Odd request when selling motorcycle…

[motodan]

Here’s how that goes…. That check may seem to “clear” in 3 days, and you allow the buyer (scammer) to pick it up, then 10 days to 2 weeks later your bank is saying they’re grabbing the money back from your account as the check turned out to be a counterfeit.

I went to my credit union to discuss this possibility earlier. They would verify funds, via phone call, with the financial institution issuing check before accepting. They said their policy, on Casher's Checks issued by them, is they could not be voided unless the originator still had physical check in hand when attempting to cancel it. Any time my CU issues a Casher's Check it is ridden off the bank's general ledger, not off an individual's account. So they would verify the bank issuing check had the same protocol. If they did there should be no problem making sure funds are legit, thereby cancelling any possible counterfeiting. And while that give me a warmer fuzzy feel for possible deal, I still had reservations, as noted in prior post. I still haven't heard a peep from that potential "buyer", so believe my concerns to be correct. What is strange to me, concerning this specific situation, is that he actually called me (though his call made the case seem more questionable) and he stated he would wait for funds to clear. And my idea of "clear", is money has been cleared by issuing financial source. Anyway...starting to think keeping the bike could put me money ahead given the scam population now days.

 

[classicvw]

There seems to be no end to what scammers can come up with. Years ago I sold my R1200CL for $6,000 to an out of state buyer.
Three months later he forwarded my exact ad for the bike, complete with my photos and description, only now the contact number was changed. And the price was also changed to $3,000. He joked he should have waited 3 months and gotten a better deal.
Made me wonder how many people bit the bait and tried to buy a $6K bike for $3K?

 

[AntonLargiader]

The VIN report stuff has nothing to do with anyone buying your bike, and everything to do with generating revenue for someone's scammy online business. This has been around for a while. Not hard to do; make an official-looking website that accepts VIN input and payment, ignore the VIN completely, keep the money, generate an official-looking certificate. Then sit at your desk and send out thousands of "I will buy your bike but first you need to..." requests.

 

[adamchandler]

That’s a scam. Go ahead and give this service $40 for a report, send it to the person interested in your bike and they’ll never reply. They’re getting a commission when you click that link and pay $40 so they spam every person selling a bike with the same link, make their $10 in commission and move on to the next person.

 

[globalrider]

Vehicle Goat appears to be a CarFax like site that charges $40.00 for doing reports off of VIN. Told potential buyer I wasn’t interested in paying for a report since I already know bike’s history and provided that in ad. He replies he doesn’t understand since I’m one wanting to sell and that the report fee was cheap. Told him it would be just as cheap for him and sent him VIN to order a report if he wanted it. Haven’t heard anything since. Odd.

Sounds like the text you were getting is from VG trying to make a sale but posing as a buyer. Tell them to FO!

 

[riccas59]

Guy that I just bought a bike from, had the same thing happen to him, seller ignored VIN request, inquirer disappeared. We figured a flipper...