Since I put my Acura on sale online, I’ve got at least 4 emails from UK wanting to buy my car for a “client” in Canada (they represent themselves as buying agents). The emails sound official and polite, but it is a common scam. They will offer you money in Money Order or Cashier’s Check, and often paying you more than what you asked for asking you to pay them back the extra in cash. Since it’s Money Order and the bank clears in a couple of days, people usually just send the stuff over even though it sounds fishy. But weeks later the bank will tell you that the Money Order you deposited is fake, and you have to pay them back.

It’s a stupid US banking system that makes no sense putting the burden on the end customers, but that’s the way it is, so watch out. You can read the news story here.

Here’s an example of the scam email that I got:

Greeting…,

We specialise in purchase of auto machines for customers here in
England.

I HAVE A CUSTOMER THAT IS INTERESTED IN BUYING YOUR CAR.

WHAT IS YOUR FIRM PRICE?

PLS ATTACH ATLEAST TWO RECENT PICS FOR MY CLIENT EVALUTION IF AVAIL.

THANKS FOR THE ADVERT..

Garratt Sutton

Anyway, other than the scam car offers, I’ve only got 2 offers for my car so far, and they are way low. Things are not looking good. I am going to bring the car to Carmax today to see what they will offer, and have someone else to come take a look also tomorrow. Kinda just want to get it over with now so we can park the Murano in the garage.