Craigslist Scam Email: "Carolyn Jones"/[email protected]

Craigslist Scam Email: "Carolyn Jones"/[email protected]

I received this message (after the first message asking if it was still available):

"Hi,
Thanks for your response. I'm going on a vacation to London but I will instruct my assistant to prepare and mail your payment which I'm sure you will get in about 4 - 6 business days. I'll add $20 extra for the delay. I'll pay by M O or cashier check so send me your info (i.e full name, mailing address and your phone number) so payment can be mailed out immediately. I will also make arrangement for pick-up which will be after you must have received and cashed the payment.
Awaiting your info.
Thanks"

I ususaly do google searches of email addresses before I reply (I forgot to with the first message), so now hopefully this one will pop up as a scam if someone else tries to look for it.

I received this same message from the same email address, which message struck me as suspicious from the start. (People vacationing in London who have "Assistants" performing their personal chores are generally not purchasing 2nd hand bikes on Craigslist!)

The next day I received a message stating: "I urgently have to bring something to your notice. I just found out that my Assistant overpaid you. The payment meant for another transaction was made out in your name and sent to you. However I want to believe I wont have a problem with you on this. Once you receive the payment, Please proceed to the bank and cash the payment, deduct your money and send back the balance to me via western union. So I can proceed with arrangement for pick-up. Once more, I hope I can fully trust you with this? I will await your response on this so my mind can be at rest.
Thanks "

Obviously, this made it considerably more suspicious, though I still don't see how the scamster will get the money. Nobody of sound mind would send "her" a cent until they were paid in full for their sale.

Do you understand how the scam works?

Ignorance of banking laws is common, and it is how these scammers succeed.
It's very simple really. The scammers are taking advantage of the fact that most people don't actually understand how our banking rules work. Most people think that if the bank gives you the cash, then the check has cleared and everything is fine. It's not.

By law, if a check has not been proven fraudulent within a certain number of days, the bank has to make the funds available to you. But the fact that they issue the cash does NOT mean that the check has actually cleared.

After you have been credited with the deposit, the check can still be found to be fraudulent. This could happen very quickly, or it could take several weeks. For example, if the check is written on a real (stolen) account, the fraud may not be detected until the account owner reviews his/her statement and sees checks he/she didn't write. When that happens, the fraud claim will be verified, and the bank will take back the entire amount of the check from your account. If you have taken some of the money out, your account will be overdrawn. In addition to the remaining balance, you can be held accountable for fees/fines for the fraudulent deposit, and overdraft fees for every check you write that now bounces as a result of the reversal. The bank can even contact the authorities and press charges for fraud.

In the meantime, the scammer, who is using all fake information, has just walked away with the cash.