Help! Overseas sale

[MAXIMAN]

If any of you guys have any experience selling a bike to an overseas buyer please chime in. This is a very strange deal.

I listed "Maxine" at wheelbynet.com (free ads). I had some dude from India contact me and want to by it. He had his agent in the UK contact me with instructions.

They said they would send me a money order for the amount of the bike plus shipping. Then I was to cash the money order...keep the amount for the bike...and wire the remainder (shipping charges) to an international shipper in the UK. The shipper would then arrange for a pick-up of the bike at my house.

Sound fishy? Normal?? This is really new turf to me. It almost sounds "scamish" except HE'S SENDING A MONEY ORDER for me to cash. Sure does presume alot of trust on his behalf...no?


Whadaya think?

[kf4anm]

offer

send it straight to the recycle bin.

[ratbyk]

Scam

The way it works is you deposit the money order and send them your real money. A week later the money order comes back as conterfeit and the bank pulls the money out of your acct. Rest assured, your money is long gone down the road. Trash it as advised and advise wheelbynet so they can pull the phony acct.
Ken/Sooke

[Ken Talbot]

Does any of the text in this article sound familiar?

[Czekus21]

I would trash it. If you want to sell to this person I would tell them that you accept Pay pal and that's it. You can also specify on your Pay pal that you only accept direct money tranfers from a bank account. That eliminates the possibility of someone using a stolen or altered credit card. This also gives you a permanent record of the transaction. As far as international shipping. I tried that a couple of times and it's more trouble then it's worth. I stay away from it.

[prometheus578]

Ok, let's play with this for a moment. (Other than the obsurdity of sending a XS1100 to India, what with their lousy roads)
You get a money order that you cash at your bank. Money orders, not being like checks, can't "bounce" back on you, leaving you to pay it back. Am I right on this? (been a long time) And I believe there's no paper trail giving your bank account numbers or your social to third parties, again, I'd check. So ... you wire the shipping bucks to a shipping agent in the UK, where he arranges transportation of the bike. Sounds odd, but let's figure for a moment. The US may not have that many shipping firms that transport personal items to India, not much of a call for that sort.. maybe corn and wheat, but not motorcycles, etc. Probably plenty of firms in the UK that deal with India, more connections, post colonial, and all. I would almost bet that your bike gets picked up locally at your place, is shipped to the UK, and then transferred to a freighter doing the India run. This may be a common proceedure for all we know. This may be the reason for the UK agent... one contact to arrange shipping to the Uk, and the same firm to cross ship to India. Contact several local shippers in your area, and see how they'd do it and what they think.
(two cigarettes later......) HHmmm, now why is his agent in UK sending you money to ship, only to request it back? Ok... two different agents. 'zample... I'm in India. I contact the firm with the Uk-India run to arrange deal. They call their branch in the UK. They contact you, and give you the info for the firm that handles the US-UK run, so that you can pay them. (India man may have already paid UK-India people. ) No wait.... Why then doesn't the agent from the first firm just walk across the street and hand a check to the loafer from the other firm?
Man, I've got a headache... maybe I should just delete this whole post. Check with a local shipper or a lawyer.
(another cigarette) Hey... I worked at a shop that sold those &%$#! Royal Enfields, and they were shipped directly here from India.... HHmmm so why the UK dude?
Maximan, Why don't you do me a favor and just keep the bike. I can't take more of this.

[prometheus578]

I see how it is. In the time it took me to write this well thought out and well written response, everyone else decided to quickly pipe up with the CORRECT answers. Well, I'll tell ya.... if I had been the only one to send in a reply, then MINE would have been correct and I would have won!!! Someday... I'll be king.

[Hobbit]

King

As Mel Brooks once said, "It's GOOD to be King!".

[MAXIMAN]

Ok thanks

When I replied to the guy I told him I would wait for the money order to clear before I wired the funds for shipping.

Of course I had no idea what the scam was because I generally don't utilize money orders. I take paypal. When itold him this for some strange reason the e-mail correspondence STOPPED.



What I didn't fully understand...but do now...(thanks to all you informing me) is a money order "ain't" liquid. As a matter of fact most cashiers checks "ain't" liquid either because of all the friggin fraud...bass-turdz!

It's getting to where ya can't even take cash 'cause some jacka$$ has figured a way to counterfiet money on his HP colorjet...with the embedded tracer ribbon...watermark and all!

Thanks again for your brotherly support of a fellow XS'er.

[roadcat]

I got the same thing with another bike I'm trying to sell...and the kayak group I belong to has had some members get the same emails...currently have three from 'west africa', one rom 'england', two from 'italy'...I like to inform them that all emails from out of country are logged and forwarded to the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Marshal's...it's suprising how many people have been stuck with this scam.

[uk1.1s]

Bike Scams

This one's been doing the rounds in the UK for a while now. Seems to have partially replaced Nigerian Kings / Bank Officials / Oil Officials and their claimed orphans from asking you to act as front man in getting millions out of their country...and then scamming a few thousand from you (for weird local bank charges). There are dumb greedy people out there......

Countries the buyer claims to be from vary - sometimes Italy for some reason - where they really are is probably closer than that.

Have seen some folks be offered a few grand over asking price so that their bike can be bought for a "classics" bike show being hosted somewhere far away. Same request - money order comes (is sometimes a simple forgery) - you send REAL cash.... and you get to keep your bike!

I think the UK "Old Bike Mart" publication's website even has a warning on the site about this very scam as they had a run of this sort of thing last year.

Sell it locally to a sensible honest looking buyer.

[Jerry]

This scam has been around a while, but now the scammers are picking up information from eBay and other auction sites.

I used to work for a company that did international sales. If you want to go this route look up Letters of Credit, not Money Orders. Letters of Credit, so far, have not been involved in the scams I've seen/heard of, as these are sent bank-to-bank and verified by them before you ever get your money. There is a charge for using this form of payment, but it is guaranteed and is the norm in international sales.

If youwant to larn more, do a search on "Letter of credit" or visit this site:
http://www.mantissa.co.uk/Top2_1.htm

If you are approached by an overseas buyer and they won't do PayPal or a Letter of Credit, don't go any farther!

[jimg1au]

international shipping


hi
i ship lots of parts to australia and in the process of shipping a bike to sydney.there is a lot of paper work to be done if you want to register it in australia you sort of have to get the governments permission to import the bike and ride it on australian roads.i have to get the bike to long beach ca. then it is only $500.00 aus to get it to australia.also i pay when the bike arrives and not before.
cheers
jim garvey