Hi NEWGEN! Sorry to hear about your loss… it is a terrible thing to have happen… Thanks for starting this great thread though – hopefully you will help someone else avoid the same thing…

Hi Manofaction – the advantage of cash is that most of us would be able to detect counterfeit notes (if we stopped and looked at it) as we deal with cash on a daily basis. Unfortunatley bank cheques are a far less familiar to most of so anything that looks like it could be a bank cheque could maybe be passed off as real.

I totally agree there is a lot of counterfeit money going around out there… So we all have to be careful!

My friend is the branch manager of a foreign currencies branch for one of the big banks… As this is their only foriegn currency branch in the state all international notes exchanged at all suburban branches come back to him.. He writes of about $4000 a day in counterfeits – simply because suburban tellers, like anyone, do not deal with these daily and can not easily tell a good fake from a geniune note.

Pelicaninvestments – I like your idea and it is definately worth a try… these heartless people are pretty slick though – it is so lucative it is probably not a one off event and I doubt you could easily trick them. In my brothers case (see https://www.propertyinvesting.com/forum/topic/11962.html?SearchTerms=ebay) they had bought (stole?) a series of pre-paid phone cards (incidently with consecutive numbers) and just used a different one for each victim and then threw it out… He tripped himself up when he rang my brother on a consecutive number to the one he rang on eariler and then introduced himself to my brother as my brother – so he was stealing the identity too!

A great thread and hopefully this will save someone from else from being burned!

Anybody else got some war stories?

Are you thinking BIG enough?

Hi Kay!

I am not a fan of the government regulating everything… We might just get regulated out of making some decisions that benefit us or out of making decisions altogether.

People should demand information and inform themselves before forking out thousands of dollars… That way if some dubious marketers came along and tried to sign you up without giving you any info on what you were paying for the market would sort them out.

I don’t want to live in a pseudo-communist state… I make my decisions and I will wear the consequences of them rather than cry to Ray Martin…

Some of the pop psychology is tremendously powerful and a blessing when used with good intent. I can speak from personal experience – but like you said used with anything less than positive intentions or by amateurs can lead to seriously bad results.

Did you see Robert Allen recently while he was touring… That was disgraceful.. Hypnotising an audience and then having them sign up for his seminar… Totally underhanded and ethically wrong – most of those sheeple (people) had no idea what he was doing to them… If it takes that sort of sales to sell it then I cringe at the value of the content is like.

Cheers,
Greg

Hi Steve!

Be careful… Between you and me – some of the moderators have been jumping on people for advertising lately and it can get a bit emotive and personal too. So it’s best to be careful, as I wouldn’t like to see you get in a tangle with them… It might not work out to well for them…[biggrin]

Thanks for letting us know – Cheers,
Greg

Hi NEWGEN!

CASH is KING!

If someone does not have the cash then they need time.. and TIME is MONEY so if they want time they need to pay more.

I do NOT consider bank cheques as good as cash. They are not legal tender and you are at the mercy of the banks discretion if there should be any dramas. And remember the GOLDEN rule…

“Whoever has the money makes the rules”… So as the bank already has your money they can string you along for as long as they like…

Case 1.
A customer walked into a bank in a small country town in NSW and exchanged cash for a bank cheque. He left and after a short while returned to the same teller who had previously served him. He explained that he had lost the first cheque and she agreed to give him a replacment. (He had not lost the first cheque and now had two!)

He then went to the airport and paid an aircraft mechanic for performing major work on his plane. Over several weeks of work the mechanic was owed maybe $50,000 (I don’t remember the figures) for labour and parts. The mechanic was happy as he had a bank cheque and the man flew home interstate in his plane.

It was not until a few days later that the mechanic was informed by the bank that they were not going to honour the bank cheque he had presented as it was no longer valid – it had been cancelled when the teller issued the second cheque.

So let me asked you this – Was the bank teller the one who made the error in issung a new bank cheque? And also who wore the consequences of the tellers mistake? The banks are a law unto themselves… This would never have happened if cash was used as payment.

I am not sure how this ended up as the police could not question the plane owner as he lived interstate and they were awaiting extradition papers.

Case 2.
A parcel was stolen from a couriers van in Collins st Melbourne… It was a locked bag containing blank bank cheques (I think there were a hundred or so) The theives printed onto the cheques the amount they wanted and went shopping. One victim – a landscape gardener – sold a bobcat for about $15,000 and then went to the bank only to be told by the bank that it was his bad luck and the bank cheque had been stolen and a such would not be honoured.

