Is he "legit"? Professional advice needed!!

[steveng]

Note: there are several emails copied and pasted. a little lengthy so please bear with me. I contacted Royal bank and asked if there will be any risk involved by providing someone my account number, the rep said "not sure, go with your instinct"
Here is a brief story of what happened. I am trying to sell my car on Autotrader.ca and a few days a ago, a guy who claimed to be a UK auto agent emailed me with the followings:
...........................................................................
GOOD DAY,

MY NAME IS MARTIN DANIELS AN AUTO AGENT BASED IN UK, ONE OF MY CLIENT IS INTERESTED IN YOUR ADVERT CAR,PLEASE EMAIL ME IF THE CAR IS STILL AVAILABLE STATING ITS CURRENT PRICE.

HOPING TO HEAR FROM YOU.

MARTIN(+447024034204)
..............................................................................................
thank you steve for your reply and your questions about me and my client.yes indeed my client is a canadian but he is an independent autotrader who does international autotrading all over .

my client buys used car from all over europe,canada,usa,and australia,he sells them to african country for the purpose of profit making.

he is not fully based in canada as he travells round to make reserch on car market,right now he is presently in india looking at the india market.

right now we are still working on getting our website uplaoded,please bear with us but i assure you that all is well all we need is your understanding to make this transaction a perfect one.

we shall be expecting the update on your car asap,as we will be very glad to make the transaction a quike one because car sales in africa is in its hottest demand now and my clinet will really love to get into the market with really sound cars and i know yours is a marketable car as long as its sound.

thanks once again for your understanding.
......................................................................................
I hope this will intereste you,my client and i were so happy when we received your response i must confess it really helped cos my client has got a buyer who has shown interest in your car so my client would love for us to make this transaction go through asap .
I wish to inform you due to time constraints on fact that we do not have much time , my client is ready to path away with the car for $12,700 based on the answers you have supplied ,this shows that the car is in a perfect condition.

My client has proposed a payment plan ,he said that i should inform you that, you should open an account with Royal Bank Of Canada where he would wire the car fund into, due to the fact that he is not presently in Canada at the moment, from his locaton he will wire your money into your Royal Bank Of Canada account.

After pay has reached you, our agent will come for the pick up and drive to a prepaid shipper to be shipped to my customer, while title papers and other necessary documents would be sent by you via courier to my customer.
..........................................................................
MYCLIENT IS IN INDIA LIKE I TOLD YOU EARLIE WHICH IS THE REASON WHY I AM REPRESENTING HIM,WHATEVER QUESTIONS YOU WISH TO ASK OR INFORMATION I ADVICE THAT YOU DIRECT IT TO ME AND I WILL GET ANSWERS FROM HIM ASAP.

MY CLINET IS A VERY BUSY MAN,AND WISHES THAT THIS TRANSACTION BE CONCLUDED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE ,PLEASE EMAIL ME THE INFORMATION THAT HE HAS REQUESTED FOR SO THAT WE CAN GO ON TO CONCLUDE THIS TRANSACTION WITHOUT DELAY HENCE YOU SAY YOU WANT THE CAR SOLD BEFORE THE 28TH OF JANUARY.

A SOON AS WE GET THE RBC ACCOUNT AND OTHER DETAIL YOUR CAR FUND WILL BE WIRED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT AND PREPAID AGENT WILL COME FOR THE PICK UP AS SOON AS YOU CONFIRM THAT YOUR MONEY HAS BEEN DEPOSITED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.

LET ME KNOW IF THERE ARE ANY QUESTION.
.......................................................................................
I HAVE NOT HEARD FROM YOU AFTER MY LAST EMAIL TO YOU,PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON MTY CLIENT HAS ASKED THAT YOU GIVE ME YOUR PHONE NUMBER AND HE WOULD RING YOU FROM HIS LOCATION HENCE HE IS NOT IN A SERVICE AREA WHERE YOU CAN TALK TO HIM SO IF I GET YOUR PHONE N UMBER I WILL LET HIM HAVE IT WHEN HE CALLS ME TODAY.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE THAT THERE IS NOTHING FISHY AS WE ARE GENUINE AND WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT YOUR CAR FUND WILL BE WIRED FIRST BEFORE ANY PICK UP IS DONE ,I DONT KNOW WHY PEOPEL FIND IT HARD TO DO BUSSINESS ONLINE ,I UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE LOTS OF FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY GOING ON BUT THERE ARE ALSO LEGITIMATE PEOPLE DOING BUSSINESS HERE SO I ADVICE THAT YOU PUT AWAY ALL FEAR AND THOUGHTS AND LETS DO BUSSINESS TO AVAOID DELAY.LET ME HAVE YOUR ROYAL BANK OF CANADA ACCOUNT INFO SO THAT WE GO AHEAD AND WIRE THE FUND WITHOUT DELAY.

