Mt. Pleasant, SC - A Mount Pleasant family was nearly taken by an internet scam while trying to sell their car. It's a scam they want you to know about.

The lease on the Maness' car had run out and the time was right to sell but what happened next nearly cost them $1,500.

When Dave and Kim Maness set out to sell their car on Craig’s List, it quickly became a lesson in internet scams.

“We got a reply that he would buy it and to please take it off Craig’s List immediately,” said Kim Maness.

It’s a scam F.B.I. special agent, Cynthia McCants sees all too often.

“Immediately I see that the English is not, is not what you would normally expect,” said McCants while analyzing the email. “Just ‘Good day sir/ma, number one. ‘I’m a business tycoon,’ no one says they’re a business tycoon.” McCants went on to tell us, "The person is using a g-mail account, but their claiming they’re a business tycoon. Why would you have a free account, why wouldn’t you have a legitimate?"

The Maness' successfully sold a car on line before and had no reason to question the legitimacy of this sale.

“He was going to send us more than we were asking so that a shipping company could come and we could give him the money for the shipping. So he told us he would have it sent certified check to us, by UPS, and we could be looking for it and it came two days later,” said Maness. “The letter that came with it was just crazy, make the deposit within 24 hours and then go to Western Union and wire some money to an account.”

But the check, made out for $26,000 didn't check out.

"Immediately when I got the check i said this is not real," said Maness.

“Just the paper the check is printed on, to me appears almost like a copy and you can see it doesn’t have any watermark," noted McCants.

“I think its funny that we haven’t heard from them, so obviously they know the gig is up,” said Maness.

One con stopped in its tracks, but others may not read the signs as easy.

Last year South Carolinians lost $1.5 million, just a part of the more than $200 million lost a year in the U.S. (reported). 
     
If you you've been the victim of an internet scam, the F.B.I. wants to hear from you. Please visit their Internet Crime Complaint Center, by clicking here.