Last time I went back to Ohio State, Max and I were sitting in the Ohio Union waiting for a friend, when Max decided that we should attend a lecture from Brian Bushwood, the man behind Scam School. What, exactly, is Scam School? It's a series of online "classes" (read: youtube clips) that teaches you how to scam the hell out of people. The purpose being that if you know how to scam the hell out of people, you will recognize the tricks of a scammer and won't get the hell scammed out of yourself. It has, in reality, really paid off and I highly recommend it. Like yesterday...
My parents bought me an iPhone for my birthday (thanks again :D), which I've been drooling over for a while. This effectively rendered useless the iPod I bought for myself back in December. Since I resolved to sell things on Craigslist that I don't need anymore, it's gotta go. Some things have sell easily, others... well, just read these emails.
Wannabe scammer: Do you still have this item up for sale?
Me: Yes, it is still for sale.
Wanna scammer, from a different email address: In fact I'm really interested in the immediately purchase of this item for my daughter as a B'day Gift,do you still have the Original packing? i will like to see the attached picture of the item maybe is still in good condition.i will be offering you $300.00 USD for the total cost including shipping Via USPS Express Mail.i will be paying Via PayPal. so Kindly reply me back now with your Confirmed PayPal email address so i can transfer the fund into your PayPal account ASAP. hope to hearing back from you.
[It's at this point that I feel like something's wrong. Granted, this is written very much like one of those "YOU JUST WON THE NIGERIAN LOTTERY" emails, but could just as well be written by someone who doesn't speak English very well]
Me: I'm sorry, but I no longer have the original packaging, and I'm not comfortable shipping this item.
Wannabe scammer, from yet another email address: Why?? it's because of the scam online now...i want you to know that i am a legit buyer, also PayPal verified member, so you have nothing to fear about and that is why i said i will send out the payment first before you ship the item, so get back to me with your PayPal account ID for the payment,waiting for your reply.
[It's a common tactic for a scammer to tell you that there's a scam. It's supposed to make you think "Oh, this guy's not one of them because he wouldn't tell me about the racket if he were in it." When he mentions paying before I ship, I remember specifically something I read about a PayPal scam...]
Me: Yes that has a lot to do with it. The way the scam works is that you pay me, I ship the item, you complain that it's damaged or not what you pay for or something like that, and then paypal takes my money and gives it back to you. Thus, I am left with no iPod and no money.
The fact that you offered 1.5 times my asking price and are willing to pay before I ship, might seem like a dream to a normal seller, but I am an economist. I specialize in risk. And when something is too good to be true, it almost invariably is.
Also, every time you contact me, it's through a different email address.
No dice, buddy. Better luck next time.
I'd like to thank Brian Bushwood and Scam School, because he's the one who first told me that if you feel like something's wrong, it probably is. Shut them down immediately and GTFO.
But here's a question for you: if you hadn't read this post, would you have sold it to this guy? Would his willingness to pay $100 extra and pay before you ship have convinced you that he is legit despite is poor language skills?
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Nope. I don't sell anything to people with poor language skills in general. Now, if it's in person at say...a yard sale, fine. Because it's cash and you get no refunds, period. But anything online? Nope. And any time they want to offer you more than you want for it- huge red flag for me.
Craigslist is scary and I've never had to sell anything on there and I'm pretty much doing everything I can to not resort to that.
Nope - he was too eager, didn't ask any more questions about the condition beyond whether you had the original packaging (which to me is a crazy question if you know you're buying something used and almost a year old). And the different email address each time is creepy. And offering 50% above the asking price for a used item is creepy.
This guy rated way to high on the creep-o-meter even without knowing about the scam.
No. He sounds like those spammers I get who wants to "invest" millions of dollars to my bank account.
Dude, I shut down almost the exact same scam, except the woman also told me she was deaf so she could only communicate via email. Nice.
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