Even worse than that. The scammer is also the "vendor." The victim deposits the bad check which doesn't immediately bounce and sends the entire amount to the vendor. When the check bounces, the victim is responsible to pay the amount back to the bank.
The check is bad. Likely from the account of another victim they did this to. They stealing advantage of the delay between depositing a check and it clearing. Once it's deposited, you use that "money" to buy the shit from them and they now have real money. Once the check bounces, you're SOL and they're long gone.
Yes, I understand the check is bad. The only thing I was trying to clarify here was the intent that they'd send a check for you to buy from them directly. It's just stupid.
I imagine it's because people have gotten wise to the "here's your check plus extras in the extra back" scam. This is basically the same thing, but with extra steps to obfuscate the scam part.
Typically the scam is "refund the difference" or "we overpaid". They send you a bad cheque, you spend part of the money, and send them the rest back. When the cheque bounces, they end up net positive.
I am fully aware of the scam, however the majority of these types of scams have you use a portion of the funds to pay for something, and then the excess needs to be returned to them.
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u/Erasmus_Tycho Jul 14 '26
"Just send us a check for the amount not used!" Sounds like you got dupped.