Craigslist Scams

[eliems]

I had a domain name listed for sale in the local c.l. and in comes some out of town reply wanting to put money in "escrow.com" in return for me transferring the url to him. Fat chance!

So I reply, "Sounds like a scam to me, send me your phone number".

Next thing I know I am on the phone with a nice guy in central US and he is for real.

A week later and the $$$ is in my account and he has the Domain.

[foggysail]

I JUST RECEIVED THIS:


Merk John merkjohn5@
12:59 PM (2 hours ago)

to me
Thanks for the prompt response to my mail. I will be buying from you
so please kindly withdraw the advert from CRAIGSLIST. I don't mind
paying an additional $20 for it in order for you to take the AD down
from craigslist and also to be assured that it is already mine.Please
be informed that i will be paying with a certified check from my Bank
as i just moved here from CArdiff,on a job transfer and it is going to
be sent to you via courier service which is going to be mailed to you
overnight. My mover will be coming over for the pick up as soon as you
have the check cashed, so you don't need to bother about the shipping
as everything on that is well arranged.I will need the following
details to mail the payment to in order to facilitate the payment
asap...........

1.Name to be on the payment
2.Home address
3.Cell phone #
I am completely satisfied with the advert and the payment will be
delivered within 2-3 working days.** I use a hearing impaired phone #
and will receive your calls via email **

REPLY:
2:46 PM (36 minutes ago)

to Merk
The ad stays posted! If you want to PICK UP THAT ANCHOR AT MY HOME it is then yours after you personally hand a fist filled with dollars to me. I will accept nothing, zero, nada but cash. It will not be yours until this happens.

Take it or leave it! I SMELL FRAUD!!!!!

[foggysail]

GEEZ, I JUST POSTED THE ABOVE FRAUD, AND I GOT ANOTHER! So much for Craig's List.

Note-- I left the fraud's name in the copy. Watch for this guy although he has a basket filled with potential names


Dean Walker [email]deanwalker464@ ]
3:27 PM (4 minutes ago)

to me
Thanks for the response.I am willing to pay your asking price.I will pay by a Certified Bank check as its the only way i can pay you at the moment.I will make arrangements the pickup after payment have been received by you.I don't mind adding an extra $30 so you can keep it in my favor.I would have loved to come take a look at it but i am presently out of town,send me some pictures.Reply with your name,phone # and home address where payment will be sent to by tomorrow morning so you can receive the payment soon,I will let you know how i intend to pick it up. Please take the posting off today and consider it sold to me. Expecting to hear from you soon

Dean

[nautical62]

It was selling my first boat, that I first encountered the "Nigerian scam". Fortunately most people these days know to beware of such scams, which most certainly are not limited to Craigslist. Mine was through one of the more notable and popular boat selling sites.

[Capt.Don]

Originally Posted by GaryMayo

I understand these are cons, and I have gotten them. They are pretty easy to spot. What I do not get is how giving a pap pal account number (most people use an email account as their pay pal account number, so the con already has it) does anything? What the con needs is the password to the pay pal account. If someone would explain this to me, I would appreciate it.

In the Powerbook case, the scammer got the computer (or so he thought).

[Capt.Fred]

I just wrote, "I'm so glad you want my boat, Please forword a ten percent deposit. Upon bank approval of deposit to my account. we can further discuss the details of this transaction."
I was just having a little fun...Haven't heard from them again. Oh well!

[Steve W]

I recently called a guy regarding a 33' sailboat he had for sale. He said it was sold to someone in England. He had deposited their cashier's check (with an extra $4k for shipping) and was waiting for it to clear his bank. Sounds good so far, right? Then they asked him to pre-pay the shipping for them, by wiring a check for $4,000 to their shipper and they would take care of having the boat picked up and taken to the port for shipping.He was so excited to have sold the boat. I hated to burst his bubble, but I asked him how $4k could possibly cover de-rigging, transporting his boat on a trcuk to Miami + freight on a ship to England. I suggested he wait until the boat check cleared his bank and the international bank it was written on before he sent the $4k. He said he would think about it. That is where the story ends, except that I noticed the boat back on Ebay two weeks later. He sure did not sound on the phone like someone who would fall for this scam and in the end, I hope he came out ok.

