Con Men?

[Horse]

I have recently put my boat up for sale on the web. Two responses have been interesting. One was from a gentleman who purported to be Irish and living in West Africa, and who's English was desperately poor. He wanted to send an engineer to look at my boat and offered to send me £10k to cover expenses (and presumably the engineers costs). The other was a Frenchman calling from London. He said he represented an Italian gentleman who owned a factory in Italy which had gone into liquidation. He was happy to buy the boat unseen but wanted to pay part of the price is cash (Euros). When I asked him to put his intentions in an E mail he declined, but said he would send me a letter. This I still await. Both these responses arrived within days of the ad being posted. I do not intend to pursue either inquiry, but wondered if others had received similar approaches?

 

[kimhollamby]

Unfortunately they are becoming very common - as with all such things you would do well to exercise extreme caution.

Sadly I expect these fairly implausible offers will perhaps make some the more plausible scams seem less scary.

Perhaps not just a case any more of caveat emptor but also caveat vendor?

 

[itsonlymoney]

This kind of scam appears to be becoming more frequent. I have not experienced it through selling but I have had via faxes to my office South African Gentlemen attempting to send me large amounts of money.
Ian

 

[tripleace]

Yes we have had an offer from a swiss guy offering swiss franc in cash. wanted us to wash money for him...

apparently expensive cars and boats are target for this sort of thing.

beware : money laundering has a prison sentence attached to those that get caught.

 

[duncan]

even quite cheap cars too - son had 'offer' on a car put up on eBay almost instantly.......

 

[brianrunyard]

I advertised an old Montego diesel engine for £200. Had an enquiry from a chap in Africa, wanting to buy it sight unseen for £800. He'd arrange for someone to collect and would I give him the £600 to cover shipping. Needless to say I did't follow that one up.
Apparently the original cheque eventually bounces, and you've lost the goods and paid good money for the priveledge.

 

[derekh]

An Irish man in South Africa whose English was poor ?
I believe several Irish men are trying to unload approx 20,000,000.00.
If someone offers me 20million for my olde sunseeker I may be tempted !!!
Ha Ha.

If you are at the boat show and see an Irish man with a suitcase of money trying to buy a manhatten I would be suspicious.

I however will put mine on the drip. Thats how much per month ?

 

[Horse]

Thank you for confirming that my suspicions were well founded. Have had another approach since, this one from the UAE, and acting on behalf of a client. The key feature of all three is that there is no attempt to viwe nor to haggle over the price asked.

 

[graham]

I watched a programme on TV re this type of scam.

Apparently the way it works is that about 3 days after you pay the cheque into your account it is "provisionally"cleared and the funds are added to your balance.

You check your bank balance and are happy to hand over cash/goods to the "agent".

About 10 days later the bank discovers the cheque is a very clever dud ,they then are entitled to take the money back from you.

You would think twice about complaining to the police as YOU would have commited an offence in assisting a money launderer.

I think that the police are interested in details you can supply them with.