Seller's of KDX's beware

[Patrick]

I wish the KDX webmaster would pin a warning on the KDX Classified Ads about the thieves that are trying to steal our bikes by offering fraudulent cashier's checks. These guys are working this site hard and tried it on me. Most people are smart enough to distinguish a legitimate buyer from a fraud but it disturbs me that there is no WARNING message there. I played with them a little so I could get some evidence to turn over to the FBI.

People are posing as "brokers" and offering to pay for bikes with cashier's checks. It at first may appear legitimate but when they tell you they will include large sums of money for shipping (ie $5,700) they reveal themselves as frauds. They will send you a bogus cashier's check which takes several days for the bank to discover as invalid, then have you immediately wire the shipping cost to their "shipper" usually via Western Union. Shipper picks up the bike, then later you discover that the check bounced and you got screwed. It is usually an person posing as an overseas broker. The problem is that the FBI and Secret Service are only tackling the BIG MONEY scams. I turned their names and email addresses into the FBI anyway. I hope they have sent those cashier's check already. I will be sending those to the authorities also.

 

[moridin]

These guys are indeed out there. They did a story on it on our local news - some cop got taken like this selling a $4K streetbike. Same exact story.

Last week - a good buddy was selling his KTM and was contacted in the same exact manner. He had not heard anything about the scam and was about to bite.

These guys are so good - that in the cops case, he banked at Bank of America - and the phony cashiers check was from bank of America (well fakes from there). They cashed it with no problem - he got another check for $3K (to cover "shipping to Nairobi or something) and sent it off. They picked up his bike that day.

Five days later, Bank of America called and stated that the cashiers check was bad and they wanted their $10K back. He was pretty much shafted.

Maybe an admin can pin this for a while.

 

[Rich Rohrich]

It's been covered in a number of threads.

This one in the flame forum:

http://www.dirtrider.net/forums3/showthread.php?t=92894

and this one posted at the top of the For Sale forum :

http://dirtrider.net/forums3/showthread.php?t=88130

 

[Braahp]

Why in the world would anyone ship a bike without making sure the check had cleared?

 

[Patrick]

Some banks apparently have told the sellers that the cashier's checks are valid (on appearance I guess) and that the funds can be withdrawn in 24 hours. Actually it may take 5 to 7 days for it to be cleared. The thieves know that they must get the bike before the bank figures it out, so they send the shipping co. to get the bike before this happens. These crooks keep trying, and they have been successful many times according to the stories out there. I caught on to them when one guy said he was sending an extra $5,700 for shipping, then wanted me to take my cut and wire the $5,700 to the shipping co. I found a warning message posted at the top of the KTM website where they have Bikes for Sale. I think the KDX Classified should have a similar warning. The crooks are targeting those sellers.

 

[Roland C]

I think Patrick is talking about the KDX classifieds on Canadian Dave's JustKDX website (http://justkdx.dirtrider.net/) not the for sale forum here on DRN??? Anyway, thanks for the post. I went and read the links Rich posted and all makes sense now. If it wasn't for this post, I may not have come to learn about this scam. Thanks. :thumb:

 

[Rich Rohrich]

I think Patrick is talking about the KDX classifieds on Canadian Dave's JustKDX website (http://justkdx.dirtrider.net/) not the for sale forum here on DRN???

Gotcha. :thumb:

I'm sure if you send an e-mail to Mike B or CDave one of them will add it to the page.

 

[tedkxkdx]

This goes to show that there is nothing better than a guy showing up in person and then he takes you to the bank and withdraws the money and hands it to you. We let our guard down for convenience.

 

[rethnal]

Long, long ago, in a land not unlike our own... used to be a word called trust. This has left our language since we have all these communication devices at our disposal. Telephone, TV, radio and the worse offender of them all... the internet. Used to be word of mouth or knowing someone personally when dealing with people. One rule to live by is: Never deal with anyone out of the country... there laws are not like ours... not even close!

 

[wibby]

There's another word...

"common sense"

Uh, I guess that would actually be TWO words

And unfortunately I don't have MUCH of it! :eek:



I've never dealt with cashiers checks

I've usually use money orders or cash

 

[moridin]

Really - the folks that got duped were not at fault. Obviously if someone is offering you $2K more thatn you are asking - it should raise some suspicions. However, we have all been led to believe that a cashiers check was as good as cash - especially if you deposited it and your bank releases the funds.

The reason I wanted this to be pinned for a while is that unlike many readers here - I dont check any other forums - and I am sure there are lots of folks in the same boat as me.

Many folks will never see this if it is stuck in the For Sale section.

sn

 

[Canadian Dave]

I'll set something up asap and see if we can't at least keep a few KDXs out of their hands. Lets hope they catch'em.

David

 

[Mac]

Last year I decided to sell my KDX on Motofinder and had this exact problem. The guy said he would send a money order plus shipping cost and I should pay the shipper at the time of pickup.

Well I was out of state when the check showed up and when I called my wife she said the check was for 9000.00 bucks. This immediately smelled like a scam so I told her to try to deposit the check but not to leave the bank until they verified the check.

She got to the bank and the teller gave her a receipt. She asked the teller to verify the validity of the check but she said she couldn't and it could take up to 10 days to clear. My wife was also very sceptical so she asked to talk to the bank manager.

The manager just received a memo about this very subject so he agreed to verify the check. You would think that verifying a check would be easy but it took him 45 minutes and several phone calls to the bank of America. The concluded the cashiers check was fake and called the FBI.

The buyer kept calling me asking if I deposited the check and I tried stalling as long as I could by telling him I was out of town (which I was). He didn't know that I knew the check was bad. I was hoping the FBI would try to catch this guy but they didn't seem interested and said it is almost impossible to find him, too bad.

The story has a happy ending though because I decided to keep the KDX :)

 

[Slugblaster]

I currently have a KLX650 for sale on recycler.com and have 2 guys with this same M.O. I didn't know what to make of it until seeing this thread. If I get a check I guess I'll hand it over to the FBI.

 

[Engloid]

I currently have a KLX650 for sale on recycler.com and have 2 guys with this same M.O. I didn't know what to make of it until seeing this thread. If I get a check I guess I'll hand it over to the FBI.

The problem is that a lot of this is done from banks overseas. Nigeria seems to be a hotspot for this stuff to come from. Over there, even the banks have become corrupt. Giving any info to the FBI will likely only waste your time. I'm sure thousands of others have already sent this in.

It's not just this site or a couple others, it's thousands of sites having this problem.

A SOLUTION:

When you post an ad or anything that will be readily accessible in classifieds, NEVER post your email address. Post it like this: Engloid AT despammed.com

If somebody can't figure out that, they're too stupid to do business with anyway...and that makes it such that the "spambots" that search for email addresses can't pick up on it. I have posted many things for sale this way and have never gotten emails from these scammers.