Selling a car or collectibles has never been so easy, just post it on the Internet and let the offers roll in. Unfortunately, many of the offers rolling in come from an international ring of thieves trying to rip off consumers.
Internet sites like AutoTrader.com, The Recycler and Craigslist provide fertile ground for a new breed of cyber thieves.
The Nigerian scam, an age-old scam, is still active and trying to get your bank account information.
Richard Stanford sells collectibles on the Internet and has figured out how cyber crooks work.
Scam artists tend to make offers that are too good to be true by asking above and beyond the asking price. Stanford said scam artists offered him $5, 000 for a $1, 700 Jaguar, $5, 000 for a $1, 600 truck and $1, 000 for a $47 Sammy Davis, Jr. record.
"It's kind of ridiculous. Who would want a $1, 600 truck from around the world?" Stanford said.
Here's how the Nigerian scam works: the buyer, aka the con man, sends a cashiers check for the item, plus the cost of shipping. The buyer asks the honest seller to ship the product and send leftover cash by Western Union.
A 10News survey found that many Internet sellers, like Richard Stanford, have been pitched by this scam -- 30 percent of respondents said they have been approached by these cons.
10News took Stanford's tempting offers to the United States Secret Service, which investigates counterfeiting.
Robert Heyer, from the Secret Service, said, the Nigerian Internet scheme is like a well-oiled machine and the Nigerian government is not cracking down.
"Unfortunately, my agents cannot make arrests there, nor do we have an extradition treaty."
Heyer said the con artists are armed with computers to print checks and the Internet to pitch to suckers. But their most effective tool is greed, 10News reported.
"This doesn't happen without the victim willingly becoming part of it, " Heyer said.