[s-cars] Online fraud (car related, delete if you're not interested)

[Lee Levitt]

Um no. I'm not taking a check from an out of town buyer and then 
dealing with the repercussions of getting ripped off.

A key rule. Possession is 9/10s of the law. It's in my driveway, I 
control it. It's out of my driveway, it's gone. Maybe it will come 
back, maybe it won't. Maybe there will be sand in the tank and 
piss in the glove box. Or worse.

An out of town buyer can provide all sorts of ways to pay. But the 
bottom line for me is that the money must clear my account before 
the iron moves.

And when I bought a car long distance a year ago, I paid for it 
before I went to pick it up. A bit risky, but that's the way it 
goes. Next time I'd play it a bit differently, but that's how I 
did it.

Lee



On Mon Oct 16 14:12:12 PDT 2006, Brett Dikeman <brett at cloud9.net> 
wrote:

> 
> On Oct 16, 2006, at 4:29 PM, Joe Pizzimenti wrote:
> 
>> Probably not, back when I was selling my s-car, I got a bunch of 
>>  scam e-mails and phone calls from "Steve Anderson" from the  
>> midwest.  I knew it wasn't any relation to the Andersons, but a  
>> familiar name will sometimes do it.  He wanted to fly to NY, 
>> give  me the check and drive the car back.  Screw that, you can 
>> fly to  NY, give me the check, go sightseeing and I'll give you 
>> the keys  when the check clears.
>> 
>> Some people fall for it, I guess.
>> 
> 
> I know of half a dozen people who have bought cars in precisely 
> this  manner, though I think cashiers or bank-issued loan checks 
> were  involved.  Not sure; didn't really ask.
> 
> I recall reading about a guy who was convicted of drug 
> trafficking  because he had several tens of thousands of dollars 
> in cash on him  which was found during a traffic stop; he was 
> picking up some sort of  truck or farm equipment and paying in 
> cash, but that didn't matter;  they threw away the key and 
> pocketed the cash.  I can't see the  Department of Homeland 
> inSecurity looking cheerfully on an airline  passenger carrying 
> enough cash to buy a car...
> 
> They need to have plates and insurance to legally drive the car 
> home  (NEVER let someone use your plates, no matter the 
> distance!)  To  board the airplane, they needed photo ID which 
> will match their  boarding pass.  If it is a personal check, the 
> name and address  obviously should match ID, insurance, 
> registration, etc.  Write up a  bill of sale.  Etc etc.  That's 
> plenty to go after them with later if  the check bounces, and as 
> long as it's over $5k, you'll get plenty of  interest from law 
> enforcement.  If the check wasn't legit, I would  think that 
> would fall under theft or fraud, and both "vehicle" and  
> "crossing state lines" notches penalties up quite a bit up the 
> jail- and-$ scale, probably.  Has anyone personally experienced 
> or heard of  this kind of scam being pulled off?  Doesn't seem 
> worth the  considerable risk or effort.
> 
>    You can report the vehicle VIN and plate as stolen, which 
> would  make driving from NY to the midwest pretty hazardous. For 
> example,  state cops in several states are now using hand-held 
> cameras with  optical character recognition, and they're 
> connected to laptops  populated daily with federal stolen vehicle 
> registry data.   Reportedly, the Virginia state police were 
> getting a demo from the  company next to an interstate and a few 
> minutes in, the unit picked  up plates on a stolen u-haul truck.  
> Hell, even the hotels/motels are  tracking this stuff now.  A 
> hotel out in the midwest -demanded- photo  IDs from my father and 
> I, as well as the plate numbers of the truck  and trailer a few 
> years ago on the way out to Mid-Ohio.  A plaque on  the desk 
> politely explained this was because of "post september 11th  
> security concerns."  What a bunch of BS...
> 
> Brett
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