Is this a scam?

kgruber

kgruber

Final Approach
Joined
Jan 3, 2007
Messages
5,128
Location
Western Washington
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Display name:
Skywag
I have a table and chairs for sale on craigslist in eastern Washington. I have this response, and it sounds like a scam to me. What do you think?


""""Thanks for the respond my name is Mary Anderson a 50 yr old deaf mother,
But you can txt me on (347) 670-0xxx i live in New York (watertown) i saw
your listing while checking on CL and i will like to purchase from you, i
want you to know am buying this as a gift for someone and i want to keep it
as a surprise to him on till it delivered. I tried buying here but I
realized that there are only few items here. I will not be able to view it
but I have a Mover who will come for the pickup so please get back to me
with some resent pictures and also I will be making the payment via PayPal
as that is the only payment option I can access from here I hope you
understand.I have some questions for you;
Are you the first owner of it?
Where do you live?
What is your final asking price?
Does it have anything negative i should know about?""""
 
Total scam. Not even a question.
 
Scam scam scam scam scam
 
The PayPal account is probably on a Nigerian Bank but the funds are blocked. :D

Cheers
 
Phone rings at my auto salvage yard:

"Hi, this is Relay Operator 584732. I have a hearing impared individual that wishes to purchase a large quantity of spark plugs and lug nuts from you..."

(No joke... that call happened earlier this year)
 
If you give him/her a Paypal account number can they withdraw money? Other than that you just don't release the property without prior payment.

Admittedly this looks quite fishy, but I thought the Nigerians pay with fake cashier's cheques. And who is really going to run a scam for a table and some chairs?
 
steingar said:
If you give him/her a Paypal account number can they withdraw money? Other than that you just don't release the property without prior payment.

Admittedly this looks quite fishy, but I thought the Nigerians pay with fake cashier's cheques. And who is really going to run a scam for a table and some chairs?
Click to expand...

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
 
steingar said:
Admittedly this looks quite fishy, but I thought the Nigerians pay with fake cashier's cheques. And who is really going to run a scam for a table and some chairs?
Click to expand...

Next phase, the "payment" will be for too much. Please just give the change to the mover when he shows up to pick up the table and chairs.
 
JeffDG said:
Next phase, the "payment" will be for too much. Please just give the change to the mover when he shows up to pick up the table and chairs.
Click to expand...

But can you do that with Paypal? That would require pulling money out of someone's account. I'm not at all certain it can be done.
 
steingar said:
But can you do that with Paypal? That would require pulling money out of someone's account. I'm not at all certain it can be done.
Click to expand...
They hack some unsuspecting person's account. When paypal is notified of the fraud, they pull the money out of your account, therfore YOU'RE left holding the hot potato.
 
" I do not do paypal, or other online transactions. Send a check to xxx, 12345 Cherry Ln. mytown, State, zip. Once your check clears, I will ship to you directly."

scamscamscamscamscamscamscamscam
 
steingar said:
But can you do that with Paypal? That would require pulling money out of someone's account. I'm not at all certain it can be done.
Click to expand...

Look at the body of the email, it never says table and chairs, it says "item" or merchandise, they all do.:nono: It asks generic questions, like are you the first owner, etc. If you follow up on these there is ALWAYS an angle, either fake escrow service, stolen paypal accounts, fake cashiers check etc, the common thread is they will never pick up the "item". Only send the money and then ask for a refund of all or usually part of the funds, because they need to pay the shipper or some other nonsense. :D
I bet the paypal account isn't in here name, and since she's deaf, you can never talk to "her" only text. She might be like Jake from State Farm, she sounds hideous!:D
 
I would play with her a bit, if I were you. Get the details of the scam.
 
My guess is you will be asked to pay the movers, and the movers only take cash/check.

We recently had a 210 that was going to come to us disassembled for repair of the engine failure, reassembly and annual. Plane was from California, went down in Texas and was in a towing yard in Michigan. "Owner" of the plane wanted us to run his credit card and send the tow yard a check so that they could deliver the plane to us.

