Current Craigslist Scam

If you have sold or are planning to sell anything on Craigslist, you are going to encounter this variation of the 419 or Nigerian scam which has been "infecting" Craigslist. These are "scams", not even remotely a legitimate offer, and should not even be acknowledged after the initial contact. They start with an email question on whether the item is still for sale and proceed into the scam after you reply. Since initially you cannot determine if they are legitimate or not, you must reply. Then you will receive something like below:

From: "kisha wilfred" <[email protected]>
Contacts To: [email protected]

-----Inline Attachment Follows-----

thanks for the reply i would like you to know that paymemt would be made via a certified check and i have a shipper who would come for the pickup .the shippers fund would be included in the payment sent to you
so you would handle that.if you accept send me your mailing add phone number and names for payment to be sent ASAP.
thanks

--
hi i saw ur add on cl and i would like to buy let me know if
it is still available and i would lik to know the last price it is
....and
how good is it

********************
Or you may get something like this:

********************
On Wed, 1/7/09, "Yusuf James" <[email protected]> wrote

Hello,
I gone thru your add on craigslist i will like to know if this item is
still available for sale?if so,I will be paying you by (Money Order) Kindly provide your full name,Address and your Phone number for payment....It will take 2 -3 days before the payment get to you... As perpick-up,I will make arrangement for the pick-up after payment has been received by you.I hope
it is in good condition,kindly reply with your name,phone # and mailing address where payment will be sent.I will let you know how i intend to pick it up.i will add $50 to it... so that you can keep it for me,Note:
As soon as you have your money in hand we can talk about the picking up of the item ok.I would like you to take the posting off craigslist today.
Best Regards.

*********************

I have included their names so that you may be warned--these people are not to be trusted. Anytime you receive some email which states they will send you a check, money order, cashiers check, bank check, etc You Are Being Scammed!!! The only way we can protect ourselves is to pass on the information about "scams" being used and how we handled it. I hope this has helped.

Hi ya

Thanks for the info. It is a sad state of affairs when a person can't even trust postal notes, bank cheques or anything these days. Of course the next step would be that you would get your money order, send the item, only to find the police or your bank asking why you have deposited a fake. Obviously they are great fakes. I don't know if there is anyway of validating money orders, postal notes and bank cheques quickly prior to sending an item. If anyone out there does, please post!!!

I like to go after the Romanian style scams that are posted on sites like Craigslist, Gumtree, Autotrader. Down the track I'd like to have a go at sending one of these lads on a ride.

This info is good as people searching the net may access this thread and be spared the scam.

Cheers

If you are advertising anything on Craigslist, Gumtree, or any other auction/sale site, here are a few warning signs.

1 - in the first contact, the "buyer" refers to "the item" rather than mentioning it by name (sofa, car, computer, etc.). This is a good indication that the person contacting you has not even read your item description. There have been amusing anecdotes of scammers saying they are going to ship items like cheesecakes and (believe it or not) burial plots to someplace overseas. The best response to an inquiry about "item" is either a polite "Sorry, the item has been sold" or "Thank you for your interest. I will only sell locally and for cash."

2 - if the contact goes further, the "buyer" will tell you he is paying by certified or bank check. This is bound to be either drawn on a nonexistent account or on a forged or stolen check. Bad news all around if you cash it. If things get this far, do a lot of research before trusting the check. Don't rely on the bank to tell you it's a fake - they may not know for months.

3 - the check will generally be for an amount quite a lot bigger than the sales price. You will be asked to deposit the check, take a little more "for your trouble," and send the rest - by Western Union or Moneygram, of course - to a "shipper." Or back to the "buyer," who for some reason has accidentally written the check for more than the purchase price.

If you are alert for these signs, and if you deal carefully and wisely, you should be safe.

Another giveaway is the strange name invented by this scammer.

