How does this scam work?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 12 Apr 2013 Posts: 5

I've seen a scam on armslist (craigslist for guns) quite frequently. It goes basically like this:

1) Someone posts a desirable gun for a cheap price

2) When you contact, the gun isn't actually in the location he said it was, he is somewhere else. (Whenever I check IPs, the scammer is in Nigeria)

3) Wants you to send postal money order (with tracking preferably) to a location in the US, typically a house that is for sale (and presumably vacant).

Obviously it's a scam, but how is the scammer getting the money out of the US? Is there a dupe involved who is cashing checks unknowingly for the scammer? Or a willing participant?

I've played with a few, said I sent money, etc. Even got some to give me a phone number. I assume if I call the phone number I'd get a Skype connection to said scammer, but never have. Just curious how this works.

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 1:27 pm

Interesting! I suspect you're on the right track about potential involvement of an accomplice in the US. Often this sort of thing is achieved by a "work from home" scam where that person thinks they are handling payments to a company but in fact serve as the intermediary between a scammer and buyer in scenarios like you describe.

The phone number could be the intermediary, it could be skype or some other forwarding service to a scammer outside the country.

Just wondering how you manage to identify the definite scammers vs real sellers? I don't know guns at all so maybe it's obvious from "too good to be true" deals. Good to see you are checking IPs, this provides great assurance that indeed you really do have scammers on the line.

One of my baiting characters would like to give armslist a try, would you mind PMing me a link to a scammy seller or two?

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 12 Apr 2013 Posts: 5

I think if you knew enough you would spot too good to be true. I think what they mostly do is copy another listing and drop the price a few hundred dollars. If you look through the listings, the modus operandus is to list the item in "STATE, STATE" (ie they don't list it in a city). Usually the listings aren't up long. By and large these are usually higher end listings (at least $1k). So if you look through the higher cost listings and see any listed without a state, start a correspondence. If you search for the wording, you may find it's a stolen listing too. I'll PM you one or two here.