I had recently placed a piece of furniture for sale on a popular website, keeping the price low and negotiable and hoping to attract a decent number of views. For the first two to three weeks, I hit a dead end and felt quite a bit disheartened. It didn't seem like my dream for a new set of floor furniture was going to be realized anytime soon. I debated taking the ad down, then thought why not give it one last try. And lo and behold! There were 3 responses already! First a lady called asking about it for her new beach house, but then she was too far away to come pick it up. But that phone call atleast gave me some hope to keep going at it. I then received emails from 2 more people asking about the product I had on sale. I gave them a little more detailed information including a few pictures. The first guy (lets call him Rob M Good) replied that he was extremely thrilled with what he saw and wanting to buy it immediately, asked that I take the ad down from the website. Wanting to be a little cautious, I said that I would do that only if and when the deal was secured. He asked for my mailing address, promising to send a check with the amount covering the price of the product and shipping, via either of 2 courier services (and why couldn't he tell me which one in particular?). He said he would even arrange for the product to be picked once I let him know that the money was secure in my hand or bank account. These didn't seem to be too much out of the ordinary, except that how could someone really want to buy something that costs more then $50 without wanting to see it in person? But who was I to question stupidity at the time so I went along with it. A few days pass and I get another email informing me that his secretary had "accidently" sent a much larger sum via the check I was to receive. Now he was asking that, in good faith, I take what was mine with an additional $100 inconvenience charge to my credit and have the remaining "accident" money sent to his mother's address. I was so baffled by this, much less to say that I should have paid attention to all my alarm systems that went off. I did ask Mr. Good that he give me his number so I could call and clarify what exactly had happened and what he wanted me to do. He promptly replied with a number. Looking it up I realized that was from out-of-state. Hmmm, that should have gotten me thinking right there, but I wanted to explore more. So I did try calling but to no response. The funny thing was it didn't even allow me to leave a voice mail message. That was strange but was the least of my worries. When I didn't hear from him for sometime I gave up and figured it was just a waste of my time and decided to go ahead with the other buyer who also had gotten in touch with me through email, about the same as Mr. Good (lets call this guy Pet T Teef). The emails from these two people were pretty similar in what they wanted and how they wanted to get it. But Mr. Teef thought he was much smarter when telling me that he "was deaf", which is why he was emailing and not calling! (It's almost as if I have stupid written all across my forehead!!). Anyway, since I didn't hear from Mr. Good I thought why not see what Mr. Teef had for me. He got back saying he would send me a check covering cost of the furniture and shipping, and (surprise surprise) have his "movers" collect it for him. Sound familiar? I figured that the only way I could be safe was to wait and see which one of them would be genuine enough to actually send a check. Just about the time I thought that I wouldn't be seeing any $$$, I got a check via UPS for $1500! Oh and it was probably from Mr. Rob M Good. Probably because there was no sender's name on the package and non confirmable by any UPS agent! To be completely sure I took it to my bank and asked them what they thought. She took one look at it and confirmed my suspicion - I had been had, it was a fraudulent check! Its the FTC that will be dealing with it from now, thankfully. Oh by the way, Mr. Teef emailed me again today saying that his check is on the way. Ooooh! I can hardly wait.....MUHAHAHAHA!!!! ;o)