Some sellers of high priced goods receive requests from bidders in foreign countries (often in Africa) to accept foreign cashier's checks as payment for their items. Some of the requests offer to "overpay" for an item, and ask the seller to wire the overpayment back to the buyer through services such as Western Union or MoneyGram. We urge all sellers to use extreme caution when accepting foreign cashier's checks for high priced items, as such foreign checks may take weeks or months to clear and may be counterfeit.
Note: Some checks may appear to be from a US bank but, upon closer inspection, include foreign country or city names.
Furthermore, sellers should never accept overpayments from buyers for items where the buyer is asking to be reimbursed for overpayment.
We ask sellers who receive such offers to report it immediately.
To learn more about this type of fraudulent activity, please visit the following web sites:
http://www.state.gov/www/regions/africa/naffpub.pdf
