Green Greed

This "green" topic is stretching it quite a bit, but I'm going to talk about money (it looks greenish, right?) This is more of a WARNING out there to all of you selling items online. One of my roommates tried to sell his camera over an online bidding site (ebay, craigslist, I don't know) and got screwed out of $1700+! He posted his camera as worth $3300. Someone from England bought it from him and paid in check. They mailed a check for $5000 and asked him to wire the remaining money after shipping costs (which came out to about $1700 in cash). Even though the whole deal sounded shady, he saw that huge check and went on with the deal. He waited to make sure that the check cleared in his bank, then shipped the camera and wired the cash through Western Union. Yesterday he got a call from his bank saying that even though the check cleared through his bank, it did not clear through the international bank. By then, the guy in England had already picked up their cash from Western Union... cash that was 100% out of my roommate's funds since the check for $5000 was a fake. (Didn't he read Catch Me if You Can?!) He contacted the shipping company and had the camera returned to our address. On the bright side he still has his camera, but he's out the $1700 in cash and whatever shipping costs he had to pay. Moral of the story? If he looks like a sham, it probably is a sham! My roomie didn't have that much money in his account to begin with, so now he has to borrow money from his parents to pay off debts. He claims he had some bad Karma building up over the years and just had that feeling.