Scam warning;

[Dream_Merchant]

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I seen the virus warning put out by the EC staff, and was reminded of the scam that's been going around quite a bit lately, and that I've actually been caught up in.

If you have your horse advertised and you get a strange email along the lines such as this:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I saw your animal on the website today and I am willing to purchase it. Do not worry about shipping, my shipper will take care of this. Please let me know the current condition of my purchase, where it is located and when it will be available for pickup. Payment method will be via a certified cashiers cheque. Please give me your address so I can send payment to you.

-- If you give them your address, they do indeed send you a cashier's cheque including the cost of your horse, and also the "supposed" cost of the shipping. They then ask you to forward the shipping money to their "carrier" via a western union money transfer or by cash -- not a cheque! The trick is, they think when you have the cashier's cheque in hand, you will pay the shipper with your own money before that clears. WRONG!!! The cheque's I have recieved were frauds, a copy from American banks, fit with signatures and the whole deal. Naturally, I never send money out unless cheque's have cleared, and no way would a horse leave my property until the money has cleared, so I lost no money out of it. If you do get a cheque, easiest way to check it is to ring the bank the cheque is from, quote the cheque number and straight away they will tell you if it is the true deal, or a fraud.

I've lost count of the emails like that I have got -- who in their right mind sees a horse in another country and simply emails up and buys it with no questions asked!?!?!?! So anyone who mentions a cashier's cheque, I send them a reply breifly saying, if your going to pull a scam on me, piss off now, otherwise if you continue on and I find out it is a scam, I'll give every piece of information I have on you to the national Fraud Squad of Australia and also the FBI in Amercia. I never hear from the again.

Just thought I would warn you all not to get your hopes up if someone sends you a cheque without seeing your horse.</i></font>

[Terry3025]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#There seem to be a lot of those scams running around.&nbsp; If the deal sounds to good to be true, then it probably is!#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[Dream_Merchant]

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Basically! Usually ends up the way though, very disappointing</i></font>

[Patricia]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#That scam has been going on for at least a couple of years now.....#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#