Craig's List Scam

Turd! Turd! Turd! Turd!

I had the samething happen to me and I thought it wasn't a scam and sent the item. I haven't got a reply back so. Do you know what I can do?

unfortunately, I don't think that there is really anything that you can do. If you have the tracking number, you might be able to call fedex and tell them what is going on. If you get somebody sympathetic, it might work out.

i JUST almost fell for this - but thanks to your blog i will not be!!

i mean, it was only $20 but still thank you anyway :)

yeah! that's great! I'm glad that this is helping people out!

Thank you for saving me my hard earned moneys and items from being SCAMMED by the following:

ATTENTION!!! CRAIGLIST USERS.. SCAMMERS BEWARE

I was recently as of Feb. 03, 2006 SCAMMED by another person. The info. is as follows:

If you receive any e-mail or e-mail addresses that are similar to the following, please disregard it and do not reply. It is a SCAM!!!

See following:

terry williams "williamsstoreonline@gmail.com"

hello seller,
I saw your item displayed online and i will like to know the condition of the item maybe is still for sale...and give me the final price of item....
thanks....

reply me asap so we can discuss further.

tony james "tony_jaymes4@yahoo.com"

Hello,
My name is Tony James and i am interested in the immediate purchase of your item for someone,so i will like to know if the item is in good condition and also i will like to let you know that i will proceed with the immediate purchase of the item through money order.
So kindly get back to me with your full name and address so that i can proceed with the payment and once the payment has been made and the payment clears you will instantly be sent an approval confirmation of the payment and once you received that i will like to handle the pickup myself through my fedex account.
So kindly get back to me with your final asking price and also your full information so that i can proceed with the payment.
Thanks

If you do proceed to follow through with this little SCAM ADVENTURE, you will finally come to receive the final e-mail from and subject listed below:

From: United States Postal Service® Customer care "customercare_uspsonline@consultant.com"

Subject : (#225904567) //ORDER APPROVED//(PAYMENT CONFIRMATION STATUS)

Order Status And Informations:
Order Number: #225904567
Auction Payments Order Available
Order Placed 30/ 01 / 2006
Order Status Money order Available
Money Order Approved Money Order Confirmed
Billing Information:
Status: Processed successfully
Card Type MasterCard
Card Number 5***********5643
Exp. Date 07/2007
Name on Card Terry Williams
Street Address 345 Chambers St
City, State, Zip Newyork, NY, 10282
Country U.S.A
Services Purchased: Online Payment
Total Amount posted to card $1050.00
Auction Payments Fee $00.00
Money Order Amount $1050.00
Shipped by USPS
Purchased Item Information:
Auction Site Craigslist

If you are interested in reading the whole story, which I suggest all do, see the following link: http://tunaspecial.com/?p=96

I hope by posting this message all SCAMMERS will beware and those of us I call innocent will be spared along with your valuable possessions.

Thank you all and Good night

this already happened to me exactly i fell for it i wish i saw this before oh well i hope it helps somebody else excuse my french those mother f------@@@@

I just got a couple of these. Trying to scam my Xbox 360. Did a search on the USPS site for "Postal Money Order Payments® ExpressPaymentSM" and nothing came up. Also the gamers tag on the bottom was fishy for a USPS email. Fawken scammers. I dont know if they use different Emails to contact me but i've gotten like 2 of these already. Anywhere I can report it? THANKS FOR THE INFO

I tried to sell an xbox with 12 games and got a reply that Cecillia Brown wanted to purcase it for $50 more then i was asking. I took the bait and recieved all the same emails with the United States Postal money order, and a mailed Fed Ex shipping order. I found this site showing all the same stuff, i realized i was being scammed. So i'm sending the package with a couple of bricks inside...i figure they'll at least have to pay for the shipping...some compensation in there attempt to fraud people. Thanks for putting up this site...saved me alot of money and stress.

i'd almost fallen for this a couple months ago, but sent the email string to craigslist, who confirmed it was a scam. after listing an item yesterday i got the same email again. this time i strung them along, said i was putting the money toward surgery for my son, so thanks a lot for the extra 100 bucks. then i told them i'd had a stroke the night before, but i thought i could sneak out of the hospital to send the item from my office. the address i gave them was for the j edgar hoover building (aka the fbi hq) in washington dc. i got a reply saying basically, "ok, send the item asap." i'm not sure what to do next, but sending a turdinabox was actually my first idea. this is more fun than crank answering telemarketers. they are so clueless!

Thanks Guys.
You saved my lenses ($120). I got the exactly same emails and packing slip.
Oh God, last moment, I suspected something like "game.com" and searched on the web, and found that this is fraud.

