Impressive Scam

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 1

Were it not for being incredibly suspicious of online transactions- this one might have got me. I've had my laptop on craigslist for some time, and just received an email of interest. Here is the correspondence:

Him to Me: "Do you still wanna sell the above item?"

Me to Him: "yep. have any questions about it?"

H2M: "Hello Alex,
I'm so sorry for the late response, yeah...I'll like to know if it's really in good condition cos I want to purchase it for someone. I'll be offering you $300 for the item cost and international shipping cost . The payment will be made via PayPal, so Send me your PayPal email address so i can transfer the fund to your account ASAP...
Hope to read from you soon. Thanks"

M2H: "It is exactly as I described it- everything is perfectly fine with it, except that the battery does not hold a charge. The CD drive, ethernet port, usb port, and audio port all work great. Where would I be shipping it to?

This is my paypal email: [email protected]"

Now, the price I asked for is well over $50 more than the laptop is worth, I planned to be haggled down for it. He offered $100 dollars more than that, for international shipping costs. Within 30 minutes of sending my last reply, I received two VERY properly forged emails from paypal. All the links in the email refer back to the real papal site. It even accounted for why I had yet to see the payment in my account:

Safety Measures to Protect Both Buyer and Seller.
Dear XXXXXXXX,

We have received an order from one of our customer to make an instant payment of $300.00 USD to your PayPal account. The payment has been made successfully and the money has been deducted from the buyer's account but will not be credited into your account. We are waiting for you to send us the proper tracking number before we can credit your account and this is due to the large increase in the rate of the online scams recorded last year (2007). We have changed some of our rules and regulation to make sure our clients (Seller and Buyer) are safe from scam, PayPal in conjunction with The FBI and The IFCC has invented certain preventive measure to ensure the safety of both our seller's and buyer's in this Month.

Such measure are:
1. Once a payment is made,A confirmation Email will be sent to the seller that the payment has been made to state the transaction details which has been sent to you. Also a confirmation is sent to the buyer that the money has been deducted from his or her account. So once you get this mail,You should ship the item immediately to the address that was given to you by PayPal and send the tracking number to Us. Once the tracking number gets to us, the seller's account will be credited instantly. But unknown condition will the tracking number be given to the buyer unless the seller's account is credited and likewise will seller's account be credited until we get the tracking number.

2. Once a payment is made and it has been approved by PayPal, such transaction is Sealed (because both seller and buyer must have come to a conclusion before payment is made by the buyer) so therefore neither the buyer or seller can cancel this transaction or ask for the returned to the buyer's account. Also, this is where we generate our income, because the more transaction made through PayPal, the more we generate our Income.

3. Failure to abide by these laid down safety measures by Paypal may leads to suspension from PayPal and further more invitation to an interrogation with the F.B.I
So can you see we are very considerate about the safety of both buyer and seller.
**PLEASE NOTE**
Once shipment has been verified and the tracking number sent, we will verify and credit your account.You will receive a
"CONFIRMATION EMAIL" from PayPal® with the URL which will lead you to where you will be ask to log in to your account.If you have any question regarding this message, feel free to contact out customer care help desk [email protected]"

Note the email- this is the source as well, simply the name field was [email protected].

So, obviously I have yet to ship anything. I am debating sending a postcard (very cheap, but no tracking number to help string him along), or a box of bricks (pretty expensive, about $10 per pound.

I am looking for ideas for scam baiting, and whether or not it is wise, given that he does have my real paypal email, which is the name I use for almost everything online, save this.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:11 pm

Hi Skameroo,

Welcome here! If that's your real name in your post, you may want to edit it out. Also, if the scammer has your real life contact details, you should probably just drop it.

Read through the links in your welcome PM. There are lots of great tips in there for getting started. Very Happy

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:22 pm

Read ^^^
Just send him one last email that you sold the computer locally for $50 more than he offered, you're sorry.
Then.... read lots here, get a safe email addy and wait a week, then drop him a note from your new addy that you have bought this computer, but it won't run your favorite game, would he still be interested as you found the whole conversation with him and the former owner on the laptop. Twisted Evil

BTW you don't have PayPal, but he can send the money by WU or MG Wink

Let him work on a new clue for his scam Laughing