Escrow companies can be very helpful assisting a transaction between buyer and seller safely, but you ought to make sure you are using a legit service. Once a deal between a buyer and a seller is established, its time to make a transaction. If you suspect anything fishy then a service like escrow can come in handy. The buyer will send funds directly to the escrow service, then they will notify the seller to ship out the goods. Once the goods arrive at your doorstep you have an inspection period to verify the legitimacy of goods. If everything proves to be okay, escrow releases the funds to the buyer. As you see in this situation, buyers and sellers can not scam one another and the deal goes smoothly, that is unless you run into a bogus escrow company.
Scammers can set up a fake escrow website. They promise you to provide escrow services, but once you make a payment believing you are doing a safe transaction the fake escrow website will take your money and disappear. It is a growing problem and you should always check your escrow company before you do anything at all. Here is a list of legit and verified escrow sites:
July 4th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Hi!
My name is Mike Ashley and I believe I may have found a possible fraud on the net and thought you should know.
http://www.live-shipping.tk/ This link will take you directly to their web site and you can judge for yourself. I had sent a guy an e-mail about purchasing a BIG DOG Chopper for $5800.00. He responded within minutes and claimed that the bike was in the shipping yard of this company awaiting a buyer and he had paid all expenses. I sent an e-mail to the company to ask for verification that the bike was in fact real and where he said it was and faster than I could return to my e-mail from their web site I had received a return e-mail from “the Company” giving me almost verbatim every word he had given to me.
Without this web address the site doesn’t seem to exist. Or at least Google cant seem to find it no matter what I type into it. If you type the web address into Google it brings up more discerning info…try it for yourself and see.
I don’t want this to be a scam…cause if it’s real, the deal is unreal. But I don’t want to let something go uninvestigated and find out it hurt someone else.
If you have any questions my e-mail address is mikeashley@charterinternet.com
July 8th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hi! I wish I had stumbled across this website 10 days ago. I also came across a “too good to be true” deal on craigslist. The seller sounded legit, but it ended up with live-shipping.tk/ as the 3rd party. The seller had a TC33D New Holland compact tractor with 72″ mower deck for sale. He stated that 1/2 of the money was needed up front via MoneyGram and the balance would be COD. Stupid me sent the first half and barely notified live-shipping company and they e-mailed back and said that I needed to send the balance ASAP before they would ship the tractor, and if I didn’t send the money(backed out of the deal), “we will stop shipment immediately and you will receive a refund in 30 days.However, please understand all shipping costs will be lost and deducted upon your behalf, due to this problem.”(this quote was in red print!!). I talked to my county’s sheriff’s dept and they told me there wasn’t much I could do to get my “down-payment” back, as I didn’t send in the balance and give them a chance to ship the item. I am wondering how much the shipping costs will be? Thanks for reading and beware!
August 8th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Hi i have also come across the same person that is saying that he had the tractor, i sent him anouther email wanting to know if there is anouther way we could go about this and ive not gotten anything back . now i know why
August 20th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I ran across this same guy but this time he was selling two jetskis and a trailer for $5800. He said that he was working at an offshore oil rig and had no access to a phone. The skis were already at shipping company which was live shipping. After several back and forth emails I got the feeling things weren’t right and searched for the shipping website away from his website. It didn’t exist but thankfully I found this one and it saved me some headaches.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
wow i have just met the same jetski guy that john did he said word for word what he said to me that he said to john i have been stringing him on for over a week now just to waste his time like he has done to me. thank god i found this site
September 1st, 2008 at 6:31 pm
another person, very similar situation trying to sell a motorcycle via craigslist, again shipping with live-shipping.tk and on an oil rig! I read about these scams on a few sites with ship-american.com im getting the same feeling from this as well. Search the email twine71@gmail.com and it comes up with a bunch of listings of the same bike in different locations. Also he is selling a motorhome in the use and canada!!!
September 1st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/ship-americancom-c46515.html
link about ship-american.com
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I was shopping on Craigslist today and ran across a backhoe I thought was a steal. Guess the price? $5800. Sounds familiar huh. I also looked up the website live shipping.tk . If your sharp you’ll notice a few spellimg errors. That immediately indicated a fraudulent web site. Watch out!