Um, no
 
docmirror said:
" I do not do paypal, or other online transactions. Send a check to xxx, 12345 Cherry Ln. mytown, State, zip. Once your check clears, I will ship to you directly."

scamscamscamscamscamscamscamscam
Click to expand...

These scammers don't want the merchandise they want the refund. We've gotten good checks before drawn on legitimate accounts, unfortunately it was a forgery of a check that had already cleared the bank!:mad2: The good news is we didn't cash it.;) It would have cleared if we had cashed it, it would have come back 2-4 weeks later when the company realized it was forged.:mad2:
 
Well if you Google "Mary Anderson scam" you'll get 171,000 hits :eek:
 
Area Code 347 is a New York City overlay (probably a cloned disposable cell phone). Watertown, NY is over 200 miles away, on the Canadian border (the Army used Fort Drum during the Cold War to prepare for an invasion of Siberia). Who trolls Craigslist outside their immediate area for any legitimate purpose? To drop ship used table and chairs from across the country?

It doesn't really matter that its a scam (though it is); it has no indication that it will end up in a successful transaction. In any successful sale the seller has to know (even generically) who they are selling to -- this is not your intended customer. Play with them if that's your thing (http://www.419eater.com/), but I would just ignore with prejudice.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Phone rings at my auto salvage yard:

"Hi, this is Relay Operator 584732. I have a hearing impared individual that wishes to purchase a large quantity of spark plugs and lug nuts from you..."

(No joke... that call happened earlier this year)
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_scam#Telecommunications_relay_services
Many scams use telephone calls to convince the victim that the person on the other end of the deal is a real, truthful person. The scammer, possibly impersonating a US citizen or other person of a nationality, or gender, other than their own, would arouse suspicion by telephoning the victim. In these cases, scammers use TRS, a US federally funded relay service where an operator or a text/speech translation program acts as an intermediary between someone using an ordinary telephone and a deaf caller using TDD or other teleprinter device. The scammer may claim they are deaf, and that they must use a relay service. The victim, possibly drawn in by sympathy for a disabled caller, might be more susceptible to the fraud.

FCC regulations and confidentiality laws require that operators relay calls verbatim, and that they adhere to a strict code of confidentiality and ethics. Thus, no relay operator may judge the legality and/or legitimacy of a relay call, and must relay it without interference. This means the relay operator may not warn victims, even when they suspect the call is a scam. MCI said that about one percent of their IP Relay calls in 2004 were scams.[34]
Click to expand...
 
I am not convinced that this is a scam (may however lead to one) but I agree with DJ that it is unlikely to result in any successful transaction.
 
I've had 2 situations alot like that over the years on ebay. 1 was an ATV I sold for 7K and it never turned out to be a scam. the other was an excavator. guy said the same thing. he had to pay via pay pal and had a truck he would send to pick it up. well $45K later, that wasn't a scam either. Maybe just get a picture of the drivers license of whom picks it up and the vehicle they are hauling your stuff away with. confirm the funds are in pay pal. Main dif was that I could talk to these people. but wont you feel bad if she really is def? Always good if you don't share your home address and can meet people at a business location where other people are around.
 
THIS IS A SCAM!!! I just received the same e-mail from MARY ANDERSON. i have a 7 piece wrought iron set posted on craigslist too.


Thanks for the respond my name is Mary Anderson a 50 yr old deaf mother,
But you can txt me on (347) 670-xxx7 i live in New York (watertown) i saw
your listing while checking on CL and i will like to purchase from you, i
want you to know am buying this as a gift for someone and i want to keep it
as a surprise to him on till it delivered. I tried buying here but I
realized that there are only few items here. I will not be able to view it
but I have a Mover who will come for the pickup so please get back to me
with some resent pictures and also I will be making the payment via PayPal
as that is the only payment option I can access from here I hope you
understand.I have some questions for you;
Are you the first owner of it?
Where do you live?
What is your final asking price?
Does it have anything negative i should know about?
 
That's weird, I'm selling a One Bite Taken Doughnut in Florida on CraigsList. I got this response. Notice the subtle difference...I'm pretty sure it's legit.



