Listed a keyboard for sale for $250 and immediately got a response by this individual. He asked, via email, it to be taken off the listing and he would pay an extra $20 to keep it in his favor. He then wrote to find out where to send payment followed by another email saying that he accidentally overpaid. He asked if he could trust me to send the remaining balance back to him so that he could pay some pressing bills as soon as possible.
After this, I was provided with his Western Union transfer information and he asked me to provide him with the transfer control number and the total amount sent after charges. When I recieved the envelope, I was suprised to see two money orders for $850 each... I thought this guy was totally whacked but it turns out I was the crazy one because I believed this guy was for real!
When I took it to the bank to cash, it was by chance that in passing I explained the situation (I had never done a wire transfer before and something was still searching for guidance on what was the right thing to do). My bank was amazing, she immediately saw the red flags, looked at the money orders and deemed them as probably fraudulent. She cautioned me to not send this person money because it would cause me to end up liable if the money orders didn't clear.
Further, she did some quick research and found the routing numbers didn't match the Chase Bank's routing number which is one of the listed banks on the orders. Upon calling them, she was able to verify that the money orders' numbers were, indeed, invalid. Finally, she googled his name for me and found the first report on ukconsumercomplaints.coms to justify that this man was indeed a fraud. She handed me the money orders but we didn't know any authorities to contact.
I'm so relieved that I had someone looking out for me! I hope no one else gets sucked into this one!
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