If you want to buy sell or rent something, the internet is the first place many people go.
Unfortunately you don’t always know who you’re dealing with or where they really are.
That’s the basis behind a scam which is fooling a lot of people right now.
Graeme Ford is trying to sell a fitness gym on buysell.com.
A businessman emailed him with an offer but said he was on the road travelling and couldn’t pay cash in person.
He sent Graeme a money order for $2500 and a letter with pickup instructions.
“Basically what he wanted me to do was cash the twenty five hundred dollars, keep 500 for myself and then wire transfer two thousand back to France so they could set up shipping of the gym.”
He says he had no idea the man was overseas until then and he got suspicious and called Global TV.
That’s when he learned he’d almost fallen for the overpayment scam.
RCMP Staff Sergeant Bill Ralstin says it’s a big problem right now.
He has file full of evidence from victims who made the mistake of following the instructions.
He says after you deposit the cheque or money order in your account, the bank holds it for a week or ten days until it clears but it takes much longer for the bank to realize it is fraudulent.
“Sometime later it turns out that the item they received was either a counterfeit cheque or counterfeit money orders. If you’ve withdrawn the money that was created by that deposit then you’re on the hook at your bank for the shortfall.”
The overpayment scam mostly targets anyone selling items on line or people looking for room-mates or renting property.
Landlords are being contacted by phoney tenants overseas, claiming they’re moving to Calgary.
Gerry Baxter with the Apartment Association has a copy of an email from a man in England who explains how his wife has just died and is looking for a house for himself and 4 children.
He offers to send the first months rent and a damage deposit but included an extra amount for travel and moving expenses.
“They ask the landlord to pass on the balance to the individuals shipping agent. who is on the ground somewhere and they’ll provide an address”, says Baxter.
He says one landlord cashed an $8000 bank draft, wired the balance and had to pay it all back with the draft bounced.
Diane Duckett is a consultant with HomeRent.ca and is trying to help landlords spot these scams.
She’s seen an increase in phoney tenant scams and have developed a fraud warning on the web site.
“We’re trying to get our landlords to talk to one another on our forum to just warn people if they’re getting an email that they suspect is suspicious then they should just post something on the forum”, says Duckett.
The RCMP also says targets of this scam can be people who run Bed and Breakfasts or small motels.
People contact the business and book several weeks accommodation and send a money order which turns out to be double the cost.
When they’re told it was too much, they say it was a mistake and ask the owner to wire the rest back.
A tell tale sign of these scam emails is poor grammar, spelling mistakes and emotional personal stories.
Infact Graeme Ford says if the letter he received hadn’t been so poorly written he might have believed it.
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