Thanks for the respond my name is Mary Anderson a 50 yr old deaf mother,
But you can txt me on (347) 670-xxx7 i live in New York (watertown) i saw
your listing while checking on CL and i will like to purchase from you, i
want you to know am buying this as a gift for someone and i want to keep it
as a surprise to him on till it delivered. I tried buying here but I
realized that there are only few items here. I will not be able to view it
but I have a Mover who will come for the pickup so please get back to me
with some resent pictures and also I will be making the payment via PayPal
as that is the only payment option I can access from here I hope you
understand.I have some questions for you;
Are you the first owner of it?
Where do you live?
What is your final asking price?
Does it have anything negative i should know about?
 
The area code doesn't bother me. Lots of people keep their cell phone numbers when they move nowadays. I've done it myself.

My problem is with someone in Watertown only having access to PayPal. Are there no post offices at which one can buy a money order?

My guess is that this person wants the refund. PayPal leans heavily toward purchasers in dispute cases.

-Rich
 
The mis-spellings, the clumsy language (who says 'and i will like to purchase from you'), referring to 'item' rather than the product being sold point to one of the 'boys' in an internet cafe in Lagos rather than a locked-in 50 year old mom in upstate NY.
 
Yes. It's a scam. There's plenty of other evidence, but think about this.
Is there a shortage of secondhand furniture in NYC? Or anywhere else in the country?

One of the things they taught us when looking for drug traffickers was to look for things that didn't make sense. A semi full of used mattresses, for example, going from TX to IL. How does that make sense? How are they going to even recover the shipping cost, much less the cost of the product?

Someone wants to buy your crap off craigslist, sight unseen, and also eat the shipping cost to another city, and:
1 - Not know what they actually have until it arrives, and
2 - Spend far more that the product is actually worth.

TANSTAFFL.
 
Simple way to deal with these things:

"Thank you for your interest. The mover can bring cash. Pay him. Let me know when he is ready to pick it up. First cash takes it."

You'll never hear from them again . . . .

When I do CL - and its rare - I put in:

"please - don't try to scam me. No cashiers checks, no paypal, no checks next week when you get paid - this is a cash transaction. If you can't bring cash don't bother. I don't care if your dog vomited last night and you took them to to the vet and spent your payheck, or your kids need new shoes and you are getting paid on Tuesday - first cash takes the item. If you don't have cash, don't bother."
 
Last edited:
Is this a rare or special set of furniture that someone in eastern Washington is long in New York. This is an absolute scam. Anyone that doesn't think it is needs to brush up on scams before they get screwed.
 
PilotAlan said:
TANSTAFFL.
Click to expand...
True in most cases... but not if you are a scammer who has found a big, dumb, greedy fish. :D
I sure wouldn't even nibble if a prospective buyer told me up front that they were deaf, middle-aged and had offspring (as if any of that were relevant). It's a dusty old "buttering up" ploy; pathetic. It all stinks, from top to bottom.
 
comanchepilot said:
"please - don't try to scam me. No cashiers checks, no paypal, no checks next week when you get paid - this is a cash transaction. If you can't bring cash don't bother. I don't care if your dog vomited last night and you took them to to the vet and spent your payheck, or your kids need new shoes and you are getting paid on Tuesday - first cash takes the item. If you don't have cash, don't bother."
Click to expand...

Use the same disclaimer when I post my CL personal ads. I don't get any responses.
 
If you give them your paypal address they send you an email that looks like it's from paypal saying "You just received X amount of dollars for Mary! Click here to login to paypal."

They're hoping you click login, which takes you to a fake site that looks like paypal, where you try to login. Unfortunately there was an error processing your request and the scammer now has your paypal email and password.
 
Winner winner, chicken dinner!! :D

PBristolJr said:
If you give them your paypal address they send you an email that looks like it's from paypal saying "You just received X amount of dollars for Mary! Click here to login to paypal."

They're hoping you click login, which takes you to a fake site that looks like paypal, where you try to login. Unfortunately there was an error processing your request and the scammer now has your paypal email and password.
Click to expand...
 
Have some fun with it and tell them you'll need them to wire the funds to a Nigerian bank account in an amount over what you're asking but you'll refund the rest directly, since you have a pending inheritence.
 
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