A similar scam was described on Clark Howard's radio program. He said that
it could take as long as 30 days for the bank to know that the check was
bogus, even if the bank was in the US. I have deposited many certified
checks and have never known the bank to even take a second look. I had a
Navy Credit union draft that I deposited and even asked them if everything
was OK. Two days later they rejected the draft. Fortunately it was
actually OK and I only had to drive 75 miles to the Navy CU offices and
pick up $16000.
Apparently, unless you know a lot about the person giving you money, the
only safe way is to have them do the bank transaction and hand you green
money. Most banks will not give you cash for any check unless you have
sufficient funds deposited with them to cover it if it bounces for any
reason. If it bounces they just suck the money out of your account. I
suppose the issuing bank would have a different attitude, but I have never
had a chance to test that.
All this sure makes selling cars a lot harder if the buyer/seller is out of
town. I suppose something like PayPal would work since they guarantee the
funds. That is, if the funds fail (bad check, bad check account, credit
card charge back) they are left holding the problem. Of course, there are
plenty of problems with PayPal and I am not sure I would trust them with
the price of a car.
Sam
At 09:33 PM 1/15/2003 -0800, Randall Young wrote:
> > If the check IS certified it is guaranteed by the bank and that is easy
> > enough to verify by contacting the issuing bank. Unless the "certified"
> > check is bogus. But that is also verifiable by contacting the bank.
>
>I believe that's true, IF it's drawn on a US bank and is legitimate. When
>push came to shove, though, I'll bet this happens after banking hours and
>there's some dire reason it can't wait until Monday morning. The local
>paper printed a column just the other day, warning of anyone that asks you
>to transfer money for them. Even if the deal works as advertised, the
>transfer of large sums of money can be construed as money laundering, which
>is illegal (according to the article). And the banks do report any
>'suspicious' activity to the Fed.
>
>However, the original post said "money order", and those are generally not
>guaranteed. Traveler's checks are another thing that is no better than a
>personal check.
>
>BTW, even for an ordinary personal check, you can present it to the issuing
>bank and request cash on the spot. Or at least used to be, I haven't had
>occasion to do so for many years.
>
>Randall
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