Beware of Overseas wire transfers.

cueman

cueman

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I just thought I would let everyone know of a way the con men may try to get you. They make a deal with you on cues. Then they get your bank account information and promise to wire the funds to you. But instead of sending a direct wire transfer they express mail your bank a cashiers check. They send it directly to your bank instead of you. Then they get you to call your bank and see that the funds went in. Unless your bank catches it like mine did, you will call your bank and find out that a deposit was made. You might assume it was wired and is a safe transaction, but it is not. The check bounces and they have your cues. All along you never even know a check was involved.

I did not ship the cues fortunately. They got extra greedy and tried to say they wired a larger amount to my account and the smaller amount that was owed to me was sent to a different vender as a mix up on the two transactions. They asked me to send the difference to their account. They also presented themselves as a broker purchasing for their client. I guess that makes them harder to prosecute if caught. They can say their client who has disappeared sent the bad check.

If they had not got so greedy and played the con game two ways with the overpayment instead of just trying to get the cues they might have got by with it.
I have been making most people from overseas use paypal on smaller orders and Western Union on larger orders and Western union on any size order from some countries. This makes me want to do it on all orders from overseas unless I know the people.
 
CocoboloCowboy said:
Criminals are not only OVERSEAS, but here at HOME ALSO!
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Yes. This could happen here too, but it would be a little more complicated to get by with. I had someone try a little different scam on me years ago, that failed also, and it was here in the states. I was not insinuating all the criminals are overseas. I was just trying to warn others of a different way they are using to scam cuemakers.
 
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cueman said:
I have been making most people from overseas use paypal on smaller orders and Western Union on larger orders and Western union on any size order from some countries. This makes me want to do it on all orders from overseas unless I know the people.
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Western Union works for me, both for sending and receiving money. Paypal just has too many hitches these days
 
From here , western union is very expensive.There is a $25 fee on top of their exchange rate which is not as good as a bank.Wire transfers also charge $25 fee per transfer.
Paypal is the cheapest and if the item is under $100 you can send the money to a friend as a gift.
There was a scam that happened to me when in the US about 2 years ago. I got an email from people wanting to order some cues.I was suspicious as the address was not found in the white pages.So I contacted a friend who lived near by the address. It turned out to be bogus.
Quite often these scammers offer to pay more and want the difference paid back to them as a credit to a bank account.They try and get everything done in a short time frame like 3 weeks. Only to bounce the check or draft.
In my case, the scammer was in the St Louis area.
I have US accounts for my US customers.
 
If you don't know who you are dealing with. Never ship anything from a wire transfer until you have the Cash in your hand... Period!
 
I opened a new account today. I am going to keep one account for wire transfers with very little money in it. I won't write any checks off of that account and then I will know instantly when I get my statement if anything is amiss.
 
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Scams

I have gotten several e-mails over the past two years or so asking for prices on 10 or more cues. The alleged buyer usually says there from Singapore or
Taiwan. In fact I received one today, and a few days ago one of them had cruised my web site and wanted to buy 3 of every thing. Generally they are very vague and usually I just hit the spam button. Sometimes I ask them for an address or a web site and that is the end of them. Seller beware.
 
E-bay and Western Union

Thunder Thighs said:
Western Union works for me, both for sending and receiving money. Paypal just has too many hitches these days
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If you buy anything on e-bay never use western union. That has been an easy scam for a long time. I only use paypal for e-bay, but that just me.

Alan
 
QMAKER said:
I have gotten several e-mails over the past two years or so asking for prices on 10 or more cues. The alleged buyer usually says there from Singapore or
Taiwan. In fact I received one today, and a few days ago one of them had cruised my web site and wanted to buy 3 of every thing. Generally they are very vague and usually I just hit the spam button. Sometimes I ask them for an address or a web site and that is the end of them. Seller beware.
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I probably delete 5 of those a week. This other one was very specific about which used cues I had that they wanted. Most of those letters just ask if you accept credit card for payment and don't even give you an order list.
 
hi

I live in Portugal and i have made some deals here in az and also in ebay, i deal with paypal and have never had problems with it
 
kony80 said:
I live in Portugal and i have made some deals here in az and also in ebay, i deal with paypal and have never had problems with it
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I only had one paypal go wrong that I can think of. Luckily I had not shipped it before someone disputed the charges. Someone had gotten access to someone elses account. So paypal is pretty safe especially if shipping to the verified address.
 
I had one dispute one time where someone was trying to say an electronic item that I sold them was not working, but Myself and another person thoroughly tested the unit before shipping It out, and knew there was nothing wrong with It. We battled over It for a while through PayPal. luckily the item had a unique electronic serial number, and I had recorded It before shipping out, so I finally told them to ship It back to me and I would send them the refund, but that I had recorded that number, and that if It did not match or if the tamper proof seal was broken on the casing, that there would be no refund and they would have to pay the shipping to have their unit returned. As soon as I mentioned that the dispute was dropped. I always try to give everyone a fair shake, but I'm not a department store where someone can just go buy a new unit, stick their old broken unit in the box and take It back for a refund. The sad thing about It is even if that's what the person had in mind, PayPal still may have forced me to refund them, even though they sent me a different unit from the one they had received from Me.
 
