Report Scammers!

HORSE SCAM ALERTS ONLINE!

In cooperation with MyOregonHorseForSale.com, the Internet Fraud Complaint Center was established as a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center to serve as a means to receive Internet related criminal complaints, research, develop and refer the criminal complaints to law enforcement agencies for any investigation they deem to be appropriate. The IFCC was intended, and continues to emphasize serving the broader law enforcement community, to include federal, as well as state and local agencies, which are combating Internet crime and in many cases participating in Cyber Crime Task Forces.

Please go to this web address to file your scam or horse fraud alerts or complaints. http://www.ic3.gov

A buyer will contact you via e-mail about your horse for sale. They will pay for the horse with a counterfeit cashier's check. In most cases, they will make the check for more than the selling price and ask you to send them the balance. The seller often takes the check and ships the horse not knowing the check is fake. The seller is notified by the bank of the counterfeit check 14 to 20 business days after the transaction and the seller has lost money AND their horse.

    Accept cash, Western Union, or Wire transfer for payment. Or, have your bank authorize the cashier's check before you ship the horse.  If it sounds to good to be true... it usually is. 

Never ship a horse unless payment has been received and you verify that all funds are in the bank.
Use an escrow service to be sure that your funds are safe.
Speak to the buyer via telephone and verify all information.
Ask for the phone number of the issuing bank and call to verify fund on the check sent to you.
People from overseas, VERY RARELY buy horses from non-USDA approved horse facilities.
VERY RARELY do people within the USA use a broker from overseas to buy a horse.
    
Remember, if it sounds too good to be true... it usually is.

FRAUD ALERT-Cashier Check Scams

The Nigeria Counterfeit Cashier’s Check Scam has targeted hundreds (perhaps thousands) of websites across the Internet that feature classified ads (or online auctions) for automobiles, motorcycles, farm equipment, horses, dogs, etc. If you have received an email that mentions that they want to pay you for an item by a cashiers check (usually through a colleague) and they want to send you “extra money” while requesting you to wire them back the remaining difference, it is a scam!

Again, there are many, many variations of the Nigerian Counterfeit Cashiers Check Scam, and one of the most common versions of the scam involves a person from overseas posing as a potential buyer of an item (such as a motorcycle or an automobile). Initially the overseas person may request some additional photos of the item being sold (this lets the seller think the person is a serious buyer). In a later email the overseas person tells the seller that they are overseas, but have a colleague in the United States who owes them money (such as $10,000), and they will instruct their colleague to send the seller a cashier’s check for the sum of $10,000. The overseas person informs the seller to deduct the cost of the item and to send (wire) whatever balance remains to him (so if the seller has something for sale for $5,500, then they will wire the overseas person the $4,500 difference). The overseas person indicates in an email that he has already made shipping arrangements, and tells the seller that when the check is cashed, he will inform his shipping agent to pick up the item. The overseas person also requests a name and address to where the check should be sent, saying that they will send the check immediately (and believe it or not, the cashier’s check does arrive quickly…..it often comes by Fed Ex). Typically the seller will receive between 2 and 5 emails before the overseas person requests an address for mailing a check.

After the seller receives the cashier’s check and deposits it to their bank account, the bank will let the seller (the banks customer) know that the funds are available usually within 24 hours. Some people wait a week though just to make sure everything seems fine for the cashiers check, and with the funds still showing in their bank account, the seller sends the remaining balance of money to the overseas persons’ designated account (often the money is sent via Western Union or Money Gram). Several days later the bank will determine that the cashiers check is counterfeit, and will remove (deduct) the cashiers check amount from their customers account. The seller has now just become a scam victim, having lost every penny that they wired to the overseas person. It seems the overseas person (scammer) is not interested at all in picking up the item that the seller had for sale……he only wanted the seller to make a wire transfer to him. Ironically, the scammer sometimes makes more money on the lower cost items, because if a person has received a check for $10,000 for an item that was only $4,000, then the scammer would make $6,000. If the item was $7,000, the scammer would only make $3,000. Usually though the scammer adds between $2,000 and $7,000 to the actual selling price, so if a person has something for sale for $9,000, then the scammer will probably send the seller a cashier’s check for perhaps $11,000 to $16,000. Recently there seem to be more and more scam emails that are targeting lower value items, such as household items that are for sale. For example, if a woodburning stove, refrigerator, or sofa is for sale for $200, the scammer may send only $1,000, and wants the owner to wire them back $800.

Unfortunately, many banks will say the cashier’s check funds are available within 24 hours, but this does not mean that the cashier’s check is good. It may take two or three weeks to know if the check is good or not, but by then it is too late for the victim (during this time they have already wired the money to the overseas person, and they can’t get the money back).

There are several different versions and twists to this scam, and some emails indicate that the shipping costs or crating costs can also be deducted from the cashier’s check sum. There are also several different locations mentioned in various emails, some saying the person is from London, and some mention traveling in South Africa, Nigeria, Africa, and we have even seen an email that mentions Canada. (Some emails do not mention a country). The reality is, it doesn't matter what country they say...the fact is that the wired money does go overseas, and most often you can't get your money back. There is even speculation that the money could be funding some terrorist activities. There are probably many cells of these scammers in many countries, including in the United States.