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Phatphred
Username: Phatphred
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, April 29, 2006 - 11:52 am: | |
A good friend of mine has just suffered a very nasty experience. Please watch out.
My friend had (and thank God, still has) a beautiful cherry dot reissue Gibson ES335, which he cherished for many years and recently felt the need to put up for sale via a free ads website. He got a response from a guy who offered to send him a bank draft for the asking price plus a further amount to cover what he owed to his "shipper", who would then collect what he was owed, visit him to pick up the guitar and deliver it to the buyer. The draft was duly sent and my friend paid it into his bank account. The buyer asked him to send the money onto the shipper by Western Union. I told my friend that eBay do not recommend such payments in international transactions, and this seemed even more strange since the payment was to go to a third-party.
My friend's bank advised him that the draft had cleared and that he could pay out using those funds. He did as asked. Then he got an e-mail from the buyer from Nigeria (surprise surprise) saying that the shipper had gone to collect the funds and had been mugged outside the office and taken to hospital and the buyer had been taken to court that day and ordered to compensate the shipping guy, so would my friend please now cancel the transaction, keep a small amount for his troubles, refund the rest to the buyer and the buyer would reopen the deal when things had blown over.
That mugging story was, of course a pack of lies, and today my friend has received a letter from his bank saying that the draft was counterfeit and the credit was being written back. So my friend has lost the amount he sent to the "shipper". Now he has an issue with his bank who had told him that the draft had cleared on the same day that its letter had been sent saying that the draft was counterfeit.
The draft looked good enough to the bank's counter staff to be accepted as genuine, and the bank actually believed it had cleared until it found out otherwise.
My friend is just gutted over this, and now has to face an uphill struggle with the bank, who will try to avoid liability, and will probably have to refer the matter to the banking ombudsman and/or the courts before, no doubt being bullied into accepting some partial or token settlement.
Please, please, be careful. It's a mean world out there. Musicians have to keep a tender vulnerable part of their beautiful being open for the music to come through, and they are easily duped for their troubles. |
B5erik
Username: B5erik
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, April 30, 2006 - 2:55 am: | |
Couldn't this thread just as easily be called, "Scum Warning?"
I hate people like that. They're the kind of people who would rob senior citizens of their Social Security checks.
But you do bring up a very valid point - you've got to be careful with odd sounding deals. A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing, sometimes.
I hope your friend comes out of this OK. The bank really should take responsibility since they advised him that the money had cleared. That's just a bad situation all around... |
Phatphred
Username: Phatphred
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, April 30, 2006 - 9:56 am: | |
Erik, thanks for your concern, which I will pass on.
Scum they may be, but they have very accurately identified a flaw in the way the banking system operates and will continue to profit from it until the gap is plugged. It seems that my friend had two responses of this kind, so there is clearly an organised scam going on.
Early indications are that the bank may accept that it has cocked up on this occasion. Putting on my lawyer's hat for a moment, I can't see that they could have any defence. The bank has made a negligent misstatement, upon which the customer has relied to his detriment. The bank will say that it was entirely innocent in assuming that the draft had duly cleared, but a court would say that the bank should have known better. Until the banks change their methods, the system will remain wide open to abuse in this way.
In order for the scam to work, the seller must make a payment out before he has heard from the bank about the forgery. So the buyer will bombard him with e-mails getting him to make the payment urgently. The predator relies on the good nature of the prey in seeking to be helpful and, assisting in his own capture. That's how nature has always worked.
Time would unravel the whole knot. For example, if you say that the shipper should simply come round to pick up the guitar and would then be handed the money he was after, which would sound like a very practical suggestion, then the fraud is likely to be discovered before any of that could be put into operation. Naturally that would not happen anyway, because there is no shipper and no one is interested in picking up the guitar, only in getting the seller to part with his money.
My advice for now has to be TRUST NO ONE, not even your own bank, until it can show that it can earn that trust. |
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