Scams

We all hate scams and the folks who try and rip us off for our hard earned dollars. It just seems that when you think you know all the tricks up pops a new way to trick people. Be alert, get educated and you will not get tricked.

I just found an excellent site to visit and it is made right here in Canada - Fraud Squad at http://www.fraudcast.ca/ This is a great place to find out about what is happening and how to protect yourself. The site has a link at the bottom of the page look for "Fraud Squad" and click on it to take a look.

So here are some tips to protect yourself...

1) Shop local - be a local trader - meet with people and try and deal face to face
2) Do not accept payment and refund the difference to the buyer(see fake checks)
3) Get to know who you are dealing with - phone numbers, address etc.
4) Do your homework! Check prices and know what your buying and or selling and to whom! How many people do you really think have other people shopping for old cars and tv's for them to ship half way around the world? (I am an agent for a ...)
5) Sometimes the best deal for you maybe to wait for the next offer.

The buyandsell.ca site is an open marketplace - I do not check every ad and do not get involved in any transactions - at anytime.

Copies a couple of sections from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_419_Scam#Fake_checks which are of interest. Now not all checks are fake and some puppies are real but you should be very aware of these tricks...

Fake checks

Fraudulent checks and money orders are key elements in many advance-fee scams, such as auction/classified listing overpayment, lottery scams, inheritance scams, etc, and can be used in almost any scam when a "payment" to the victim is required to gain, regain or further solidify the victims' trust and confidence in the validity of the scheme.

The use of checks in a scam hinges on a U.S. law (and common practice in other countries) concerning checks: when an account holder presents a cheque for deposit or to cash, the bank must (or in other countries, usually) make the funds available to the account holder within 1-5 business days, regardless of how long it actually takes for the cheque to clear and funds to be transferred from the issuing bank.[26] The cheque clearing process normally takes 7-10 days and can in fact take up to a month when dealing with foreign banks. The time between the funds appearing as available to the account holder and the cheque clearing is known as the "float", during which time the bank could technically be said to have floated a loan to the account holder to be covered with the funds from the bank clearing the cheque.

The cheque given to the victim is typically counterfeit but drawn on a real account with real funds in it. With a piece of software like QuickBooks and/or pre-printed blank cheque stock, using the correct banking information, the scammer can easily print a cheque that is absolutely genuine-looking, passes all counterfeit tests, and may even clear the paying account if the account information is accurate and the funds are available. However, whether it clears or not, it will eventually become apparent either to the bank or the account holder that the cheque is a forgery. This can be as little as three days after the funds are available if the bank supposedly covering the cheque discovers the cheque information is invalid, or it could take months for a business or individual to notice the fraudulent draft on their account. It has been suggested that in some cases the cheque is genuine - however the fraudster has a friend (or bribes an official) at the paying bank to claim it is a fake weeks or even months later when the physical cheque arrives back at the paying bank.

Regardless of the amount of time involved, once the cashing bank is alerted that the cheque is fraudulent, the transaction is reversed and the money removed from the victim's account. In many cases, this puts victims in debt to their banks as the victim has usually sent a large portion of the cheque by some non-reversible 'wire transfer' means (typically Western Union) to the scammer and, since more uncollected funds have been sent than funds otherwise present in the victim's account, an overdraft results.

Wire transfer

A central element of advance-fee fraud is that the transaction from the victim to the scammer must be untraceable and irreversible. Otherwise, the victim, once they become aware of the scam, can successfully retrieve their money and/or alert officials who can track the accounts used by the scammer.

Wire transfers via Western Union are ideal for this purpose. The wire transfer, if sent internationally, cannot be cancelled or reversed, and the person receiving the money cannot be tracked. In fact, that person often does not have to provide identification; they only have to know the identifiers of the transaction such as the control number and secret question. Thus, the overwhelming majority of scams involve making payment via wire transfer. Other similar uncancellable forms of payment include postal money orders and cashier's cheques, but as wire transfer is the fastest method, it is the most common. In many cases Western Union will not take any action against potential fraud and will not advise the police that a fraud has been committed or assist with out a court order. They claim there is no action they can take, and will not attempt anything to resolve this issue, including contacting the authorities in the country the money was sent to.

Puppy scams

Another such scam is based on the adoption of a puppy (usually English Bulldogs or Yorkshire Terriers; a cute, expensive breed coveted by families who cannot afford them) or an exotic pet. A scammer first posts an advertisement or sets up a web page offering puppies for adoption or for sale at a ridiculously low price, most often using stolen pictures from other websites and respectable breeders. When a victim responds to the ad and questions the lowered price or the reason for giving up such an adorable and expensive pet, the scammer first explains that they have recently moved to Nigeria or Cameroon from the US for work (usually volunteer work as missionaries) or for studies, and claims either to have no time to properly care for the pet, that the weather has had such a terrible toll on the pet or that they have too many pets to care for.

The scammer and victim will exchange a few emails to build trust. Once it is established that the victim offers the right home for the pet, the scammer will then offer to ship the pet and requests that the victim only pay for shipping. The victim, who now has an emotional attachment to the pet, feels obligated and even happy to do so, as shipping is a small price to pay compared to the pet's full price at a shop or breeder. The scammer requests Western Union to keep the deal going in a timely fashion as the pet is ready to go to a new home and the victim is now excited. However, after wiring money, the victim will not receive the pet (as the pets don't exist), and if the victim does hear from the scammer again it is only for more money (to get puppy out of airport holding, or to pay unexpected vet bills that have come up) until the victim stops responding.