From: "kisha wilfred" <[email protected]>

Lads often come up with weird names.

recently I have been on CL looking for apartments on the east coast as I am looking to move and I am not sure where i want to move, so I have been doing some HW on towns jobs and places available in certain areas. I started in florida of course who doesn't right? I see this beautiful apartment two bedroom I love it so i jumped on it and e-mailed the guy immediately. Then i move to the opposite part of the state and I see the same place pics and everything same e-mail just with a different town, i am so confused and i have already e-mailed the guy. So then i go to another state forgeting about the odd apartment thing and what do i see the same guy same e-mail and the same pics in a completely different state. CAN SOMEONE tell me what is going on?? Is this some type of scam or what ????? help cause I would like to know what to expect when i hear back from this guy as i told him i was in maine and looking from a distance.
Here is the add posted in 3 towns in florida and then i have seen it so far in ohne town in S. carolina and still looking
$721 a month -> Exceptional Two BR / Two Bathroom Rentals Ready Now - REF#: 7 (Myrtle Beach)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: see below
Date: 2009-01-21, 7:38PM EST



1540 sqaure feet,
electric washer and drier, Fenced backyard or balcony Huge
Bedrooms/ 2 Full Baths Located just off 3rd
Free Wireless internet and basic cable, Refridgerator Electric Stove

$280 Deposit


Serious inquiries only. E-Mail [email protected]

Well that certainly sounds fishy to me.

Scammers will often use the same pics of an residence on all their scams. They find nice pictures of a very nice house and use them to death. The rent is usually cheaper than the norm and they usually are renting their house out as they're working in west Africa.

This is by no means a hard and fast rule, but it's pretty common. I would stay away from these appartments for sure. One might be real, but it's very unlikely.

The scam will be that you need to send the first months rent and deposit to him directly in Africa via instant money transfer. He will withdraw it and then vanish.

We have a few advisors who are well versed in craigslist fraud and I'm sure one of them will pop in soon and set me straight on a few points.

Edit: a google of his email address comes up with THIS page of rental homes, all of which will be non-existant. Speaking of email addresses, you might notice that his email address ends in +9, this is a standard scammer trick. They will open lots of email addresses with the same name, but each will have a different suffix (+1, +2, +3, etc). When one gets closed down, he will move to the next one and try to keep in touch with his victims in the hope that they won't notice the change.

Please don't send any money.

thanks for the reply after I read this I opened up my e-mail and this is what was sent to me,
"Sara" <[email protected]>Add sender to Contacts To: "Melissa Tableman" <[email protected]>Hi Melissa Tableman,

We will be showing this by appointment only to qualified prospects we have to determine if you qualify first before we can discuss it further we get so many people inquiring about our properties its almost impossible to answer all questions first before determining if one can even qualify first. So Melissa Tableman can you get a copy of your credit score
You can get an absolutely no cost credit report from Here
Then once you do that we can set up a time to come by and view and discuss further about the property

Obviously i did not write back obviously I would not give anyone my inf like that t get in to a place to rent, unless it was in person and I read why they wanted that over my other info to even talk to me, but just an0other thing to add to this ridiculous scam, honestly i am amazed that they still do this as people should be on to them and not fall for this crap at all, are their people out there that still do???

I just got an exact email like this from

NAME OF RECEIVER: LISA JONES
ADDRESS: 27 Grosvenor Square
CITY: LONDON
COUNTRY: UNITED KINGDOM
ZIP CODE: W1A 2LQ

It sounded a little fishy to me, so I looked up Craigslist scams on Google & found this thread. What do you think is the best thing to do? Send the money order back? Return to sender & then block this person from my email? I have not gotten any money order or check yet. If you have any info, please advise.

if I were you I would ignore all emails that you get from them from here on out. they try to even go as far as emailing you and putting out threats to you and your family. but believe me they are not true. if that were the case and they knew people in the area then they would have no problem going through them as a third party in the transaction they are trying to get from you. I have ignored and I have emailed them back and called them out on their ridiculous lies, when you do that they tend not to email you anymore though, cause they know you are not going to put up with their crap. i have been mean and nasty to a few because of things they have sent. and beleive me they never wrote back or tried to threaten me again. but please do not send them money and do not cash a check for them it will bounce and you will be stuck with the fines.
best bet ignore, if they try to scare you then call them out and be stern and tell them that you will be sending there info to the current carrier they go through (yahoo whatever) and try to get them prosecuted, and that you are going to send all their info online so everyone can see it. they shut up real quick and leave you alone. these people are smart and they get money from people alot. but if you put them in there place then they know enough to back away cause they will move on to the next victim. be safe..