September 12th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I ‘ve received a great numbers of a e-mail of a company called WHCRREA, and a man called William Davies, and Bill Benson, they are all scams, be carefull with this email williamdavies4u2004@yahoo.com.Please don’t send money to this man and his company, It is all fake.OK
October 17th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I had an expensive piece of jewlery listed on craigslist and a man named “David Smith” contacted me and offered me $200.00 over my asking price, stating he wanted it shipped asap for his sons birthday. Well, he said he paid via “Alert Pay” and I did infact recieve several emails from alert pay saying that “David Smith” had paid the $1200.00, but the money order wouldn’t be delivered to me until AFTER I had sent the shipping confirmation number. “David Smith” said he lived in Canada but wanted the piece shipped to his son “Dennis Dunsford” in Anaheim CA. Without really thinking about it I went ahead and shipped the piece, notifed “Alert Pay” of the shipping confirmation number – and now it’s as if they have dissapeared. I am not even getting any return email from the “David SMith” guy. I am just sick about it! And the more I think about it, I should have seen it coming – willing to pay more than I asked, have to ship before get money, the “son” having a different name than the father. (could be a step father I guess).
Do NOT send any money or ship any items to this guy!
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:04 am
i was selling my front mount intercooler on craigslist for $200 and just got a chech in the mail for 2,850.00$ dont know what to do with it he said its to cover shipping to canada ? sugestions?
October 24th, 2008 at 5:06 am
It is probably a fake check or “dirty money” that needs to be cleaned. If he cashed in the money himself, he could be traced, so he needs to clean it.
Look (use the search) for the article on “money laundering”, “check fraud” and “money magic llc”. Read the comments as well.
All these may have something similar with your case.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
My name is Telma and I was stolen by a man called William Davies and your fake company WHCRREA.His company promisses job and houses in USA, Canadá, and UK, be carefull.He should be in a jail.
November 23rd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I have been scammed for $40K on a eBay purchase of a pickup. I payed through a scam escrow company named eMutualTrust.us. The seller and the fake escrow company turned out to be using the same computer IP address. Now I’m down $40K with no truck to show for it.
The website provider told me to take a hike, saying he had no intention of removing the site, unless directed by the courts.
Before the end of the auction, I wrote to eBay and told them I was concerned about possible inconsistencies in the item description. They wrote back and said to continue with the auction as the deal was insured for up to $50K. After the sale, they now say I am not eligible for the insurance since I had been out of the country briefly during the auction. Apparently, this condition is in small print somewhere on their website.
As far as I am concerned, eBay bears partial culpability on another level. I have since read reports of warnings about these same people being removed from eBay soon after customers post them.
My best advise is don’t buy or sell anything on eBay, or other on-line auction, unless you can afford to lose your cash / item because it is a jungle out there.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
hi my name is dennis dunsford and i live in anaheim read the above comment i was born in england and my dad died years ago his name was edward dunsford if youwant to contact me at dennisdunsford@aol.com in will try and find out who you parcel was delivered to
February 8th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I wanted to write a reply to this post as it was quite interesting as these people thought i was stupid and knew i was a Private investigator and still tried to scam me. Shame on them. Enjoy
Response e-mail #1:
Hi I’m Thomas,
The jet ski’s and the trailer are still for sale. They are in perfect shape. Here are some more pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/twine71/Two2007YamahaJetSkiWaverunnersFXSeriesWTrailer . (Deluxe Blue Yamaha FX Cruiser High Output with only 22.2 hours,Black Yamaha FX High Output with only 21.9 hours and 2007 Com-Fab Double Ski Trailer).I have a clear title to the 2 (two) jet skis and the trailer.It has been garaged and never drove on saltwater. I am forced to sell quickly because I need money to pay the mortgage on my house.
My final price is $ 5.100( price includes the 2 jetskis and the trailer).I already has tons of emails so I hope you understand that I need to sort them out. I will take in consideration only those buyers who are really interested in buying the jet ski’s, to be sure that I don’t waste my time with endless discussions. This way, I shall be assured of the serious intentions.
Thank you.
P.S. If you are decided to buy it now, I will make a private auction just for you on eBay so you can purchase it there. That way you will receive assistance for the purchase, paperwork, title transfer and an extended warranty. They also are guaranteeing purchases up to $ 10.000 so we will both be protected.
