With the birth of the internet, scammers are able to reach more individuals than ever before. And unfortunately, with the technology available to them, these scams are appearing more and more legitimate every day. This can be hard for business owners who are trying to make a living selling on eBay. The time, money, and effort wasted on scammers can cost you more than you would ever imagine. This is why it is imperative to stop scammers before they have a chance to con you, to keep both you and your home business protected.
One of the most popular scams online today with auction websites is the overpayment scam. Scammers will offer to buy your item for significantly more than your asking price, saying that they want the item now and don’t mind paying extra to get it. You, of course, agree, excited to make such a large profit off of an item that isn’t really worth that much. But, there’s a catch: the scammer wants to send you a personal check for more than what the selling price of the item is equal to. The instructions are that you cash the check, keep the appropriate amount of money for yourself, and then forward the remainder of the cash on to another individual, that the scammer supposedly owes money to. The scammer claims to trust you because he can tell you are a reputable seller. When you take the check to the bank to deposit it, the bank will clear the check in five days. You think that this means there are no problems, and withdrawal the specified amount of money, ship the item off to the scammer, and send the additional money on to the person the scammer asked you to forward it to. Then, you find out a few weeks later that the check is actually a forgery, and now you are out both the money and the original item.
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do in this situation to recoup your losses. The reason this scam works is because banks in the United States are required to make available the funds from any check within five business days. A foreign check can take up to a few weeks to actually process, which means there is some lag time in between when the money is available, and finding out the check is actually legitimate. Scammers depend on this rule to make the scam work. They receive the additional money that you sent on to their “associate,” who was either the scammer themselves, or someone working for the scammer. They also have the item, and you have no way of recovering it. The biggest problem in this situation is that you are not only out the money that was supposed to pay for the item, you are also required by law to pay back the bank for the amount of money you sent back to the scammer.
To protect yourself from this scam, never, ever accept a personal check from someone who wants to overpay you for the value of the item you are selling. This always means that the buyer is up to something. If they ask you to cash a check and wire additional money to someone else, do not fall for it. The only reason someone would ask you to do this would be if they were pulling this scam. A better idea would be to stick to PayPal, and refuse to accept personal checks. If someone tries to pull this scam on you, refer them to PayPal, and let them know they can sign up for free with their bank account if they would like to purchase your item.