Hi Wendebird and Meja

Welcome both of you to Scamwarners.

@Wendebird,
Please dont bother to return to sender, the people who committed this crime are in Africa although it is likely they have a local unsuspecting mule to send the cheques to you, you have 3 choices here;

1) Take the cheque complete with packaging, unopened if possible to your local police and explain what has happened.

2) Tear up the cheque and throw it in the bin

3) write fake on the cheque clearly in large letters and keep it as a momento of the scam you avoided.

Taking it to the police if probably the best choice although realistically keeping it as a momento on display may end up doing more good as you explain to your friends how you got it

@Meja
You are right on most points however contacting the scammer and calling him out on the scam as you put it is not a good idea.

If you must reply, Send a short email;

"I have been notified by the bank that the cheque was fake, do not contact me again"

Nothing more, and only ever do that once and never reply again.

Please keep in mind that we dont want to educate the scammer, if you for instance told him that his stated location is a parking lot, then he will change his stated location and his next victim will not have opportunity to find out that clue that it is a scammer.

If you ignore them, they will go away

Same story- posted ad to Craigslist, received scam emails from the following addresses:

"Chris Goode" <[email protected]
"Ray Woodley" <[email protected]
"James Larson" <[email protected]
"bdchv jdhdg" <[email protected]

less than a week. craigslist should provide an email address these emails could be forwarded to and then block them. I provide the addresses hoping they will show up in Google searches as a scam.

Welcome here slab. I'm glad you are wary of scams and don't fall for them. Could you please post the emails you got from those four? If possible with the full headers. If you don't know how to get the headers, just ask.

"Chris Goode" <[email protected] emails:
first- "I am emailing you regarding your item if it is still available for sale."
followed by- "I would like to purchase it from you; the easiest way for me to pay is business check from my bank. I know there are a lot of scams so I have no problem with you waiting for the check to go through at your bank, I will wait for your bank to verify and clear that the check is good before you can proceed to cash it so by then we can proceed with the shipment and also don't worry about the shipment; the item will be picked by Private shipping company. As my bank manager informed me that the check would clear immediately at your bank as it was from my business account. Which is confirms to all American Banking Association rules and standards. Attach the picture of the item to me for me to see the maintenance and email me your full name and address with your phone number for me to mail you the check


Best Regards.
Chris Goode
229-471-4070"

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"Ray Woodley" <[email protected]
first- deleted
followed by-"Hello, i appreciate your quick response on this sales i am very much satisfied with the condition and i want you to know that my term of payment is by certified check drawn from us bank and i have my own shipper that will come for the pick up of the item upon your confirmation of receiving and cash the check, and again to let you know that you don't need another buyer for the item so do withdraw the advert from CL and get back to me with the following information to have the check mail out to asap.
1.....full name to write on the check
2.....full physical address to mail the check to please not P.O BOX
3.....Home & Cell Phone to contact you
kindly get back to me asap, Regards"

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"James Larson" <[email protected]
first- "Still available?"
followed by- "I'm glad you still have it for sale,i would have love to come and see it,but my scheduled is very tight.I will mail out your payment once you provide your full name.phone number and address.I can only pay via money order as am on a business trip now,pls let me know where to send your payment to because i wouldn't want to lose it to some else.I don't mind adding fifty ($50) dollars so you can keep it in my favor,you should get your payment in 4-6 working days i will appreciate if you can get the ad off craigslist so i can be sure you are keeping it in my favor.Please let me know as soon as you receive it so i can start making arrangement for the pick-up.
Thanks "

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