There are alot of scams. One recently uncovered over here, was a guy would steal a car and take from it the transmission or engine and some body pannels .Then left the vehicle so it could be found.The insurance company normally pay out as the car would need repainting and the cost was not worth it to them.The vehicle would then go to auction,where this guy would buy it back, replace the parts and have a legally purchased cheap good car.He kept the car for a year and then would sell it.There is a limit to how many cars you can sell in a year.They were mainly high end cars and less than 4 months old when stolen.
Now when you get a credit card here,there is no longer protection on your card from fraud when used for online purchases.It is up to the card holder to prove that their idenity has been stolen and that they were not involved in the purchases.
It has got so bad,that gas stations no longer have pay at the pumps with cards .
Due to number of fake /copy cards being used over weekends with the buisness finding that latter in the week the purchases were not on legal cards.
Now alot of companies use direct bank account transfers.When the money is in the account ,they send the item.It is the most secure payment available at the moment.Most banks do not allow the use of credit cards for the transfer of funds to the
persons bank account.
Scams must be the new easy money these days.
 
conetip said:
There are alot of scams. One recently uncovered over here, was a guy would steal a car and take from it the transmission or engine and some body pannels .Then left the vehicle so it could be found.The insurance company normally pay out as the car would need repainting and the cost was not worth it to them.The vehicle would then go to auction,where this guy would buy it back, replace the parts and have a legally purchased cheap good car.He kept the car for a year and then would sell it.There is a limit to how many cars you can sell in a year.They were mainly high end cars and less than 4 months old when stolen.
Now when you get a credit card here,there is no longer protection on your card from fraud when used for online purchases.It is up to the card holder to prove that their idenity has been stolen and that they were not involved in the purchases.
It has got so bad,that gas stations no longer have pay at the pumps with cards .
Due to number of fake /copy cards being used over weekends with the buisness finding that latter in the week the purchases were not on legal cards.
Now alot of companies use direct bank account transfers.When the money is in the account ,they send the item.It is the most secure payment available at the moment.Most banks do not allow the use of credit cards for the transfer of funds to the
persons bank account.
Scams must be the new easy money these days.
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I've heard of the car insurance scam before, seems like that one has been around for a while.

I have known several people that flip cars like some people do houses. There is a limit on how many times you can title a vehicle within a certain time frame, anything over that, and they have to have a dealers license.
 
Criminals are not only OVERSEAS, but here at HOME ALSO!
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what a wise said...you must be live long enough to have that wise thought..
Thanks Cowboy:)

I live in Indonesia. I know there is a lot of scam here in indonesia, but i also believe there is many scam in US too. I liked to deal with western Union, because i don't have paypal account. If the seller still comfort with paypal, i will use my freind paypal.
Scam is a scam, an honest person is an honest person. I never look a man from what he/she came from, I look that person from he/she act, talk and what kind rules of transaction he/she offer me.
If the buyer/seller ask or offer a escrow service and willing to part the cost 50-50, He/she must be a good person.
If i am the buyer, i will look for a product with a fair price. and will dealing with a good seller. I always beware for a product underprice, because there is must be a high risk.:smile:
 
sengkun108 said:
what a wise said...you must be live long enough to have that wise thought..
Thanks Cowboy:)

I live in Indonesia. I know there is a lot of scam here in indonesia, but i also believe there is many scam in US too. I liked to deal with western Union, because i don't have paypal account. If the seller still comfort with paypal, i will use my freind paypal.
Scam is a scam, an honest person is an honest person. I never look a man from what he/she came from, I look that person from he/she act, talk and what kind rules of transaction he/she offer me.
If the buyer/seller ask or offer a escrow service and willing to part the cost 50-50, He/she must be a good person.
If i am the buyer, i will look for a product with a fair price. and will dealing with a good seller. I always beware for a product underprice, because there is must be a high risk.:smile:
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I have done several transaction with customers from Indonesia and payment was always paypal or Western Union and I had zero problems. If they were unwilling to use one of those two methods for payment we just passed on the deal.
 
I have used both credit card and wire transfer when ordering from your country.
Never have I had any problems where my sellers has always sent me the goods
after they have received the money in your end.
It do however mean that I have to send money before I have any goods (wire)
but so far I have not had any problems.

One thing I was wondering about is - do you really use cheques still ?
Over here these are not in use - I mean - I remember my father had one of those
big things (check book) when I was a kid but now we never see them.
The only time is actually when some one gives a amount of money as a gift
to some one - they could make a cheque with a name on it..
Is it big trouble for you Chris to get some kind of CC payment setup ? I'm asking
since I have no clue what this involves in work and expenses.

I guess we would see scams in all direction. Some time ago I was recommended
to NOT give my CC to the Hotel since many had been copied while staying in the US...
I guess we learn through experience...

Kent
 
Kinda hijack

The easiest scam IMO, is the check scam. That is write a bad or stolen check. Stolen checks are as easy as copying key info off a check received at a part time job and ordering a box. If you pick the right person, you might pass quite a few before caught. This is a US only scam.

Account to account transfer is probably the most secure from Japan.

I like Paypal, but I think the number of countries it can be based out of is limited. Still, I think there are a lot of Invalid Paypal accounts. Still, the usually pay.

The key is having a bank which has international experience and can tell you when the funds are good per each payment method for sure and stand behind it when the sending bank wants it back. Your local bank may not be the best place to operate an international business account.
 
Newton said:
I have used both credit card and wire transfer when ordering from your country.
Never have I had any problems where my sellers has always sent me the goods
after they have received the money in your end.
It do however mean that I have to send money before I have any goods (wire)
but so far I have not had any problems.

One thing I was wondering about is - do you really use cheques still ?
Over here these are not in use - I mean - I remember my father had one of those
big things (check book) when I was a kid but now we never see them.
The only time is actually when some one gives a amount of money as a gift
to some one - they could make a cheque with a name on it..
Is it big trouble for you Chris to get some kind of CC payment setup ? I'm asking
since I have no clue what this involves in work and expenses.

I guess we would see scams in all direction. Some time ago I was recommended
to NOT give my CC to the Hotel since many had been copied while staying in the US...
I guess we learn through experience...

Kent
Click to expand...
I do take credit cards but not on overseas transactions. Over 90% of credit card fraud orders are from overseas, so the company I use does not allow me to take them.
 
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