what are the classic scams?

[suprra_girl]

i have someone on another forum that is convinced that the 800hp mk4 supra for a buy now of $6400 is legit
he believes this mainly because the seller said he would use a middle company that holds the money till you say ur happy with it... (are they called escrow companies?)

now i know this is a scam... anyone else know of classic scams.. how they work etc?
and how does the escrow part of it work? is the company in on the scam too?
help me clear this up

Thanks

 

[SupraMario]

its a scam, first before you even would think of buying it ask for a pic of say the VIN number, then ask were he/she is from. when they tell you where they are located, ask if you could stop by and look at the car, even if you dont live anywhere near that state. if its a scam, there will be some excuse for both reasons above.

 

[Satan]

Alot of the "escrow" sites are dummy sites that they (scammers) create... for you to send your money. Western Union is also another method they use to burn you.

If you ever want to pursue any of that nonsense, choose your own VERIFIED-LEGIT escrow service. And... just to add the obvious; If the transaction involves ANYTHING overseas, it's a scam. If the seller, the car, the escrow service, or any component is somewhere overseas... don't even consider the deal.

 

[JerzeySlowpra]

there salvage cars, the guy had a royal saphire blue limited edition mk4 before and tried selling it for 7500 and he also had a forest green one that was beautiful for 6000 before... but anyway the royal saphire blue one was in a major acident and wasnt an origanal "royal saphire blue" supra, it was oriangaly red and i believe N/A, and tried using the same exact escrow holding group, and on top of all of that he said that alls i had to do was send half the money for holding and he'd ship the car to me for a week to test it out and crap and for some reason he told me he was never in the states, guy was a shit head

 

[GrimJack]

Suze, this is called a phishing scam. They aren't really interested in selling you a car, or even getting the money from you for the car - they want enough of your personal information that they can drain your entire bank account. To this end they will build a very professional looking 'escrow service' web page that stores your bank info in their database, then they will throw random characters at your online banking password until they get in. When they do, all your money will vanish overseas.

The other common scam is the "I'll pay you too much" scam. If you have something up for sale for say, $7500, they'll say that they'll send you a certified cheque for $9000 as long as you send them the difference. You are allowed to wait for their cheque to clear, so it will all look genuine, however, they are taking advantage of a law (in the USA, anyhow) that states the bank has to give you the money from a deposit within 2 weeks, whether the cheque is actually finished clearing or not. So, you send a refund, and two weeks later, the original certified cheque will turn out to be fake, so the bank will backcharge you for the entire amount. If you are unlucky at this point, you will have sent $7500 worth of goods plus a $1500 refund cheque and gotten nothing in return.

Bottom line is, if a deal seems to good to be true, it probably is. In cases like this, I'd suggest you ALWAYS pick up the product in person, and make certain you've run the numbers through the local police to check if it's been stolen.