SYDNEY, N.S. — Arjun Shaju is happy to be reunited with his beloved car "Shadow" thanks to help from police, his friends and another victim of the alleged buyer scam he fell prey to.
Shaju, who now lives in Yarmouth, travelled back to Sydney on Thursday to get his 2013 Dodge Challenger, which he is selling to help pay school debt and support his family in India.
Along with Shaju's friends, Caleb Gouthro helped search for the Dodge Challenger the day it was located and police seized it.
Gouthro, 22, hadn't met Shaju before reading in the Cape Breton Post about the alleged buyer scam he was the victim of. And the details of the story were almost exactly the same as Gouthro's dealings with the same man at the end of January when the man bought Gouthro's Honda Accord with a cheque that bounced.
"It kind of annoyed me (police called it an isolated incident in the article) because it seems like he's been scamming people for a while," said Gouthro, who posted the article on his Facebook page and said he's heard from other victims of the buyer.
THE ALLEGED SCAM
Like Shaju, Gouthro met the buyer after he contacted Gouthro inquiring about the Honda Accord he was selling on Kijiji.
For both Shaju and Gouthro, the buyer's payment was declined after a few days due to insufficient funds in his TD bank account.
When Shaju and Gouthro asked for their vehicles back, the buyer allegedly told them he'd sold or traded the vehicles already.
Unlike Shaju, Gouthro accepted a cheque from the buyer for the $2,000 purchase price. Calling his bank to inquire on any hold, Gouthro believed because there was none on his end, the money was cleared from the buyer. Three days later, he found out it hadn't been after he'd spent the money.
"I'm only 22. This was my first time dealing with my bank like this," said Gouthro. "It left me pretty high and dry."
While Shaju did refuse the cheque the buyer offered for the $5,500 purchase price of his car, when the e-transfer sent was rejected three days later, Shaju's bank informed him it was due to a cheque that didn't clear in the buyer's account.
Shaju was able to get a photo of that cheque and believes it is the same cheque the buyer tried to use at first.
The Cape Breton Post has seen copies of both cheques from the alleged buyer. The address and name on both TD Bank cheques is the same. On Gouthro's cheque, the item line says for "car purchase" and on Shaju's cheque it says "vehicle purchase."
A CIVIL ISSUE
Gouthro said he got suspicious of the buyer when the buyer claimed he was going to call the bank manager and flip out. He reported the situation to Cape Breton Regional Police who informed Gouthro they couldn't investigate because it was a civil matter.
"Generally speaking, situations where there is a breakdown of an agreement between two parties would be considered a civil matter," said police spokesperson Desiree Magnus in an email.
"So, yes, an incident reported to us whereby an individual sold a vehicle to someone but was later left without money for the sale because the purchaser’s cheque bounced, would be considered a civil matter, not criminal."
However, there are times when it could be deemed criminal and police are investigating
"An incident like this may warrant criminal charges if it was determined that the action was an intentional attempt of theft or fraud – for example, by using a false cheque," Magnus said.
"Police have now received two reports of this nature and are investigating to determine any connection to fraud."
THE E-TRANSFER PROBLEM
Shaju refused the buyer's cheque because he knew there was a chance it could bounce and believed someone could only e-transfer funds if the money was in their account, not on hold.
An interview request with TD Bank to inquire about e-transfers, holds and what happens to customers who consistently write bad cheques was not granted.
Some questions were answered by email, which appear to be excerpts from a page on their website entitled TD Explains: Recognizing Cheque Fraud.
In the email, it states cheques are returned for a variety of reasons "including if it is determined to be fraudulent" and the bank has the right to "recover the amount of the cheque from your account" if the money was used before being declined.
The email also stated banks reserve the right to decide if a client can access funds from a deposited cheque immediately, based on different factors like the current status of the customer's accounts.
Questions regarding e-transferring from an account with money on hold and how a receiver can verify the money isn't being held on the sender's end weren't answered by publication time.
Nicole Sullivan is an immigration/diversity and education reporter for the Cape Breton Post.