Response e-mail #2:
Hi,
The jet ski’s are already at a shipping company in Las Vegas, NV. I took the jet ski’s and the trailer to them to be able to ship it to a potential buyer whilst I’m out of town.My brother in law works there,and he promised me that it will cost me nothing to ship it in the Continental US. I also have the jet ski’s listed on eBay and that lets me use their secured system. I’m very busy with my job and I’m sorry I can’t meet you in person. According to eBay you have 5 days from the time you receive the jet ski’s to inspect it and decide if you want to keep it or not.
So please let me know if you are interested so i can give you the directions to the ebay site so you can check the auction.
Thomas
Response e-mail #3:
This is the ebay link :
http://httpmotortransactions.com/c/eBaySecureAuctionW0QQitemZ2802163510QQihZ018QQcategoryZ50029QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVehiclesListingItemW0QQitemZ2802163510QQihZ018QQcategoryZ50029QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVehiclesListingItemJetSki/
Let me know
Thanks
February 9th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Thanks for posting these concerns… I received the EXACT SAME email #1 as Troy today, and replied with further inquiries but decided to search the email address to see if I could find contact info, location etc. Was surprised to find this website instead. I have contacted craigslist to report the abuse – Hope Troy or someone is able to catch this guy and prosecute. I’m sure I will be getting email #2 tomorrow…
June 1st, 2009 at 11:55 am
live-shipping.tk is indeed alive again. I have sent an abuse report to the Dutch host BV Dot TK on this date.
Edgar
June 1st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I was talking to a guy andrew49button@gmail.com and a andrew49button@comcast.net about a 26 foot Crest Pontoon with a retail value of about $25K to $30K and he had to sell it to pay his mortgage for $6000…. I started to get suspicious and have since been having a grand time trying to get more information out of him. He too travels a lot and his brother in law works at the shipping yard, but he is not allowed to talk about business so I can’t talk him about the boat. The thing that finally made it click that this “too good to be true offer was too good to be true” was, the pictures he was using (also a picaso site) were the same that was listed on a classified ad on iBoats.com, except that was on $28,900….. Please be cautious of these scammers, I work with cyber security, so am pretty sharp with this stuff, but I still got excited at this too good to be true scenario!
June 1st, 2009 at 7:58 pm
now trying the same with a winnebago…deal sounds too good to be true; now I’m sure it is!
June 16th, 2009 at 4:55 am
there is man at Amsterdam called Earlton Bouwman or Early.B.C.B Bouwman he invites women from the third world to know Amsterda, but on true he wants to stolen them an explore them, He use sthe following emails:
ebouwman@4all.nl
earlyinfo@hotmail.com
na.trave@vaart.net
He has no one leg and send pics to the women in houses that are not him.
He uses the following mobile phone| (0031)-())-638142769
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
http://bluemixexpress.com it is a fake escrow web site, but I don’t know where to report it
October 30th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Does this sound like something you read before? Its about a 2000 Winnebago motor home for $9055.00. Had to sell to pay mortgage.
I found over 20 post on craigs list across the country with very same unit listed.
This is the last email from the scammer.
======================
Fri. Oct. 30. 2009
Hi again,
The motor home is already at a shipping company. I took the motor home to them to be able to ship it to a potential buyer whilst I’m out of town. My brother in law works there, and he promised me that it will cost me nothing to ship it in the US. I also have the motor home listed on eBay and that lets me use their secured system. I’m very busy with my job and I’m sorry I can’t meet you in person. According to eBay you have 5 days from the time you receive the motor home to inspect it and decide if you want to keep it or not.
So if you really want it I will give you directions/link to the auction on eBay motors because this is the only way that I’m going to sell this motor home.
Mail me ASAP if you are still very interested in my motor home because now I have more buyers still interested.
========================================
Use caution with any deal “Too good to be true!”
October 31st, 2009 at 7:25 am
Has anyone actually come across a fake escrow company?
November 8th, 2009 at 7:29 am
Andrew49button@gmail.com wants me to send him my phone # and says Craigslist will send me a code that i need to give him. This is all for a free car he is supposidly giving away. Sounds like a scam to me.His email states as follows;
“Hello,
first of all i have to know you`re for real. please give me your cell phone # and craigslist will call and give you a security code number. pls reply me with the code and i`ll know you`re not a scammer and we can proceed with this transaction. the car looks and runs perfect. you can come and see it.”