I know at least two other people who have been contacted. One of them managed to get a check from the scammers and last I heard she was taking it to the issuing bank to tell them the whole story.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for my check so I can do the same. The scammer promised me I'd get it three weeks ago...it still hasn't turned up so I emailed him today to tell him I'm going to sell the dress to someone else. He then called my voice mail and left a message insisting that the check is on the way. Unfortunately I couldn't get a phone number out of it. The scammer was very hard to understand on my voice mail, his voice was very low and monotone and had a very thick non-North American/non-Western European accent that I couldn't place. He also sounded like he was calling from a call center where lots of other people were also on the phone. I think this is a pretty well-honed operation.

Why do you want to get the check? If you get the check, then you have to go through the hassle of dealing with the authorities or finding some other legal way to dispose of it.

The most effective and reasonable things an individual can do to put a dent in this scam are

1) bluntly turn them down
2) warn others

Or even simply put "No over value checks accepted/no international shipping" in the ad in the first place.

In hopes of the authorities using it to catch the guy.

I want to help the FBI's Internet Fraud Unit catch these suckers, and having the check seems like the first step. I've already opened a case file with the FBI. I don't know if they can/will do a whole lot, but why let these guys run rampant?

Another one just contacted me this morning. It's easy to tell who the fraudsters are because they write DEMANDING to know the price of the dress (uhh, it's clearly posted in the ads!) and and so far have always been men (men never want to buy dresses in real life), and they are always in a hurry. The last one gave me some sob story about how he was leaving the country and wanted to buy the dress (which was WAAAAYY out of style) for his girlfriend. I knew something was up when he couldn't give me his girlfriend's measurements, and my suspicions were confirmed when he said he wanted to make the check for nearly $4000 over the price. I kept telling him NO, and he kept telling me "but I've already sent the check." Yeah right. So I told them that if they want the dress that badly I'd send them the check back and they could send me a new one. The funny thing is that they are "working" so many victims that they can't keep their stories straight, either. It's quite an amusing collection of emails, to tell you the truth.

Just got one of these e-mails. They really need to choose another location at this point....