possible scam alert

[AJCts411]

Having posted in Tugs for sale, I received a response and an offer. (redacted)

1- I will be willing to pay $x,000 for your timeshare, closing will commence as soon as possible.

2- I am hearing impaired in both ears and as a result, I will doing all closing formalities through my broker. I will be responsible for the closing cost and title transfer fees along with my broker fees.

3- Closing will be handled through XXXX American title transfer(www.xxxam.com/title ) who would work with your home resort directly and funds will be held in Escrow during closing. Purchase contract will be prepared and sent to buyer and seller for perusal and signature from title company. Title company would provide all closing steps and guidance subsequently.
.........
First let me say that in no way do I associate this with the title company named, they are legitimate.
For some reason, my scam antenna went up with the offer. I did some searches, and found many postings of similar sounding scams. One typical is below.


--------Received an email from LaToya Brown inquiring about my timeshare for sale. Claimed she was hearing impaired and would be using her broker at First American Title to handle escrow account and closing. Sent her a contract for sale, after not hearing from her decided to google her phone number (619) 648 0812. It also came up as a scam for Eileen Hayes and other names, all scam rip-offs. BEWARE. She used her email ltbrown1900 and 1901 @ gmail.com.----- one of several scams.

I hesitate to name the person/email, who made the offer since there was not deal, no attempt to get money or ownership or points from me, as there was no deal.

Has anyone else been contacted with offers from "hearing impaired" buyers? Was curious what their end game is? How do scammers get your money?

 

[brianfox]

Wise to have searched for similar offers.
Smells like a duck. Probably is a duck.

 

[SmithOp]

Known scammer “hearing impaired”, reported many times here.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[DeniseM]

+1 This is a known scammer. To protect other Tuggers, you should post their contact info, so they can be blocked from TUG (again.)

 

[TUGBrian]

and another reminder that ANYONE can contact you thru your ads in the marketplace. the messaging system is not limited to TUG members.

and yes please provide the email address and we will gladly block it.

 

[TheTimeTraveler]

Having posted in Tugs for sale, I received a response and an offer. (redacted)

1- I will be willing to pay $x,000 for your timeshare, closing will commence as soon as possible.

2- I am hearing impaired in both ears and as a result, I will doing all closing formalities through my broker. I will be responsible for the closing cost and title transfer fees along with my broker fees.

3- Closing will be handled through XXXX American title transfer(www.xxxam.com/title ) who would work with your home resort directly and funds will be held in Escrow during closing. Purchase contract will be prepared and sent to buyer and seller for perusal and signature from title company. Title company would provide all closing steps and guidance subsequently.
.........
First let me say that in no way do I associate this with the title company named, they are legitimate.
For some reason, my scam antenna went up with the offer. I did some searches, and found many postings of similar sounding scams. One typical is below.


--------Received an email from LaToya Brown inquiring about my timeshare for sale. Claimed she was hearing impaired and would be using her broker at First American Title to handle escrow account and closing. Sent her a contract for sale, after not hearing from her decided to google her phone number (619) 648 0812. It also came up as a scam for Eileen Hayes and other names, all scam rip-offs. BEWARE. She used her email ltbrown1900 and 1901 @ gmail.com.----- one of several scams.

I hesitate to name the person/email, who made the offer since there was not deal, no attempt to get money or ownership or points from me, as there was no deal.

Has anyone else been contacted with offers from "hearing impaired" buyers? Was curious what their end game is? How do scammers get your money?

STAY AWAY from it. You'll save yourself a lot of aggravation.






.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Knowing full well this is a scam, one time I let it go to see how it went. It got to the point where I told him that I did not need any up front "earnest money" from him. I was content to let the funds go through an escrow account, and I requested which office of First American would be doing the escrow so that I could be sure the escrow instructions were proper. He insisted that he needed to send the earnest money, that he had bought many timeshares and that was how it was done.

I replied that I have bought and sold numerous timeshares, am quite familiar with the process, and I know that earnest money is not needed. I then added the IP trace on his message and showed that he was actually located in Africe, not wherever in the US he was claiming to be. Needless to say, I never heard from him again.

 

[Pathways]

Sorry, but I just can't help it.....

Smells like a duck. Probably is a duck

what does a duck 'smell' like?

 

[LannyPC]

Was curious what their end game is? How do scammers get your money?

According to similar posts here on TUG, the idea behind this scam is to get the seller (in this case, you) all excited about a lucrative offer for your TS. Then in the e-mail, the person will tell you to forward the commission to his broker after he sends you the purchase amount.

You can find posts like this if you enter Samuel Kaplan into TUG's search function.

 

[RX8]

According to similar posts here on TUG, the idea behind this scam is to get the seller (in this case, you) all excited about a lucrative offer for your TS. Then in the e-mail, the person will tell you to forward the commission to his broker after he sends you the purchase amount.

You can find posts like this if you enter Samuel Kaplan into TUG's search function.

And you deposit that check which is more than the selling price. They ask you to send the difference to their “broker” for their commission. You do that and a week or two later the check bounces as fraudulent.

You are out bank fees, the amount you sent to the broker and you still own your timeshare.

 

[geist1223]

How about cashing the check at a check cashing service? Or ask for a Certified Guaranteed check from a major Bank. Do not put it in your checking account.

 

[TheTimeTraveler]

How about cashing the check at a check cashing service? Or ask for a Certified Guaranteed check from a major Bank. Do not put it in your checking account.

A check cashing service is too smart to cash it, and even if they do you are still on the hook for it.

And the buyer won't be sending any Certified Guaranteed Checks. By the way, do they have any major banks in the middle of Africa?




.

 

[jhac007]

I believe that most people who fall victims to this type of fraud is from their greed not their ignorance!

 

[LannyPC]

I believe that most people who fall victims to this type of fraud is from their greed not their ignorance!

Yes, greed has something to do with it. I think ignorance does play a small part, though. One reason why people fall for this scam as well as the upfront fee resale scam is that they are either ignorant or delusional (or even both) about the genuine resale value of their TS. After all, assuming an owner bought at one of those sales presentations, wasn't the buyer convinced that the property would hold its resale value, or even increase in resale value? What knowledgeable person would knowingly pay tens of thousands of dollars for something that, a couple weeks later, would be worth about zero dollars?

 

[AJCts411]

+1 This is a known scammer. To protect other Tuggers, you should post their contact info, so they can be blocked from TUG (again.)

This is the name of the person....Louise Fischer, louifis24@gmail.com .