by Michelle
Thu Oct 29, 2009 5:53 pm
The following has been sent to me by a victim of fraud that I have been in contact with recently and is reproduced here with her consent.
Let's call her Carla ...(not her real name)
The backstory is that Carla was selling her 'Blackberry' on craiglist and was approached on-line by someone wanting to buy it from her as a present for for her daughter. Payment was confirmed by a realistic, but fake, e-mail from PayPal.
Carla was then given an address somewhere in Africa to send the 'Blackberry' to. This raised a Red Flag to Carla, but as she thought the payment was confirmed subject to delivery being confirmed she went ahead she paid $50 to have the item shipped out to Africa.
Carla has not only lost a $350 'Blackberry' but paid $50 for the privilege of doing so .... and to top things off the Scammers continued to write to Carla making excuses for her to send them money by Western Union to correct matters.
Now read Carla's story:-
Let's call her Carla ...(not her real name)
The backstory is that Carla was selling her 'Blackberry' on craiglist and was approached on-line by someone wanting to buy it from her as a present for for her daughter. Payment was confirmed by a realistic, but fake, e-mail from PayPal.
Carla was then given an address somewhere in Africa to send the 'Blackberry' to. This raised a Red Flag to Carla, but as she thought the payment was confirmed subject to delivery being confirmed she went ahead she paid $50 to have the item shipped out to Africa.
Carla has not only lost a $350 'Blackberry' but paid $50 for the privilege of doing so .... and to top things off the Scammers continued to write to Carla making excuses for her to send them money by Western Union to correct matters.
Now read Carla's story:-
Carla wrote:
I sold a nextel blackberry on craigslist.
The person who bought it claimed they were a mother purchasing for a daughter. then, after negotiations were made, she sent me an address in Africa, which was a warning sign, but i went through with it because I THOUGHT PAYMENT WAS ALREADY MADE.
Here is how they convinced me that the payment was made.
They asked me for my email that was associated with my paypal account, because that was one of the options they provided for immediate payment. I sent them that address, and then, "paypal" sent me a notification of payment being made. It looked like a paypal accounts email, and the link that they sent me, was a paypal website page, which they had obviously stolen and pasted, and on the page, it said payments may take up to three days to show up in account- which, i thought, explained why when i logged into my actual paypal account, why no payment had shown up, although i did find it odd that there was no history of the transaction.
I can not remember exactly, the order in which these events occurred, but "paypal" sent me an email saying the money was sent to my paypal account, and was being "held" until i emailed back to the "paypal email" that "paypal" provided, the shipping tracking code- which, after i mailed the package. I emailed out the tracking code- and paypal emailed me back saying shipping was verified, and the funds that were formerly held, were now released into my account, and to allow up to three days for that transaction to show up.
About day two after shipping, the "mom" sent me the redflag mail- her secretary had sent an extra amount to paypal by accident, and could i please do the right thing by western union-ing the difference back to them. I only knew then, but too late, that i had been scammed! i was so angry- not only did they have my $350 phone, i paid $50 to have it shipped to africa... and on top of their greediness... they wanted additional cash!
The reason for me falling to this scam is that most of the contact was done by "paypal" with the funds, and the email, and the seemingly legitimate action of funds being "held" upon receipt of the tracking number- and the idea of immediate payment through a site, paypal, that is trusted very much.
