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Motorcycle Scams
If you are you selling your motorcycle on eBay or cycletrader or elsewhere, you've probably gotten some emails from buyers in other countries.
We've seen strong interest lately buying motorcycles in the USA and then shipping them overseas to Australia, Germany, Poland, France, England, Ireland, South Africa, and
Indonesia, to name a few. Why? Because in Poland for example, motorcycles are real expensive and are a hot commodity. We're talking Harleys and especially sportbikes (R1, R6, GSXR750, CBR929RR, etc.).
We can ship a motorcycle over there for
between $1350 to maybe $2350 depending on where it's going to and where it's coming from in the US. Motorcycles are $2000 to over $8000 more expensive outside the USA, so it makes sense to buy used motorcycles and ship them over.
We have customers who ship motorcycles for resale every month. So understand that there could be some very legitimate offers on your
motorcycle that come from other countries.
It could also be an international motorcycle scam. Here's what to look for.
The two countries that we see most often trying to scam people out of big ticket (items like motorcyles, cars, trucks, SUV's, boats, horses, furniture, etc.) are Africa and Indonesia. Whenever we give a quote to move something there we immediately suspect a scam.
We'd like someone to prove us wrong on this one, but we don't think there are any honest deals coming out of these two countries. We know a couple of overseas shipping companies that won't ship anything to Africa or Indonesia because of the extremely high
amount of scams to those countries, scams for them and their customers. Lately (last part of 2004) we haven't been hearing much about Africa or Indonesia. The information on this page applies to any overseas deals.
Overseas Somewhere
They usually sound very interested and sincere. Lots of emails. Proof of bank references. A solid and respectible person. But wait, let's see how they pay you. It's one of two ways, either in cashiers check or credit cards.
So far so good you think. You get the payment and deposit it in your bank. Everything looks good. Your bank says it's good. No problem. It "clears" the bank in 24 hrs and the funds are "available" for withdrawl the next day. Then two weeks or even three weeks later everything falls apart.
The bank calls you and says the
cashiers check was fake or the credit cards were stolen. It takes about two weeks for the banks to sort it out. Then your bank has no choice but to chargeback your account in full. Oops. Sorry. By then you've already shipped the motorcycle. Too late. You got scammed.
The photo below shows a fake cashiers check. Looks real, doesn't it? (By the way, fake cashiers checks from US banks are discovered in 2 or 3 days. Overseas fake cashiers checks take 2 or 3 weeks.)
Africa
Now lets talk about Africa, the country famous for the Nigerian Advance Fee Scam (also known as the Nigerian 419 Scam). This scam most likely comes from someone in Africa, but it could be from anywere. Here's how it works. A guy emails you and says he's interested in your motorcycle, car, truck, SUV, horse, furniture, or other big
ticket item you are selling. Let's say you are selling a motorcycle for $5500.00. Okay, they tell you they are very interested. They want to buy it NOW. They are in Africa, but they have a client in the USA who owes them
$7950.00. They tell you they'd like to have their client pay you the $7950.00, and as soon as the check clears you can send them your motorcycle and the difference of $2450.00. They know you are an honest man and trust that you will act quickly to finalize this transaction.
The email will say something like: "The reason why I am doing this is because it would take at
least 30 days for a check sent from over here to clear, whereas it would take only between three to four days for a check sent within the United States to clear. And this is the fastest way for me to send money to you now." So they send you a check like
the one shown above, it "clears" the bank in 24 hrs, you send your motorcycle and $2450.00, and two to three weeks later you are in for quite a shock. Don't even deal with anyone that wants to send you more money than your item is worth
and asks you to send them the difference. This is not a legitimate way to do business. It's always a scam.
The Solutions
How can you prevent yourself from getting scammed? Easy, just wait at least 3 weeks after receiving your money for overseas transactions. Tell your buyer you are going to wait three weeks after receiving his money to be sure everything is okay, and then you'll ship the bike. Legitimate buyers understand.
Scammers won't. Even if the bank says it's okay and the
funds are good, wait anyway. You have to be sure that there really is no problem. Treat credit cards and cashiers
checks like you just received a personal check. The problem with overseas credit cards is that you can't verify the cardholders address. If it's stolen, you won't find out until the real cardholder complains to his bank. That could be a month or more later.
Overseas credit cards are the highest risk.
Wire Transfers
The best way to receive payment is to get a wire transfer.
Wire transfers are very secure. This is your preferred payment option for overseas transactions. Get them to wire the funds into your account, wait about 3 days just to make sure, and it's a done deal. Scammers don't wire funds. They would much rather use a cashiers check, a business check, or a credit card.
In conclusion, if someone contacts you from another country to buy your motorcycle, it might or might not be a good thing. Keep the above advice in mind and don't get scammed. If all is well and it looks like it's not a scam, have them contact us for a shipping quote. In fact,
you can send all your potential buyers to us for a motorcycle shipping quote. We move bikes within the
US or overseas too. We'll collect the moving charges from them so you don't have to be involved in setting up the transportation services. Just send them to MoverQuest.
Escrow services
Here are a couple of other options for buying & selling motorcycles within the USA. First of all you might think about an escrow service. One of our customers told us about www.Escrow.com. He bought a motorcycle from someone on eBay, and Escrow.com made
it easy to have a secure transaction for both the buyer and seller. Here's how it works: the buyer pays the escrow service the payment of the motorcycle, and they hold the payment until it's loaded onto the truck. The payment is sent to the seller prior to delivery.
We notify Escrow.com when we pickup and deliver the motorcycle. It costs about $75.00 - $100.00 for this service. They are not affiliated with MoverQuest in any way.
MoverQuest Check Transfer Service
The other option is to send us the cashiers check for the motorcycle (made payable to the seller, not MoverQuest). We do not deposit it. We give the cashiers check to the seller when we pick up the motorcycle. Our fees for this service are $7.15 per $1000.00 of value, or fraction of $1000.00.
The minimum charge is $50.05 (for $7k and under). For example, it would cost $78.65 for a motorcycle purchase of $10,001.00 up to $11,000.00. Let us know if you are interested in this service, and we'll tell you the address of the closest office to send the check to. This service is available for most cities in the US.
By the way, we haven't seen fake cashiers checks for US transactions, only for overseas deals.
Fake cashiers checks from US banks are discovered in about 2 or 3 days. It's going to take us longer than that for delivery, so we'll just hold the motorcycle if there is a problem with the cashiers check. This protects both the buyer and the seller.
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