MARTIN DANIELS.

 

[MuffinMuncher]

If you are even remotely considering any of these offers, please sign over all of your assets to someone that has an IQ higher than a house plant.

Its a scam. The basic premise is that the money shows up (wire transfer or bank check), you withdraw the money, the buyer gets whatever it is they wanted out of the deal, and after the buyer is long gone, your bank calls you up to say "there is a problem with the deposit".

Either the bank check was counterfeit, or the originating source of the wire transfer turns out to be fraudulent. The bank isnt going to take the loss, so they come after you to replace the funds.

Dont do it.

 

[steveng]

I don't understand why I have to have an account with Royal bank in order for him to transfer the fund. I know in Asia, there are all sorts of scams. For example, the most popular one is, someone calls you with a pre-recorded tape, pretending he is from your bank. it might say your cc payment is due and press a number to respond. If you pressed, you would be charged $600NT a minute for the call. Another one is to ask you to withdraw money from you ATM. After you pressed your pin, your account balance would be zero.
I first thought maybe this guy would do the same, taking money out of my account. But it is also possible to have $100 in my account and I won't lose much by taking his offer.

 

[james t kirk]

I don't see the problem.

If you open an account, then he deposits the FULL amount into your account - you have payment in full.

I sold a car once to a guy from Detroit. I picked him up at the train station, he loved the car.

We then walked over to my bank, he simply gave them his debit card at my bank, the bank took X amount out of his account and transfered it into my account.

I said to the teller, "The money is in there?"

"Yep" she says.

End of story.

As long as you have the money in the account, who cares.

If in doubt however, why don't you ask the cops. They would know if there are any such other scams like this being pulled.

The one word of caution I do have is that whenever I have sold a car on Autotrader (5 times or so) - you do get a fair number of scam artists calling you. Usually however, they are looking to sell you something.

 

[steveng]

I think for wire transfer or personal cheque deposit, there's a 3-4 day period for the cheque to be cleared. The account will show a transfered fund of xxx amount but the money is actually not in there until the bank verifies it. Usually takes a few days

 

[Viewer]

In case you need further confirmation on this: run, and don't look back.

The writer of your emails even writes with a Nigerian scammer 'accent', if you know what I mean.

Funds transfered internationally in this way can appear to be in your account, but still get reversed out when the bank finds the originator of the transfer was not legit. This can take weeks, not days. Then you are on the hook for the money.

 

[Never Compromised]

I've read on the net several variations of this scam. It is a scam. The wire transfer will have a problem and the money gets sucked out of your account.

If the guy is honest, he will send you a certified cheque, and still wait a month for the damn thing to make it through the system.

 

[fuji]

James --

Your expectations about how the banking clearance system works are wrong. Most people believe as you do that if the cash is in your pocket that there's no risk, and that's just wrong. The scammer is playing on these common ignorances about how the system works.

When money shows up in your account it has not yet cleared. For certain kinds of transactions the bank may not actually place a hold on the funds, even though the transaction hasn't settled yet. That's because they assume it is going to settle successfully and/or because of loopholes in the system. At any rate depending on the type of transaction it can take up to FOUR WEEKS for it to fully clear through the system (or as little as three days, but never instantaneously.)

At any rate, if the transaction fails to settle (because of fraud, insufficient funds on the other end, etc.) then the transaction will be reversed. The $12k will come out of your account. If you had withdrawn $12k as cash your balance with RBC will now be a debt of $12k. You will be fully liable to RBC for that debt as per your account contract with them.

So the guy fools you into thinking you have $12k in hand, takes your car, the $12k vanishes, and you are left empty handed.

It IS possible to go in and talk to your bank manager and find out whether the funds have fully cleared. If you specify that you will not release the car until the funds have fully cleared then the guy will go away. Well, he'll probably argue with you that "Hey the money is there give me the car" and pretend that you are wrong about the way the system works--but of course, if he gets the car, it'll turn out you were right... the money will be gone.

