An abundance of hay in East Texas this fall has many producers advertising hay for sale online for the first time. While the Internet can open up new markets for agricultural products, it can also open producers up to scam artists as well.
Just this week I talked to a producer who was contacted via email about some hay he had listed for sale on a web site in another state. They struck up a chain of email conversations back and forth which eventually resulted in the "buyer" sending our producer a cashier's check for $6,000 to deposit in the bank, in exchange for the purchase of 60 rolls of good quality East Texas hay.
Sounds pretty good so far, right? Here's where the scam part came into play.
You see, the hay was supposed to go back to one of the drought stricken states in the eastern US. However, the cashier's check, which was mailed from England, was payable on a bank in the mid west. To seal the deal (and complete the scam), the letter came along with a request for the producer to deposit the check into their bank account and then send out two $1500 checks to complete the transaction- one to a person who would be coming to "haul the hay" and another to someone who supposedly served as the "hay broker" for the deal. Smelling that something was afoul, the producer contacted his bank, and guess what, the cashier's check he was mailed was fraudulent.
The scam artist in this case was obviously not a producer interested in feeding hungry livestock, just someone who wanted to steal money from an unsuspecting farmer who wanted no more than to sell a little hay.
The scam that our observant producer avoided is likely a variation of a scam that is common on the Internet and goes by a variety of names like the Nigerian scam, the 4-1-9 fraud, or the advance fee fraud.
This is the same type of scam that makes its way into your email in the form of a letter from someone in a foreign country who desperately needs you to help them move a large amount of money to the US and will reward you with a percentage as a thank you. It is also the same type of scam that informs you that you won a foreign lottery that you could not have possibly entered. For more information on electronic crimes involving money, visit the United States Secret Service.
Here are a few tips for helping to ensure that an Internet hay sale transaction goes smoothly for both the buyer and the seller. Once you have made initial contact with each other, talk by phone and agree on a price. Whomever arranges for freight should be the one that pays. Let the buyer pay for and send a truck to pick the hay up, or add freight to the overall sale price and arrange for the truck to deliver the hay yourself. Finally, let your bank verify the validity of any cashier's check before depositing it into your account and sending the hay on its way.
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