Comments on: Craigslist Scam

By: karen

karen — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 05:47:41 +0000

I was trying to sell a Google G1 smartphone. The newest (xmas craze)on Craigs List and had at least 10 email offers from overseas, mostly from Nigeria offering to pay 150.00 or more than I was originally offering and deposit it into my paypal. Well I didnt bite. I knew it must have been a scam. But wasnt sure how, I fiquered they would report item not recieved and get a refund from paypal. Who could be so stupid as to not check their paypal account to see it deposit was made b4 shipping!!

By: Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy Buffett — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 07:19:08 +0000

Nigerian scammers sucks. They should all be jailed. Why don’t they do anything productive in place scamming people for they hard earned money.

By: ugg

ugg — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:49:58 +0000

Nigerian scammers should just be sent to jailed. They have scammed many innocent people

By: Direct john

Direct john — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:02:04 +0000

Damn nigerian scammers, there are actually a bunch of them that live of this stuff just sending out crap emails and stealing money. I guess they think that because they are so far they can’t be caught …

By: The Lasik Boy

The Lasik Boy — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:05:30 +0000

The same thing happens to me when I posted my listings on ebay.

Whatever you try to sell or buy on the internet, stick to the golden rule : “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!”

Thanks for sharing.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:35:07 +0000

Wow, I hadn’t heard of that that special, but I will definitely YouTube it. I’m glad I caught this one. I’m usually pretty precise when it comes to this stuff because I know there are these types of people out there, but I know there are also tons of people who probably wouldn’t think twice about double checking their PayPal account for the money.
I was kind of stuck on whether to be really pissed off about this or whether to feel sorry for the people doing it. Obviously the conditions that push people to do these sorts of scams are not pleasant and I wonder what I would do to get by if I was in that position. Sure, it doesn’t make it right but I believe that people generally don’t want to do bad things unless they feel the need to or have been lead to believe so.

By: Po

Po — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:31:26 +0000

Good thing you caught that from the start. Nigeria is probably the best known hot spot internet scams are happening right out of. Look up “Dateline: To Catch a Con Man” on YouTube, if you haven’t already seen it. It’s amazing.
About a year ago, I was at a bookstore coffee shop when I overheard a lady (who runs an online business/Ebay store) talking with her friend about a “strange” e-mail she received. The e-mail was from some potential buyer from Dallas, Texas wanting to have the digital camera sent to his parents in Nigeria as a gift. I jumped out of my seat and went up to her. “I’m sorry Ma’am, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but you say “Nigeria?”
“Yes,” the lady said. “Do you know anything?”
“I think it’s a scam.”
I told her about that Dateline special I saw on television just nights before about overseas internet scams, most of them being conducted right out of Nigeria. The lady showed me the e-mail from her laptop monitor, and what I saw was atrocious. The e-mail from a “Steve Ferguson” contained poorly written English, numerous punctuations errors, and misspelled words such as “chashier’s check,” and Texas was spelled “Taxes.”
If you’re going to sell online, assume anything that looks like a scam or “sounds too good to be true,” is. You’re a smart man, Pat.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:23:10 +0000

Yeah–you have to be really careful on the web these days. My sister recently was the victim of an email scam and had to cancel credit cards, bank cards, etc and get new ones. It’s a real pain. At least she caught it early. These scams always involve fake emails. If you make it a point to not click to sites from emails, then that’s half the battle.

By: Mike New

Mike New — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:32:11 +0000

Total scam! Thanks for sharing this with us. Hopefully it will prevent someone from falling in the trap themselves.

By: Anni of Derby picks

Anni of Derby picks — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:49:54 +0000

This truly saddened me. I have been using craigslist.com for buying and selling stuff and THANK GOD I haven’t been scammed. Thanks for informing I would be more cautious next time.