 

[steveng]

thanks a lot Fuji. this is all I want to know. I know what to do now.

 

[Aardvark154]

I don't see the problem.

If you open an account, then he deposits the FULL amount into your account - you have payment in full. . .

As long as you have the money in the account, who cares.

As others have already posted, not quite. This scam plays on the normal feeling of people that if they receive a bank cheque or a wire transfer "of course the money is in my account," unfortunately this isn't necessarily true. You should wait at least a week AND get a letter from a Senior Bank Officer stating that the bank will not attempt to collect from you before trusting any deposit such as this.

The correspondence the original poster received reeks of a Nigerian 419 scam

 

[Aardvark154]

Fuji's post is more detailed and no doubt even more acurate than my previous post.

 

[CapitalGuy]

If you were selling a premium car or a rare make, I might understand the guy's interest from overseas. But at $12 700 it's probably just a "normal" car. Why the hell would a guy in the UK bother with one North American car, for a buyer in India, to sell in Africa? I could understand a fleet purchase from a North American supplier, or a bulk buy of several dozen used cars or more, but at that price range, there are enough "normal" cars in Asia, Africa and Europe, which don't have to be shipped across the ocean, for him to buy.

 

[steveng]

hahaha maybe because my car is souped up.

 

[stang]

Total BS. Don't waste your time pursuing this.

 

[KBear]

Sounds like a scam.

Believe there are escrow services for transactions like this?

Could contact the magazine where the car is advertised and ask if they have any experience with deals like this.

Maybe there is a way to turn this around and scam them. tell them there is a cost to set up the account, and ask for $200 by Western Union as you have no money, etc.

 

[Cashanova]

From: The Desk of Martin Daniels

Looks like Martin Daniels has a new job as an "auto agent" after being of former personnel assistance to the General Manager of Standard Trust Bank (Nig) Plc.

 

[Fabulous]

hahaha maybe because my car is souped up.

you are an idiot - you came here for advice - everybody is telling you it's a scam, and you ha ha ha...go for it sell your souped up car, hope you get ripped off

 

[fuji]

you are an idiot - you came here for advice - everybody is telling you it's a scam, and you ha ha ha...go for it sell your souped up car, hope you get ripped off

Sounds to me like he understands what's up now and is just joking about his car being souped up, meaning, you're the one who looks a little off here.

 

[MuffDiver]

A good site that talks about a lot of these types of scams is http://www.scambusters.com/

Also, the "if it sounds too good to be true" rule is always one to follow when in doubt.

 

[james t kirk]

James --

Your expectations about how the banking clearance system works are wrong. Most people believe as you do that if the cash is in your pocket that there's no risk, and that's just wrong. The scammer is playing on these common ignorances about how the system works.

When money shows up in your account it has not yet cleared. For certain kinds of transactions the bank may not actually place a hold on the funds, even though the transaction hasn't settled yet. That's because they assume it is going to settle successfully and/or because of loopholes in the system. At any rate depending on the type of transaction it can take up to FOUR WEEKS for it to fully clear through the system (or as little as three days, but never instantaneously.)

At any rate, if the transaction fails to settle (because of fraud, insufficient funds on the other end, etc.) then the transaction will be reversed. The $12k will come out of your account. If you had withdrawn $12k as cash your balance with RBC will now be a debt of $12k. You will be fully liable to RBC for that debt as per your account contract with them.

So the guy fools you into thinking you have $12k in hand, takes your car, the $12k vanishes, and you are left empty handed.

It IS possible to go in and talk to your bank manager and find out whether the funds have fully cleared. If you specify that you will not release the car until the funds have fully cleared then the guy will go away. Well, he'll probably argue with you that "Hey the money is there give me the car" and pretend that you are wrong about the way the system works--but of course, if he gets the car, it'll turn out you were right... the money will be gone.

Thanks for the insight.

I will keep that in mind.

Essentially, if I understand you correctly, it's an international NSF cheque so to speak that gets deposited into your account.

The cars I have sold in the past have either been 1) cash, or 2) certified cheque or purchase order or 3) debit transfer.

Never any hassles.

I would suppose that if someone was to approach the original sellor with such a proposition, that you would be able to check with your bank to ensure that the deposit has "cleared"

Is this correct?