Z1300 Scam Notice

Z1300, ZG1300, ZN1300 and KZ1300 USA Club

!!!Scam Notice!!!

Last Update 9/28/08

There's a lot of people these days apparently that make their living off internet scams.  I've been contacted by a number of these scammers lately, and one of the scams is they offer to buy your bike for one price, but they'll send you a check usually for $1000's more.  They may tell you up front they're going to send extra money, or they may just send it hoping that once you have their check you'll play along.  They usually want to send their 'shipper' out to pick up your bike the day after you get the check from them, because the shipper just happens to be in your area or whatever the excuse.  Then they want you to write their shipper a check for the excess amount - the difference between what they actually paid you versus your asking price.  This is usually going to be at least $1000 difference if not more.  You're supposed to hand YOUR check to the shipper to pay his expenses.  Here's the thing if you haven't figured it out... the 'shipper' is the scammer!

If you call on their check the bank may actually tell you it is good, and there's enough funds to cover it, but when you deposit the check, it bounces or comes back as a fake or stolen check.  They're usually sending something that looks like a  'certified check', which is really not a check at all, but an 'indemnity bond' or 'bearer instrument' cashiers check.  This means the bank will gladly cash them for you, but they secure your own account, and when the check later comes back as a fake, your bank WILL reclaim its funds if the check is a forgery.  In the meantime they've picked up your bike, and cashed YOUR good check like 10 minutes after you gave it to them.  You loose your bike, and you pay them to steal it from you.  Nice day job if you can find someone to fall for it and the problem is, many have.

I'm sure they work the ebay market, and many other markets as well as I've heard from various members who've been ripped off.  On ebay they're usually SELLING bikes, cars, boats, ATV's, etc., that they don't own, and then when you buy it they want either a deposit, or the full purchase price before they ship the vehicle to you, or whatever amount of money they can talk you out of up front.  Needless to say, you don't get anything in return except excuses and eventually, unanswered phone calls or a disconnected number.

And just because they have 50 or even 500 positive feedback doesn't mean they're to be trusted.  They'll build accounts up like that buying small items, and then they'll start running a bunch of vehicles all at once.  They know they can keep this scam going for maybe a month before someone finally complains to ebay, and they get shut down.  In the meantime they've collected deposits on a number of vehicles, and maybe on 2 or 3 vehicles they've been paid in full!  They walk away with $20,000 - $50,000 or more for a few weeks work.

This is a very lucrative scam if you can pull it off because typically if you're buying a car on ebay you are going to have to pay for it in full before the dealer will ship it to you.  The trick is these people aren't dealers rather they're private party sellers so they're looking for money orders or personal checks that they can cash.  Most finance companies won't cut a check to an individual unless the car is in the possession of the finance company first.  They don't like internet sales and can even be difficult or impossible to work with even if you're buying from a legitimate car dealer.

Sometimes they're not selling multiple items, they're only selling one car, bike, boat, motorhome, etc.  You may see that they joined ebay months ago or longer but they have no feedback and now they're selling a vehicle.  NEVER make a large purchase $1000+ from someone who has no feedback even if they've been on ebay for 2 years.  If you do, plan on picking the item up in person so you can put your hands on it before you pay.  There's a lot of people out there who sign up on internet sites for just this type of fraud.  For those people, fraud and theft is their day job and some are pretty good at it.

If they're selling classic cars they might clear $100,000 - $200,00 with a similar classic car loan scam.  They legitimately buy a classic car for a reasonable price.  Old Mopar Hemi cars are real popular, but any old classic muscle cars will work.  Many loan companies offer classic car loans up to 70% of the appraised value of the vehicle.  So they sell the car on ebay, they send you a copy of the clear title showing no liens, and a day or 2 before you come get it they go to the loan company and take out the loan.  In the meantime they've gone to the DMV and gotten a duplicate title claiming the original was lost.  They hand the loan company the duplicate title and take their money.  Then they take your money and hand you the original title.  The one they supposedly lost.  You don't know theirs a lien on the car and if you were to check there's no information on the DMV yet of the lien.  Takes a few days I suppose to get it recorded.  So they've got your money and the loan companies money.  They take your money and go buy another car, but you have to pay off the lien if you want the title.  This is a huge problem these days.

Another type of fraud I run into because I own this site is what I call the bogus member.  There's different ways for the scam to go down, but it's a confidence scam just the same.  The really slick ones will join my club and even send me pictures of 'their' bike.  So they'll invest a little of their own time and money to make it work, expecting a big payoff of maybe only $1000 - $2000.  Only the pictures are not of their bike, but someone else's 1300.  They may even buy a part from me for 'their' bike, but it's usually something cheap.

Normally they'll call me and talk about the part they want, and talk 'shop' about 1300's, and they may even offer to help out on the site.  All of this is just to gain my confidence though, because at some point they'll need to sell their bike quickly, and they'll offer it to me at a price cheap enough that they know I'll be interested in buying it.  Of course they're halfway across the country, so they're expecting me to send the purchase price up front.  And of course they'll provide the bike to the shipper when they come to pick it up.  The only problem is, there is no bike and if I send money, I'll never see it again!  Just a different twist on the ebay scam the way I look at it.

If I list your bike for sale on my site expect 5 or 10 of these idiots emailing or calling you - so beware!  Also, I would be sure to never give out your home address where your bike is actually located.  I wouldn't put it past someone that does this kind of scam for a living, to just come out and steal the bike if they knew where it was.  I'm sure there's different variations of this scam, so it pays to be aware that there are quite a few people out there making a living off internet related scams.  Moral of the story is if a deal doesn't feel right or seem right to you it probably isn't, and just because they're posting on this kz1300 site doesn't mean they're OK to deal with!  My bulletin boards are open to all until I find out there's a problem, and then I have a reason to suspect they're a scammer.  david@kz1300.com

• Scams have involved sending sellers a foreign or out of state cashiers check that was later found to be fake.  In many cases even a bank cannot determine if a check is fake until it is submitted to the issuing bank, often taking 3 weeks and more often 2 weeks after the car is gone.
  
  In one case a man is on trial for depositing a fake check that he accepted for his vehicle.  Now he's with no car, no cash and facing jail time for being a victim.

• Do NOT Refund an overpayment.  Some sellers are faced with a buyer that either sends a check or claims to have someone send a check exceeding the sale amount and requesting that the seller pay the shipper and refund the balance to the fraudulent buyer.  Not only have sellers lost their car they also spent their own cash to do it.

Here's another site - www.sbc.com  which is our local telephone company and they have a good site on different scams going around on the internet today.