QChex: Beware

A few weeks ago a person submitted an inquiry using the contact form on my cigar sales website. The person claimed to be the owner of "fatmarketstore" from the UK. He wanted to buy several hundred dollars worth of cigars. I was a bit sketched out from the beginning but I thought what the heck and sent him a quote.

He changed email addresses from a yahoo account to a usa.com account (both free email providers) a couple of weeks back which made things even sketchier.

Well I got the check in yesterday; it was for $800 more then the quote and was printed by a company called Qchex.

Here are some links about the scam:

http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/SpecialAlert/2005/sa8205.html
http://www.bankersonline.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/367381/Main/358288/

Has anyone else had something similar happen to them? I thought about playing with this guy a little, but I just don't have the time for BS. I sent him an email that I destroyed the check and if he wanted the cigars to send a cashiers.

 

Did you try cashing the check? The FDIC says some, not all are fraudulent. Although since he overpaid you, it sounds real fishy. Thanks for the info.

 

If I send you a cheque for $10000 for a box of Don Juan, could you wire me the difference back? It's just that ... um ... my, er, cheque thingy is stuck on 10000 and it will be 6 months before I can get it fixed.
<cough>

 

I took it a little further this afternoon and found the company who the check was made out as being from. I called the office and apparently I'm the second or third retailer to contact them about these checks. I sent them a fax with the check and a few of the emails with correspondence with the "scamer".