I found an out-of-state buyer for my grandmother’s classic car. He wants me to cash a check. Is this a financial scam?

My brother tends to be an overly trusting person. He is handling the sale of our grandmother’s classic vehicle. We advertised it online, and now someone from across the country wants to buy our car, sight unseen, by sending my brother a check for him to cash.

Once the check clears, the buyer will send a trailer to pick up the car. He has haggled about the price, which makes my brother think it’s a legit offer. I think the whole thing smells like a scammer. If the buyer wants the car so badly, he should come across the country and get it in person.

Suspicious Sister

Related: My girlfriend, a widow in her 40s, pays off her credit card after every transaction. Is that weird?

The good news is I’ve been watching a lot of the old 1950s TV show “Perry Mason” lately, set in an era when Americans used a lot of paper checks, and I call this “The Case of the Suspicious Sister.” You are right to be cautious because this could very well be an old-fashioned fake-check scam. The haggling may also be part of it.

If someone gave you a price that was too good to be true, or made the process completely frictionless, your brother might very well say, “Something is fishy here. It’s too easy.” As it is, your brother is distracted by the haggling, and likely pleased that the buyer will collect the car. It turns that check into an afterthought.

Here’s how such a scam might work: Your brother cashes the check for, say, $10,000. The buyer pulls up, with immaculate timing, and collects the car and disappears forever. The check bounces after five days, and your brother is left holding the bill. Your brother tries to find the buyer, but it turns out they used a burner phone. All emails go unanswered.

“These scams work because fake checks generally look just like real checks, even to bank employees,” the Federal Trade Commission says. “They are often printed with the names and addresses of legitimate financial institutions. They may even be real checks written on bank accounts that belong to someone whose identity has been stolen.”

The FTC says it can take weeks before the bank discovers a fake check, but even if it takes days, it will be too late. A check can take anywhere from one to seven business days or more to clear. “By law, banks have to make deposited funds available quickly,” the FTC says. “Even if you see the funds in your account, that doesn’t mean it’s a good check.”

“The same thing happened to me when I advertised my RV,” one Moneyist Facebook group member said. “They offered more than I advertised and sent me a check and a pickup date. I took the check to my bank and they called the California credit union listed on the check. No such account existed. The scammer is counting on the five days it takes to clear the check.”

These scams, the FTC says, can also come in the form of a “mystery shopper” (you buy items on behalf of the scammer), “personal assistant” (you buy gift cards with a fake check and give your “boss” the PIN numbers) and “prize winner” (you win a prize and cash the fake check, but you need to send the scammer money for taxes and charges).

Another Moneyist reader, selling a Roush Mustant, said they took a lot of precautions when they sold their car online to a buyer in New Zealand: “I opened a throwaway account and had them wire the money directly. As soon as it cleared, I closed the account and had them cut a cashier’s check to me, which I deposited into my account.”

“The buyer made all arrangements for shipment, and I sent him the title via international shipping,” they added. “No car was released until money was in hand and could not be clawed back fraudulently. Pictures and all receipts from the shipping company were taken so no claims of fraud or damage could be made on the back end.”

If the buyer of your grandmother’s classic car does not wish to do a direct wire transfer, find another buyer who does. Otherwise, take the check and tell the buyer you’re waiting for the check to clear before releasing the vehicle, because you want to make sure this is not a scam. That four-letter word should put them on notice, if this is a scam.

If he has a sob story about how he has to collect the car now, say no.

Don’t miss: I’m selling my condo and have $130K to invest. Is this a bad time to invest in the S&P 500?

Previous columns by Quentin Fottrell:

‘Luckily, I did not mix our finances’: My husband is 7 years younger and has dementia. What happens now?

My girlfriend, a widow in her 40s, pays off her credit card after every transaction. Is that weird?

My husband and I have $7K in Social Security and $2.5 million in stocks. What could go wrong?