There is no buyer. There is only a scammer trying to steal your iphone.
He is not interested in your identity or bank account, only your iphone.
The check is FAKE and will NOT clear. Do not attempt to cash it, shred it and cease emailing that scammer.
The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "secretary/assistant/accountant" and will demand you cash a large fake check sent on a stolen UPS/FedEx billing account number and send the money via Western Union or moneygram back to the scammer posing as the "shipping company". When your bank realizes the check is fake and it bounces, you get the real life job of paying back the bank for the bounced check fees and all the bank's money you sent to an overseas criminal.
Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.
When you refuse to send him your cash he will send increasingly nasty and rude emails trying to convince you to go through with his scam. The scammer could also create another fake name and email address like "FBI@ gmail.com", "police_person @hotmail.com" or "investigator @yahoo.com" and send emails telling you the job is legit and you must cash the fake check and send your money to the scammer or you will face legal action. Just ignore, delete and block those email addresses. Although, reading a scammer's attempt at impersonating a law enforcement officer can be extremely funny.
Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of being the perfect buyer, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.
You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.
Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.
Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.
If you google "fake check buyer scam", "fake Western Union buyer fraud" or something similar and you will find hundreds of posts of victims and near victims of this type of scam.
It's a SCAM
NOBODY but a scammer offers $50 MORE than the listing price. Real buyers try to negotiate the price down, not up
If the check is for a penny over $220 you DO NOT cash or deposit it. It's fake. if the name and address on the check are NOT the same as the person you are talking to and the exact address he told you to send the phone to, then the check is stolen and you can be charged for cashing or depositing it. You ONLY have the right to deposit a check from the person you are in contact with for the exact amount agreed upon in emails - not a penny more
It can take up to 4 weeks for a check to clear
you are about to fall for a fake check scam. Why would the scammer offer $50 extra. Tear up the check and find a local buyer paying cash.
A check clearing can take weeks. Banks have to make the fund available after a few days, but if the check turns out bad a week or more later, the bank takes back the money.
Could be, most dont overpay willingly like that. You can always cash the check and check a few days later with your bank (your bank only, dont go by anything he tells you) to confirm the check has cleared. Then send the phone.
Here are some common online scams, yours sounds like number 1 http://www.justtext.com/scams/index.html
Not always, read this
http://onyoursi.de/2012/01/is-this-a-sca...
there are a lot of scammers out there I wouldn't trust this. it could be a genuine person but most of the time its not! deal in person only! pay pal would be safer!
if the check clears it is no scam. A check clearing means that it is all legal and stuff.
i was selling my iphone for $170 on craigslist and i got a offer from someone who said he would like to buy it for $220 with a personal. check. He said the reason he was paying 220 was because he didnt want to drive all the way down about a one hour ride. He sent the check today and i will be receiving the check in mail by tomorrow. He told me to mail the iphone to him when the check clears. What does that mean for check to clear? and is this a scam?
