So I’m trying to sell a laptop I got as a birthday gift from a visiting family member. It’s brand new, and a nice little machine: Dual core, large drive with vista home premium. I even went in and customized and optimized the thing and took out all the HP bloatware that is always thrown in there. It now boots 4 times faster
Anyway, I’m trying to sell it on Craig’s list because I wanted a gaming laptop instead. This one is great for school and light office work but it ain’t going to play left 4 dead. And unfortunately, I can’t take it back to the store since I don’t know where it was purchased nor do I have the receipt, as it was a gift.
So I put it up a few days ago and so far, EVERY interested party started with the basic can I have more info/pics, etc. exchange. Then, after they’ve decided that they wanted the thing I get the EXACT SAME line from each and every one. It goes something like:
"My insert family member is on vacation/a digg/the army/etc in west/south Africa. I will pay you 100/250 dollars for shipping and handling as I need it shipped directly to said party. I can only pay you through paypal in order to protect both our interests.
Is this some sort of scam? It seems weird that every single interested party came up with the same situation over and over again.
Others can provide more details, but the basics are that they will likely overpay with *fake * money and ask that you return the excess. In good faith, you’ll return the overage in real money. By the time you or your bank realizes that the payment instrument that they gave you is fake, well, your money is in Africa.
My golden rule for Craigslist: Never use an email address for contact. Crackpots, scammers and spammers come out of the woodwork when you allow an email contact. I only provide a phone number, and I only get serious inquiries.
By the way, the initial email contact by a potential buyer goes through the Craigslist server. Once you reply, they have your personal email and you’ll start getting spam.
Just use a throw-away email. If you get any more responses for the laptop, answer throught the throw-away only. Next time you want to post on CL get another throw-away and use it.
If you’re listed in the phonebook, they already have your phone number. I haven’t had that problem. But with email, I first get an inquiry that is always along the lines of “Is this item in working order?” or “What are the dimensions of this item?” even when the question is not relevant to the item I’m selling. After answering the seemingly innocuous question, you never hear back from the person making the query, but you immediately start getting those damn “buy Viagra online” type ads.
The other scam is to send a fake paypal confirmation email, usually with something that says “due to technical upgrade work it might take 24-48 hrs for this payment to show in your account, however this receipt is confirmation that the sum has been transferred”.
You send the goods and nothing appears in the paypal account.
Someone tried this on me when I sold a PDA on eBay - I spotted the fake email but otherwise it’s a pretty convincing scam.
