Great deal on Bobcat excavator - Scam??

[radman1]

Originally Posted by jgdlandman

I have been in contact with a guy in Lincoln, NE trying to sell a 2005 Bobcat T-300 with 1,000 hours, and three attachments for $ 4,200. Same sob story about brother falling off the horse, closing through Yahoo finance, and he purchased the machine from a rich friend for $4,200 and wants to make someone happy. This is probably a $15,000 to $ 18,000 machine. Thankfully,
I showed the email's to my wife before I wasted anytime chasing this "deal" and her sense of mistrust dragged me back to reality.

I live in Lincoln, NE. I have an S300. Get the guys address or phone number and I will "check it out for you". This sounds like a classic scam. I am sure you won't hear back again or you will get the story of the T300 is no longer there. That machine is probably worth closer to 25-30K.

[Micro_Farmer]

Following these scams has become sort of a hobby of mine. I saw the Bobcat ad in the local classifieds. Lots of clues: I Googled a few key words in the ad, in this case -"Bobcat t300 $4200"- this netted me a bunch of classifieds from all over the country with the same description- but different e-mail and city where it is located. Price too good to be true. Offer free shipping and won't let you pick it up. A million excuses why you can't look at it in person. Their "payment agent" Yahoo! Finance is a website, but only for financial information, they DO NOT accept escrow or any other kind of payment. The Yahoo! Finance agent you are supposed to send the money to is actually the scammer. They usually request you send it via Western Union. Once you send money through Western Union, it's gone, they won't help you, and they tell you that right on their website.
Before I bought my Massey, I bid on a like new New Holland TZ24DA, an e-bay auction- had gorgeous pictures and the description was right on-- they were probably stolen from a legitimate previous auction- I "won" it for $8K. They said they would accept PayPal payment which offers fraud protection. I got an e-mail from the "seller" outside of E-Bay requesting I wire money to him and he had a special deal with a freight company and it would only be $300 to ship it. I said I would bring him cash and pick it up in Chicago. Nope, gotta wire the money, he said.
I contacted E-Bay about the fraudulent auction and all I got were canned responses- not interested.
Local law enforcement seems to give it a very low priority, they won't really even talk to you about attempted fraud, you have to actually lose the money first. Even then, they say there's usually not much they can do.
Buyer Beware!