Wow, the Craigslist fraudsters sure act quick. We've started the close down process, and listed some furniture for sale on Craigslist this morning.
Posted by
Stephen (aka Sceire)
Jul 1 '13, 13:30
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Within a minute we got a response from someone interested in buying it. A few e-mails are exchanged, the buyer says he's an attorney in Southern California, he's not in his office right now as he's "chasing down clients" so his emails are short (with plenty of erros, including spelling his last name two different ways). He wants to pay us the price we ask for, but also wants to pay us an additional sum of money which we would then use to pay the movers he would hire to pick up the furniture. (Red flag!). We then get an e-mail from "Paypal" which went straight into the spam folder that states they've received X amount, and as soon as they receive confirmation that we've Western Union'd the money to the movers, a woman in Kansas, the funds will be released to my boss' PayPal account. (You don't say?!)
I quickly did an attorney search, based on the name given us, with the CA State Bar and we call this attorney. Almost immediately the attorney says "let me guess, you've been talking to someone claiming to be me on Craigslist?" Seems he has to deal with this a couple of times a week as his identity is being used by who knows how many fraudsters.
But really, does anyone really fall for this type of scenario? Some must...
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