Beware Scammers on classifieds

[76caravanner]

Just wanted to warn people of this scam, and yes I have this going on now thru the Airstream Classifieds. Someone offers to purchase your Airstream and send a Certified check along with extra money lets say 2k to cover shipping costs. He then gives instruction to cash the check ASAP then wire the extra 2K via Western Union to his shipper. The gig is the so called certified check bounces but this can take a few days, in the meantime you have already wired his 2k to the shipper which is actually him. You have just been screwed, as you, the person who cashed the bounced check are held responsible and he already has your 2k in cash in hand . You have just lost 2K. If he is really ballsy he might even have his shipper (which is actually him) show up and try to get the Trailer and title b4 the check bounces. Kind of sad to see this going on as the Camping Community is generally more trusting then the general public. Please be careful of transactions.

[azflycaster]

In most cases the "buyer" will never show up for the merchandise. The intent is to get the 2K from you and move on. Showing up and taking a trailer would be taking too big of a risk of being caught and many of these "buyers" are located in foreign countries.

[markdoane]

I see this is your first post.
Welcome neighbor.

[76caravanner]

thanks, yes my 1st post. I was curious about one of my replys so Goggled initially about scams and found this.The same one scammers have used for buying cars. Just the way this guy puts e-mails, sentences together I think he is either foreign born or actually sitting in some back room in Nigeria . Who knows? I could probably still play along with this for awhile as he is waiting for a reply from me.

[dmroot]

I wonder if there is a way to flag the guy in the system so that others aren't taken in...on the other hand, even if that happened he'd just start again with a new email. Sheesh.

[silverleeper]

Originally Posted by dmroot

I wonder if there is a way to flag the guy in the system so that others aren't taken in...on the other hand, even if that happened he'd just start again with a new email. Sheesh.

There is a "Contact Us" button at the bottom of every page to report a concern about a member or a post/classified ad. You can also contact any Moderator on Airforums through the PM "Personal Message" system.

Scammer are very persistent and any help from the membership is greatly appreciated.

[Andy R]

Please forward any potentially scammy emails to support [at] airforums.com. We will make every effort to investigate and look into ways of preventing them from trying their scam through our system.

Here are some other relevant links:
FBI — New E-Scams & Warnings
Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) | Home
Classified Ads - Basics, Tips and Helps