Not "Made of Money"      ---     04/23/03 by Chuck Rupnow - Wisconsin Leader-Telegram

A 23-year-old Menomonie man thought he sold his motorcycle over the Internet for about $4,800. After no one came to pick up the cycle, and bank officials informed him the check from Nigeria was a fake, he knew he was a victim of a scam that cost him nearly $4,000.

Police in northwestern Wisconsin have been busy in recent months trying to thwart the scam, which has appeared in New Richmond, Cumberland, Whitehall and River Falls. According to FBI officials in Eau Claire the scam artists attempt to purchase items over the Internet, such as cars, bikes and horses.

The apparent buyer sends a check for more than the amount of the purchase and asks the seller to wire funds for the overpayment to an overseas address. The checks, sometimes cashier’s checks, look authentic, complete with watermarks, FBI agents say. But the checks and bank accounts are fake. In the Menomonie man’s case, his cycle was purchased for $4,800 and the buyer sent him a check for $8,900. Subtracting certain fees, he sent a check of his own for $3,916 to an address in Nigeria. A short time later, after no one came to pick up the cycle, he contacted police, who told him he’d been victimized.

A similar episode occurred in Cumberland. However, the seller had questions about the overpayment and contacted the Cumberland Police Department. The 42-year-old man had posted his 2001 Jeep Cherokee on an Internet site for sale at $15,500. He accepted an offer of $15,250, Cumberland Chief Steve Linton said. A man named Mike White said he was a purchasing agent for a man in Nigeria named Andrew Ike. Via e-mail, White said an earlier attempt to buy a vehicle fell through, but the company had issued a check for $22,000 for the vehicle and would not reissue another one. The Cumberland man received the check and was asked to cash it and send $6,750 to a Nigerian address. The seller became suspicious and contacted police.

“He was first concerned it was an attempt to launder money, and that was my first impression too,” Linton said. “I contacted the FBI in Eau Claire, and it sounded like a continuing scam to them.”

Linton said the check had watermarks and “did look authentic on its face.”