I have recently put a laptop up for auction on ebay and have recieved solicitations for it outside of ebays forum.

both of these wanted it shipped to Africa and offered me well more than what I put as the starting bid for it.

So I opened a new email account and responded to one and I simple told her to bid on it.
she said she couldn't because she was in a hurry to get it to her child who was studying in Nigeria and needed it.

I told her to send a personal check to my PO box under my business name (never giving her my real name) and I just got an email today from a place called 'Qchex' saying that I had a downloadable check waiting from her.
When I went there it was apparent that I had already been registered for membership but there was no password in the password field and no where could I find one - so I just went through the process of getting a new one - but instead of assigning a new one that I could later change it just reset it so I could make a new one right away - I had never seen that before - of course I didnt use one that I used for anything else.

I googled Qchex and found on the first page a few descriptions that talked about related scams with qchex but it seemed a legitimate business that has been exploited before like many others have.

So I went to Qchex through a proxy and I printed the check, I bought the check to my bank to see how long it would take to either clear or deny it and they said that they couldn't even process it.

I was aware that this was probably a scam from the get go but out of curiousity I went with it, I took all the precautions I could think of - no real name, no address, no real email address, no real IP address. Is it because I took so many precautions that I fail to see the merits of this phishing attempt? or have I overlooked something?
Though Im not really worried - its just my curiosity that makes me ask. I guess there are some really careless people out there who wouldn't take the same precautions.

And though I have no substantiating evidence, I would have to warn all to act dubiously around Qchex until such time that it is legitimized - regard the following ......

A Qchex indiscrepancy claim

From the BBB - Bad Business Bureau
The Qchex homepage