We were almost victims of a brand new scam that I have not heard about
before. It is a unique twist on an old theme.


Here is what happened:


We had a small sailboat advertised for sale on our web site and in a
magazine. We received an e-mail ostensibly from somebody in Belgium who
wanted to buy it. The price was $1,200. (Sounds familiar so far, right?
Well, read on.)


So he tells us that he is going to wire transfer the $1,200 directly to our
bank account and have his shipping agent pick up the boat. (The difference
here is that in the older scams they were going to send a cashier's check
for more than the amount, and you send the balance to somebody else. BUT in
this case it was supposedly a wire transfer, that is supposed to be as good
as cash once it gets into your bank account. AND, it was supposed to be for
the exact amount of the purchase.)


He tells us that he will get the money wired sometime next week and will
let us know when the money is in our account.


On September 15 he e-mails us and tells us that the money is in our account.


We check our account, and sure enough, the money is there. The problem is
that he sent $12,000 instead of $1,200. So we e-mail him and tell him about
this overage. He e-mails back thanking us profusely for our honesty in
bringing this to his attention. But it is going to cause him and his
associate financial hardship, so can we please wire back the overage of
$10,800 as soon as possible.


Meanwhile, we are obviously extremely suspicious about the whole thing, so
we contact various agencies, and also
talk at length with the security person at our bank. She assures us that
the $12,000 is indeed in our account, and that it is as good as cash.
Because we told her that it was a wire transfer, she is assuming, too, that
it was a wire transfer.


Well, when she investigates further, she finds that it was actually a check
that was deposited into our account on September 14, the day before the
"buyer" e-mailed to tell us the money was there. So, obviously, either the
buyer himself or a cohort went into the bank personally to deposit the
check. Mail would not have worked, because the timing was very critical. So
somebody physically went into our bank to make the deposit.


The check was supposedly from Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and was
supposedly being deposited into our account to pay a claim. There was no
claim, and the check itself is fraudulent. We don't even know if there is
such an insurance company.


Two things are very clever about this scam:
One is that the "buyer" convinced us that he was sending a wire transfer.
And then he called us and told us it was there. And so we call the bank and
tell them there was a wire transfer to our account and ask if it is there.
The bank confirms that it is, but it is for this much higher amount than we
expected. Because of the fact that we tell the bank it was a wire transfer,
they go on that assumption. We were just fortunate that the security person
at our bank followed up on this and found out that it was not a wire
transfer at all, it was a check.


The other clever thing is that instead of telling us up front that he is
sending more money and wants us to send part of somewhere else, he
pretended that it was an honest error and whoever sent the bank transfer
inadvertently added a zero to the amount. So you as the seller think, "Oh,
no, I have this guy's money, and we have to give it back to him."


This, as I said, is a completely new twist to an old scam, and we have
never heard of this one before.


We think that probably the reason for the "buyer" telling us that
the money will be wired in about a week, and that he will tell us when it
is there, is so that his cohorts can travel around the country and get to
the specific banks where they need to personally deliver the bogus checks,
so the "buyer" can contact you the very next day to let you know it is there.


Our bank has the bad check. And I would think that they must have
surveillance camera video that might be able to spot the person who
presented that check to the bank. And maybe one of the tellers would
remember it, since it was a large amount of money and the deposit had to
have been made on Monday or Tuesday of this week.


And, by the way, since our e-mail telling
the buyer about his error in sending us too much money, and his answer back
asking us to send him the overage and that he will let us know where to send the money. We have not e-mailed him again as the ball is in his court.

Rick