Scam in Classified

Hi,

I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right forum. I've trying to sell my Hans Hoyer Single Bb in the classified ads section. I have received several emails from people with fake names about how they want to buy my horn, but don't have the time to try it, and they would be sending me a cashier's check for the asking price plus shipping. The scheme goes like this: they would then send you a check for more money than agreed on ($1000+), would ask you to cash it anyways and send back the difference in some ways. The check would clear at first, but later would be cancelled, and you the seller would be left with losing that money that you returned to the fake buyer. Now this seems like a scam that only a fool would fall for, but the first email chain I received had excellent English, and was very well designed. You often feel you have the upper hand because you have somebody's cashier's check in your hand, you have nothing to lose, and you would think that banks verify whether the check is good but actually they don't! I stopped the "process" at a crucial point, so didn't suffer any loss. Since I escaped from the last trap, I received several more emails of the same kind, this time they were more clumsy and transparent. But I wanted to share my story, please be careful when buying/selling from strangers!

Best regards,
Peter Mucsi

Thank you, Peter, this post brings up several good points.

1. NEVER do business with someone asking you to return a planned overpayment - this is always a scam.
2. ALWAYS wait for any check to clear the bank and credit your account before sending anything to a buyer. Allow at least a week.
3. If the buyer pays by PayPal and you get an email that appears to be from PayPal crediting your account, ALWAYS log in to your account to double check that the email is genuine before sending anything.