque and the money was good and in the bank.

Now he has to take the hit for it. Can the bank do this? I know he should have smelt a large rat but is there anything further that may be done?

BuffyBot

He's fallen for quite a common scam unfortunately.

Yes they can take back the funds if the cheque has been cancelled by the issuing bank.

watna

Yeah, sorry to say it but that's a very common scam. They target photographers etc and overpay them, then ask them to send the money back or to somebody else to cover some other costs. Then the cheque bounces and the scammer gets all the money. If the money has been received and already cashed/lodged by the scammer, as far as i know, there isn't much your friend can do to get the money back. These people really are the lowest of the low.

Ideo

I don't mean to sound condescending but come on, how could your friend fall for this given all of the press recently about these types of scams?

chakotha

I don't mean to sound condescending but come on, how could your friend fall for this given all of the press recently about these types of scams?

I know - he had seen the Nigerian "Come and collect $20,000,000" type scams but that was about it.

Once the cheque was lodged to his account he thought it was kosher.

I was surprised the funds were credited to his account before they were extracted from the issuer.

Or maybe they were taken and the customer was still able to cancel and have the money retrieved?

TheDriver

there was someone on here few months back that had the EXACT same scam happen to them. brings up the whole issue of a cleared cheque not being cleared.

kaiser sauze

Once a cheque is presented to an account it appears in your balance for the amount on it.

However, if you read the print on your statement, any bank emphasises that cheques, and other transactions, may be reversed from your account if there is a problem without any notice to you.

Even if you withdrew the amount of the cheque, you would still be stung when it gets reversed and it possibly puts you into an unauthorised overdraft situation. Not good.

meglome

I run a business and I’d be absolutely ****ing amazed if someone sent me 5k instead of 2. You'd have to assume some sort of scam. I think the most extra anyone's ever paid us is about 20 Euro. And that's aside from the fact that you read about these kind of scams all the time.

martin84

That scam is doing the rounds on a lot of the property sites aswell. I had a room up for rent and "Gillian" sent me a bank draft (designed with MS paint) for €3000.
Few days later a Nigerian guy rings me up and puts on the worst female voice ever demanding I send "her" over the money