About two and a half to three years ago I had advertised my exotic birds for sale on a friends website. I didn't think much about it and no one contacted me in all that time. Well, about a week ago I got an e-mail. A fellow was interested in my Macaw. I got all excited, after all that time, finally someone wanted to buy him. I really didn't want to part with him now but thought it was best because we can't spend the time with him that we wanted to. The fellow wanted to know about the bird, wanted pictures, and wanted to know the asking price. I had sent him all the information he wanted. He e-mailed me back that he wanted the bird. Now, keep in mind, all this is done by e-mail, which most scams are done that way.

The next thing he did was ask for my mailing address and said he will be sending me a US Certified Cashier's Check. As soon as I get it let him know and he will have his shipping agent come and pick up the bird. Ok, all looked pretty good so far. Then an e-mail came from him saying URGENT. This is when the red light went on. The fellow said his secretary sent out the check for the amount I wanted for my bird, and also sent the amount that was suppose to go to his shipping agent. (This is where the fraud comes in.) He said for me to cash his check, take out my amount and immediately send the remaining to his shipping agent via Western Union.

I had ask the fellow for a phone number and address, I wanted to know something about the person who was buying my bird. He sent me back two street names in Miami and no house number and came up with a bogus excuse why he couldn't give me his phone number. I knew then that this guy was scamming me.

The way this works, a person finds something online for sale and contacts the person via e-mail. He or she acts really interested in the item. Starts to send e-mails about payment. All payments are made with a US Certified Cashiers Check and all of them are sent for more than the asking price of the item. They come up with a reason, using blaming their secretary. They ask you to contact them as soon as you get the check and cash it, then they will give you a name to send the shipping money to. At this time, all the e-mails tell you to immediately cash the check and immediately send the balance Western Union. The reason they want you to do all this immediately is, the cashiers check is counterfeit and it takes at least ten days for the bank to find out. By this time you have already taken the money out of your account and sent it to the shipping agent, who is also bogus. Now you have sent the guy your money, the bank calls you and tells you the check was counterfeit and you were taken. And if you have spent any of the money, you will have to pay it back to the bank. And the guy you sent the money to is long gone, you never hear from him again.

I did a search on the guy. Couldn't find anything solid on him. It seems he picked a name in that area that only had the first initial and last name so you can't find him and the streets he gave me, doesn't show up under any of the names with that initial and last name. He uses a yahoo e-mail address, which all the scammers seem to use and you can't search him there. I have researched this out and it seems as though the police, FBI and banks and attorney's don't want to do anything about this. You are out money and can't do a thing but learn a lesson.

This has been going on for years. Not only has innocent people been scammed but also large companies. The same thing had happened to my sister who lives out west, her scam involved a person from Canada. She was smart enough not to cash the check and send the person money.