[susanna reiter]

this is just a fraction of the litany of tragic tales related to "Craig's List and Paypal.....I personally know of one man that lost 25K on a supposed car deal through Craig's list. His only recourse was to contact the local district attorney's fraud department...good luck with that !
I have had money taken out of my PayPal account w/o authorization or a password..lucky for me it was under $100 it happened at midnight so by the time I found out..they had the $$...but it could have been worse. So many have been really burned by these schemes and they are not limited to contacts from "Nigeria". The predators are all over the place. Once I learned about the hacking into my Paypal and bank account.. I immediately cancelled the account and cancelled the card w/the number attached....."cash in hand " exchanged at a neutral safe place and not meeting the contact alone is the only way to deal w/these on-line predators.

[cabo_sailor]

If it is too good to be true, run like the devil. My step daughter forwarded a Craiglist ad for a travel trailer to me. The guy said he was in the military and that trailer was in his parent's yard in Tampa (she was in Kentucky). She wrote him back about how fortunate the unit was in Tampa, her parents could come look at it. She then got a song and dance about it was not available to look at because he could not get leave.

It took me all of about 10 minutes on the internet to see that the same ad was posted in four different states with the exact same wording. The asking price was about a third of the retail value and the picture, with each of the ads was the same. It was also obvious that the travel trailer was in a yard with many other trailers. Not somebodies home. I told my step daughter to be more careful and then contacted Craig's List. The ads were pulled the next day.

Caveat Emptor! And I really would like to meet that person with a baseball bat.

Rich

[eliems]

I bought a Dodge Viper in LA from a dealer who would not release the car until payment had cleared, (5 days after I wire,transfer, bank draft or whatever), which meant if I wanted to test drive the car I would have to pay cash or wait around for five days.

So I stuffed $28K USD in my black leather binder and flew down with my wife, declaring at the border and feeling very vulnerable until the dealer had counted and receipted the cash!

There should be another way.

[GaryMayo]

Originally Posted by eliems

I bought a Dodge Viper in LA from a dealer who would not release the car until payment had cleared, (5 days after I wire,transfer, bank draft or whatever), which meant if I wanted to test drive the car I would have to pay cash or wait around for five days.

So I stuffed $28K USD in my black leather binder and flew down with my wife, declaring at the border and feeling very vulnerable until the dealer had counted and receipted the cash!

There should be another way.

Any law enforcement agency can confiscate large sums of cash and make you prove you have a rightful relationship to the money. Just showing a withdraw slip from your bank is not good enough. You have to prove you paid taxes on the money, and a couple other things.

This is no longer the day and age to walk around with a bag of cash. Uncle sam got has nothing on the mob these days.

I paid for a boat recently. Boat was in LA and the seller was in DC. I was in Nebraska. I did some head scratching and figured if I sent cash, it could look like money laundering. If I sent a check, it could look the same. So I walked into a bank and borrowed the cash to pay for the boat. Pay the bank some piddley interest and the money now has a history I can easily prove.

[delmarrey]

Here's a "learn to" conference. 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference

[jerseysail]

Thanks so much for posting this. We're selling our boat on Craigs list and got the same exact email from the same person. It smelled fishy so I randomly googled that email address and found this website. That they responded exactly to YOUR ad selling a $46K boat, as they did to our ad selling a $9K boat, that was the proverbial straw that broke the scammer's back.

Thanks for posting the full email and his address! I want as many people to know that "merinda112@gmail.com" is a con artist.

Also, I did some further checking around, and it seems that they can use Paypal as a front; after they get your Paypal email address they'll send you a fake Paypal email saying the funds are being withheld, and you have to do such-and-such to get the money. (Paypal would never do anything like that.)

'Buyer beware' takes on new depth in the age of the Internet!

[jerseysail]

Originally Posted by susanna reiter

this is just a fraction of the litany of tragic tales related to "Craig's List and Paypal.....I personally know of one man that lost 25K on a supposed car deal through Craig's list. His only recourse was to contact the local district attorney's fraud department...good luck with that !
I have had money taken out of my PayPal account w/o authorization or a password..lucky for me it was under $100 it happened at midnight so by the time I found out..they had the $$...but it could have been worse. So many have been really burned by these schemes and they are not limited to contacts from "Nigeria". The predators are all over the place. Once I learned about the hacking into my Paypal and bank account.. I immediately cancelled the account and cancelled the card w/the number attached....."cash in hand " exchanged at a neutral safe place and not meeting the contact alone is the only way to deal w/these on-line predators.

How did somebody take money from your Paypal account without a password?

[David M]

I can't see wasting my time replying to scammers. Report the scammers to craigslist.

Assume that anything other than a simple on the spot cash transaction/title transfer/possession of merchandise transfer/ both parties in person/ done all at the same time, is a potential scam. At least when you get away from these principles, the chance of a buyer or seller getting burned increases.

Requiring Paypay or Western Union should set off a red flag. Cash doesn't lie.