Rob....just play it out. Let the check come. I just got one yesterday for $8000 for my $3500 horse. The fun of the game is costing the Nigerians money to get those bogus checks here. Sometimes upwards of $75. 24 hours after Fed Ex delivers your check, you can call them. Say
REP to the voice mail thing, then you'll get a live person. Tell that person you want INTERNATIONAL. That person can then tell you who shipped the check, how much it cost them, the address, etc. Then if you want, you can be connected to their Fraud department which will start investigating that account overseas.
My check, shipped from Lagos Nigeria by LUIS D, is drawn on a San Antonio Bank of America branch. The account number is a legit account, but was stolen off a real check and used to perpetrate this fraud.
I wanted to run the check through to gather the paper trail for a news story, but when I talked to the Texas bank, they told me that once the Federal Reserve saw it, they would forward it back to Texas and me and my bank would never see it again...and I want to keep this check...so I'm not running it through.
You can stall your people for a few days, telling them your banker wants to make sure it clears before they hand you over all that money. You will eventually have to write the buyer, however, and tell them the bank refused the check and they'll have to send another one or something. Be prepared because you will get nasty email, etc, calling YOU a fraud!! But the name of the game on our end is 1) letting the world know about it, and 2) Costing the scammers money!!!!!
My home email is
tobiano@charter.net if anyone wants to write me about this.
Carolyn