potentially counterfeit travelers checks

[Jules22]

posting for a friend, he sold something on the myspace personals for 1500, the dude who claims to be representing clients in africa sends him 3000 in travelers checks with my friends name on them and tells him to cash them, and then wire the other 1500 to a third party along with the item that was sold. this to me sounds like a sure fire scam, i would like to know what your guys plays would be

edit: the checks looks legit, seem to have a watermark and look to the untrained observers (my friend and i) to be legit, but we know virtually 0 about travelers checks