Warning

[GRAEME]

Last week I recieved an e mail from someone regarding a bull I had for sale on the website- Risegate Buzzard. The person asked for some extra photos which i sent and then e mailed me back to confirm the price and finally e mailed to say he wanted it and could I take the advert off and he would send a cheque and then arrange collection. The langauge and grammar of the messages where a bit strange and it was obvious that the person was not from the UK. I was also a little suspicious that they did not want to know a lot about the animal. Every time I asked for contact details I never got them only an assurance that a cheque was on its way. Yesterday morning I got a message to say that a cheque was coming for £4000 I replied that the agreed price was £425 and that was all I wanted. The reply was that this person had done some work for a client and had asked that the debt be paid in full to me. I told them that this was not acceptable and that I would only accept cash or cheque for the correct amount and that I would not proceed further until I had full contact details. By now I was fully convinced that this was some kind of scam like you hear of on the internet auction sites. I was then bombarded with calls from a witheld mobile phone to say they were on the way, as soon as I mentioned the police the phone hung up at that has been the end of it. I am posting this on the site because it occured to me that a lot of dexter owners live in fairly remote areas and could fall prey to this kind of scam and who knows what kind of intimidation should these people ever turn up. Luckily for me it was obvious fairly early on that this wasnt right but had these people been a bit smarter, the situation could have progressed further and been a lot more difficult to resolve.I dont want to scare monger or anything like that but feel it would be remiss not to report this and found out that these people had tried again with someone else on this site. I have heard of this sort of thing before but you always wonder if its an urban myth and you can imagine it happening with used cars etc but not with a dexter bull!

I have kept all the e mails and have the e mail address if anyone wants to check it- I was not sure I could actually post it on the site or the persons name (real or not) but as I say I have kept it if needed in the future.

[Peter thornton]

This is a very common scam, mainly perpetrated on sellers using Ebay. Most people are aware that they need to wait for the cheque to clear and will pay it into the bank and wait 3 days for it to hit their account. They then wrongly assume that the money is safe. IT ISN'T. I am in the camera business and this is a very common scam in the US
Banks will not give a straightforward answer to the question of how long a cheque takes to clear. You would think it was a simple question but it seems to send them into confusion and they always cover themselves in case of problems.
You are lucky that you were aware enough to smell a rat!

[ann]

Unless the buyer is very local and you have already met them, and surely not many people would either buy from or sell an animal to some one they had not met. I would only accept either a bank draft or building society cheque made out to me by the bank/building soc or cash. This way your are covered.

[SteveM]

This scam was mentioned on the telly a few months ago.

All will seem Ok when you pay the cheque in, but even several months later the banks can take the money back out of your account when the cheque finally bounces.

[Rob & Alison Kirk]

I am a civilian police employee working at a police station and this type of scam is happening on a very regular basis and not only to vendors on e-bay. Quite often it is an advert in a local newspaper/advertiser.

Members of the public are becoming more aware, but still some are sending cheques for the difference only to realise their mistake when the cheque from the perpetrator is not honoured.

Please remember that a genuine purchase will NOT send a cheque in excess of the asking price.

From another angle, if the vendor does send a cheque for the difference, the perpetrator then has bank details and may use to steal identities or commit fraud.


Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

[Ted Neal]

Graeme
I too have a bull for sale on the web and have received an enquiry and strange response.
I had already decided not to get further involved in correspondence with whoever is e-mailing
regards
Ted

[Rob R]

Completely unrelated, but we sold some farm machinery on ebay. Contacting the seller (London address) came to nothing & eventually gave up after a month & voided the transaction. Then a couple of weeks later, completely out of the blue, we got a phone call from someone in the neighbouring village- there was a large low loader looking for us! To cap it all, the driver was Polish & hardly spoke a word of the Queen's. He had the cash with him though so we got him to stay where he was & we fetched the baler to him (having considered what a job giving directions would be), loaded up & off he went. On to a another pick up a "tractor" in "London" (the two words he knew, as well as "sorry"), and presumably back to Poland. It was hilarious at the time, but it just makes you wonder how on Earth he manages to drive the length of the Country not understanding the language- I wouldn't have liked attempting the same in his country, that's for sure!

As for selling livestock, I always like to engage in dialogue to suss out the cranks- it's important to know where your stock are going, which worries me a lot about auction sales, as there seems to be an increased number of inexperienced buyers acting on impulse & not being fully prepared.

[Mark Bowles]

I had a lady, who had an ad on this site, phone me last night about the same thing.
Someone had sent a big cheque over the asking price, it proved to be fraudulent.
As anything in life, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isnt true. Keep on you toes and dont correspond in any way to encourage them.
Mark