A buddy just told me about a great deal he got on a Pinarello Prince with full Record for 1600.00. The seller is in CA but is using an 'agent' in Italy who is using www.motorescrow.com. This site wouldn't take a deposit with a credit card and instead asked for funds to be transferred via Western Union, which my buddy did Monday eve. He just filled me in today and I told him to try to stop payment immediately, apologize to the seller and use his own escrow service like www.escrow.com. Not sure if he'll be able to stop his money from going through...

Anyone have successful (or not) experience with motorescrow.com so I can tell my friend he can sleep tonight?

chris

This is a scam, plain and simple. Do NOT fall for it.

Anytime anyone requests funds be sent via Western Union or MoneyGram, the chances are very strong that it is a scam. When funds are sent using those methods, the funds cannot be recovered or traced once they have gone to the "seller".

The escrow company your friend mentioned is located in Italy and Hungary. What do you suppose the chances are that they are legitimate? Laws are differing in each country, so even given the benefit of the doubt, what would be the protections offered on international transactions? Probably none. Why would a seller use an escrow company located overseas? Doesn't make good sense.

If your friend did sent the "seller" funds via Western Union, they are probably gone, like the "great deal" on the bike. Sounds like your friend has a much lighter wallet and little else.

Yep. Another $1600 gone to the Nigerian economy......

It's amazing how many suckers still fall for this. I hope you...err, I mean your "friend" learns a lesson from this.

Update: My 'friend' did get the funds stopped in time, learned a lot about online transactions and has found other, more legit leads on bikes. For me the interesting thing is that he's not a neophyte on the web; he's a librarian at a college, used to doing online research and is on our tech committee at school. So if he can be so easily coerced into sending unsecured money via Western Union, how many other folks are doing the same? He saw nothing fishy sending funds off to Hungary for an escrow account run by a company in China to buy a bike located in CA.

Big problem.

Chris

(who lost 100.00 four years ago to a college student selling skis in Michigan and learned his lesson)