None — JR Buchannan and his wife Karen advertised an unwanted armoire on Craigslist for $400, and a buyer sent them a check for $2,600.
“He said he personal assistant made a mistake,” JR Buchannan said.
The buyer told the Buchannans his assistant was supposed to split the check -- $400 for the Buchannans and $2,200 for the movers.
He asked JR Buchannan to deposit the check, take out $400 and wire the rest to someone in South Carolina.
“My wife and I both agree. We did get scammed,” Buchannan said.
The couple came to that conclusion because a few days after wiring the $2,200, Buchannan discovered the check was bogus when Bank of America notified him that his account was overdrawn.
Buchannan blamed the bank teller, claiming she assured him the check was OK before he withdrew the money.
“They said it cleared no problem. That was the teller’s exact words,” he said.
A representative with the bank said they don’t know if a deposit is fraudulent until it goes through for collections.
Better Business Bureau officials said Buchannan was a victim of what’s called the overpayment scam.
Whenever anybody pays you for something, and it’s more than what you’re asking, and they ask for you to wire that back, it is a scam,” said Tom Bartholomy with the BBB.
Bartholomy said anyone doing business on Craigslist should pay attention to the warnings posted: Deal only with people you can meet in person, never wire money, and only accept cash as a form of payment.
The Buchannans said they learned an expensive lesson.
“We let our guard down, and we trusted someone that we shouldn’t have,” Karen Buchannan said.