I had a call on Wednesday from a nice lady who was really anxious to see one of my listings in Nampa, Idaho. She explained that she had a multi-million dollar sum being deposited to her bank account any day now. It sounded and felt wrong, but who am I to say based on a gut feel and a phone call.
I went out today and showed my listing to her and they loved it. As proof of funds she even showed me the email proving (to her) that it was legit. The sender's name has been alterred in case I am wrong, but it was something like "asdfasdfasdf@something.it" The fact it came from a ".it" email does indicate it is coming from Italy instead of Nigeria or some of the places more associated with these scams.
I tried to warn her that this looked just like hundreds of scams I have seen, but she insisted she had it "checked out" and it was legit. I couldn't convince her otherwise. I warned her about many of the scams that look like this which will then either get your bank wire instructions and liquidate your account rather than supplement it. Another popular scam is to deposit money and then have the recipient refund part of the funds prior to realizing the first check from the scammer didn't clear. I have about $6,000 in "cashier's checks" sitting in my office from this scam that fortunately I didn't ever deposit.
I really struggled with this as I am pretty sure this nice elderly couple is getting scammed and they are pretty sure they aren't. Therefore, I just called them back and told them that international deposits are extremely complicated so they need to go talk to their banker immediately with the details.
Maybe their bank will have better luck explaining that this is probably a scam. If I am wrong, at least they will be one step closer to being able to deliver the cash next week for closing. I told them we need proof of funds for cash offers, so call me after their banker has cleared it through the international banking channels.
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