jnbrown

I posted my Santana for sale on the Tandem Magazine classifieds web site.
I was contacted by a supposed buyer by email which eventually led to a cashiers check arriving in the mail for several thousand dollars more than price of the bike.
I was instructed to deposit the check and wire the remainder of the money by Western Union to a shipping company who also sent me an email requesting the transfer. I cannot find any information about the shipping company on the web. Once the check arrived I was contacted by the "buyer" by phone and email and pressured to complete the transaction immediately. I now believe the check is fake and I would essentially be transferring money from my own bank account to some unknown shipping company.
I don't know how to contact the people in charge of the Tandem Magazine web site, when I used the email address on their web site it came back undeliverable.

TandemGeek

Old scam, and not all that unusual. Sadly, they do target the listings on TandemMag.com.

Greg Shepherd is the site owner and he is aware of these scams; not much you can do other than being a savvy net user and seller. Pretty much the same as the Nigerian scams, etc...

zonatandem

Had nearly the same thing happen several years ago when we listed our old tandem for sale on the internet.
Requested to send us payment in gold Krugerands . . .

Onegun

Correct on both counts. Classic scam. You now have two choices ... turn the check and envelope over to the proper authorities for what ever analysis they might subject it to, i.e., finger prints, DNA, etc, or ......

Look around on Usenet, Google groups or Meet-up.com for a "Bogus Nigerian Cashiers Check Owners Club" and use it to pay your membership dues, because that's all that piece of paper will buy you!

Glad you didn't fall for the ruse!

blamp28

I had the same experience last year with our Santana and Tandem Magazine. I have been contacted 2 or 3 times per month since last may when I sold the bike. It took multiple emails to get my bike removed from thier site and finally, the SPAM has stopped.

TandemGeek

I'm not sure what Greg shepherd is doing these days, but he seems to spend a lot of tim eout of country. As for pulling down your listings, it used to be that when you listed an item on the site (which is only kept up as a courtesy for the classified ads / archive for what's on the server, circa 1999ish) you received a reference number that you could use to kill-off your own listing. Of course, listings also used to expire on their own after 90 days or something like that.

regomatic

Not really cycling related, but there's another new scam being staged in our area.

This new scam is being pulled mainly on middle aged men. What happens is that when you stop for a red light a young, nude woman comes up and pretends to be washing your windshield. While she is doing this, another person opens your back door and steals anything in the car. They are very good at this.

They got me 3 times Friday and twice Saturday. I wasn't able to find them on Sunday.

nwmtnbkr

You cannot trust cashier or bank checks to be valid these days. Several years ago I sold my Aliner RV via Craigslist. I made it clear in my ad that I would only accept cash and only after the "buyer" and I took it to a bank to verify it wasn't counterfeit. I had no problems selling under those terms; it helped that it was the largest Aliner model with a full bathroom and that they're not readily available out west. I got a buyer within the first week and drove the trailer to him (about 200 miles away), which is a good thing since he didn't realize that electric brakes on a trailer mean nothing without a brake controller installed on your vehicle. We went to his bank and they counted out the cash and an officer certified the bill of sale, which was needed in his state, along with title, to get it licensed. I ignored all potential buyers who didn't heed my terms and offered a cashier's check. I kept getting emails for months; I eventually modified my spam filter to block any email referencing Craigslist or Aliner.

Ritterview

Would be interesting to offer to snail mail the perp a check. If he assents, and provides an address (undoubtedly to some drop box), mail him a Zoombak GPS Locator. These cost $39 from Amazon. The perp could then be traced back to his domicile, and might thereby be identified, after which the local authorities could be notified.