27 Feb
2006
27 Feb
'06
4:51 p.m.
In message <200602271611030669.09F9D9EA at 10.0.0.252>
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
From a buyer's standpoint, bearer instruments like
money orders are not
such a good deal if they get lost.USPS is excruciatingly slow on processing
claims--you can expect to wait at least 6 months get your money back if a
money order is stolen.
Hm, I suspect the same applies to Royal Mail Postal Orders. Thing is, it
seems there's no way for RM to do anything other than say "yeah, it got
cashed". They don't take your address when you cash them, so it'd be damn
hard for them to trace you if it did turn out to be fake...
And whatever you do, don't fall for the
"Well, I know the item sold for
$100, but I don't know what it'll cost to ship, so I'll send you a MO for
$250 and you can just reimburse me the difference." It's becoming
increasingly common for that MO to be bogus.
I got a wonderful little email from someone "wanting to buy" something I had
listed on ebay a few years ago. When I say wonderful of course, I meant
"badly written scam". Something along the lines of "Hi, how much to ship
to
Lagos [alarm bell starts ringing here] and my associate in UK owes me $2000,
can i tell him to send cheque to you and you reimburse me? [ALARM BELL
IRREVOCABLY ON]". Square-bracketed text = my notes.
I (politely) told him where to stick his cheque, and that if he insisted on
shipping to Lagos, he'd have to pay by direct bank transfer. Never heard from
him again - gee, I wonder why...
--
Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder
philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G