Did this landscape gardner do anything wrong? Is it reasonable that the bank use an ordinary courier to transport bank cheques, but armoured cars for cash? Obviously they do not consider these as equal commodities.

Well the journalist covering this story interveiwed the chief of the Australian Banks Association and he stated right there on national television that bank cheques are not legal tender and the banks are not obliged to honour them. period.

As John pointed out bank cheques are used at settlment all the time and I think that having contracts involved reduces the risks… but having said that my brother was presented at settlment with bank cheques that had both his names spelt incorrectly on them (Hands up who thinksMichael is a hard name to spell?)… He told the banker to go back and bring him correct cheques (which is what he had paid cheque direction costs for anyway) or else the settlement wold not continue. Funnily enough the banker scrambled up the street and fixed it.

Do you think the bank would let you walk out with their money if mortgage documents had your name spelt incorrectly – I am certain there is no way they would let this happen!

Sorry this post is so long but the banks attitude to customers infuriates me…

A favourite method of mine is direct debit via interent banking when people come to buy stuff from me they can pay there and then and we both have a receipt number.

Another overlooked technique is TT (telegraphic transfer) it costs about $25-$40 and is instantly available in your account. ie does not go via the clearing house.

This is a good option instead of paying $20 for a bank cheque which may not be worth the money it is printed on.

Sorry it is so long but I think people should know this stuff.

Cheers,
Greg

Hi Terry!

I will give that a try and let you know if I have any luck… What I did not mention in the previous post was that I applied for three loans to be settled on the same day – for three properties… So instead of one inquiry for each property I have two for each PLUS another one from the LMI for each property so that is a total of 9 enquires for just 3 loans… I am less than pleased about this and like I said – It makes my credit file look like a dogs breakfast. [angry2]

To be honest I was amazed to find that the one lender made three inquiries on my credit file – in one day… I understand that each of them is for a different loan but as they were all processed via the same application surely one inquiry would have proven my position!

In future I will give them a copy of public access credit file and tell them to conditionally approve my loan application based on the information provided. Then and only then I will give them permisson to make a credit enquiry – to ensure that the information I provided was true and correct… What do all the mortgage brokers out there think of this?

In a logical world this should be routine anyway… But I guess the lenders just choose the path of least resistance with little regard to how it may impact upon their much treasured customer!

Any input from people in the know is much appreciated…

Cheers,
Greg

I remember a story from NZ – and surely their laws are based on similar principles to ours…

Anyway a purchaser changed his mind about the property and used the finance clause to get out of the contract. Somehow the vendor found out that it was not due to unsuccessful finance applications and took the matter to court. The judge ruled that as the purchaser had only made one application with one bank in the 2 week period he had not met the actions one could expect of a reasonable person. The purchaser appealed and counter sued, blah, blah, blah

When it was all said and done the vendor was awarded a large sum from the purchaser for breaking the contract without lawful reason…!

You can tighten up your clause by making it similar to “subject to finance from bank xyz for the sum of not less than $xxx”

Cheers,
Greg

There are some very tricky and sophisticated scams being run on ebay…All I can say if you are prepared to use direct debit to pay funds into the account of someone you have never met for goods you have not yet received you either have to be prepared to loose that money or you are a fool…

My brother nearly got taken for over $2000 – and get this he was the seller!! That is right he was not the buyer – but someone had such a good scam going that they nearly tricked him…

Fortunately someone who this scammer had already ripped off called my brother and let him know what the real story was… Anyway a couple of detectives greeted the purchaser at our front door when he came to collect his booty…oops!

Sadly though this is a big scale scam and the guy who visited us was just a donkey sent by someone he had met in a chat room to pick up the computer in exchange for a bit of cash…so the police are no closer to finding the mastermind behind it all…

Frankly this was way over the head for the police as they do not have the resources to chase up computer crime…They have a file down at the Cheltenam CIU but very few leads…

Bottom Line is this – Be very, very careful as the anonimity of ebay can very easily be exploited…Would you accept a credit card payment from from someone you had never met? What about if they were from overseas (Indonesia maybe – would you be ok with that?)

PM me if you want to send me money – I promise I’ll either pay it back or send you something nice of value in return [biggrin]