More and more people are turning to eBay and other online sales channels to get rid of old furniture or toys that the children have outgrown. Even though you may have to deal with shipping, it can be a lot more convenient than holding a yard sale in the rain. And it can reach many more people, increasing the chance that you’ll get the best price for your stuff.
If you do sell anything online, beware of overly generous offers. A particularly common scam is for the buyer to send a check for several thousand dollars more than the asking price and then ask the victim to send back for the difference. The scammer will make up a plausible reason for the overpayment. It could be "a clerical error" or "a way around the local taxes". Very often, these offers come from overseas – places which do have different and sometimes confusing tax laws. Sometimes, it’s “an agency fee that you must remit to the agent”, but the “agent” is a confederate to the scam. Some of these scams look very credible.
Regardless of the alleged reason, the thief will take your “refund” and run, knowing that it can take weeks before his/her original counterfeit check is discovered. When your bank finally does get the counterfeit back, they will deduct the full amount of the bounced check back from your account, leaving you without your stuff, owing bounced-check fees and the cost of the wire transfer and with a loss for the “refunded” amount.
Overpayment scams have been around for years but used to be almost exclusively based on foreign banks. Many of these scams are now based on counterfeits of checks from US banks or even on counterfeit postal money orders.
To recognize the scam, watch out if the buyer is sends you more than your asking price. Return the check and have the buyer send a new check for the correct amount. And don’t be shy about holding the delivery until the check clears. If someone offers more than you asked for, be suspicious.
Read more at FTC.gov.
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