This is the guy I need to kick his ass:
joseph kilatin [kilatjos@gmail.com]

USPS says Online Payment Service was discontinued as below.
http://www.usps.com/paymentservices/ops_discontinued.htm

Thank you so much for posting this! I'm a computer teckie and had the same thing happen where I was selling a $200 stereo and the guy came back offering more money for the item. I knew it was a scam when I saw the game link on the bottom on the page. I feel sorry for those who don't realize that a reputable business, espcecially the USPS would not have a link to a game or anything other site listed in there email.

I want to send something "nice" to them but figure why waste my time making a trip to the post office.

I laughed at the installing memory part. Thanks again!

This just happened to me as well and my sixth sense went off telling me to investigate. I am glad I did. The buyer offered me $30 over my purchase price.

Scum bags. Thanks for posting this!

Amazing. Simply amazing. I almost sent a Mac G4 to New York! Thank God for Google and a healthy amount of permanent cynicism.

You are a lifesaver and "MR Williams Wale" needs to fall into a tiger pit.

What tipped me off? Was it the obvious tags at the bottom of the emails, the suspicious form of payment, etc? I wish I could say that it was, but unfortunately I am just a little too naive for that.

Fortunately, while I may not be all that computer saavy, my grasp of the English language and my basic understanding of the editorial standards of government institutions led me to the conclusion that this:

"So be rest assured that your money is with us and as soon as we receive the shipment tracking # for verification,we will commence your payment which will be delivered in your home immediately shipment verification clears.
Yours Sincerely
United States Postal Service."

could not possibly be legitimate.

I don't know who you are, internet blogger, but you have saved me a lot of money and a lot of self-loathing. I thank you.

hi, thanks for saving my ass. I was suspicious that they offered 30 bucks more than what i asked for...jerks.

Sean Dare has been sending me emails like crazy for my listing, he said he was in NY and me beingo n the west coast i should mail him. Instead I told him i would be in NY during the time he wanted the gift and would gladly deliver it. He said "I appreciate your offers but Ic annot make any meetings because of busy time shedules. Please use atached Fed Ex to send". I was thinking a dead rat will do, but I will put some soup cans in there as well to weigh it down.

I like the idea of soup cans. Especially leaky ones.

you know what's funny? I've gotten several of these scam emails and read some of them on other ppl's pages and it's hilarious that they all seem to be in ridiculously broken English / horrible grammar.

It truly amazing! I was trying to sell an item and they were willing to pay almost twice as much for it. I have to admit I didn't see this one comming but when they wanted me to ship the item before I got my money I laughed. As a Postal Worker the fake Confirmation email made me laugh even harder. [Because there are way too many tranactions for the Post Office to keep track of(not true by the way).]

So I just got on Craigslist for the first time today and posted my used xbox for sale. I almost started packaging it up until I saw this site. I just want to thank whoever created this site because I was almost scammed, and I have been scammed through ebay before (but thankfully reported it with square trade and got my money back). Since I did not realize that this was a scam, I sent the person my actual residence address, do I have anything to worry about such as safety? Thanks.

Probably not. The two experiences I've had with this, both times the person was located in Nigeria, so I think you're probably safe. Check on the label they sent you and see where they are located.

I have recently been selling my TV on Craigslist and MySpace and have been contacted by two different parties for this very same scam... I actually called the post office to see if there was a new service I was unaware of, for the fact that I run an online store. They had informed me of the following link:

http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/MailFraudComplaint.htm

How about we report these dipshits, and hopefully minimize the fraud going on? It is very annoying to be flooded with fraudulent emails when selling an item.

cheers

How about some design a contraption inside fake laptop packaging that will crush 10 some odd canisters of stink bombs (the one they sell in those tiny tille breaekable amber/glass containers sold in flea markets!).
Not that I've ever been scammed knock on wood but this sounds to me like a good hobby :-)

..Good hobby as in taking retribution to the front door of these Sons of a motherless goats.

I had this happen today. I caught on and didnt send out. Next time they are getting a bag of poo.

WOW!!!! Thanks for this savior of a site. Man I have been approached by the same money order post office scam. Buyer has offered me 850.00 for xbox 360 while evryone else is bidding around 425.00 with shipping. I never thought anything was wrong so i thought, man i found a sucker. Well tonight if i wouldnt have looked at your site I would have been out about 400.00 dollars cause tomorrow morning i was gonna ship out!.... THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!---I dont have much money at all and this would have hurt. Heres to the people looking out. Someone nees to bring down all these things like scams, online casino's etc...They are all stealing billions!!

Had a guy with the exact same e-mail "confrimation" and NOTHING and i mean NOTHING about it checked out, I'm having the post office investigate it. The guy tried to rip me off for a beat up old saxophone... who tries to steal that of all things?!

These clowns just tried it on me. I am selling a Minolta EP3000 copier on Craigslist. This copier is enormous, on its own rolling cabinet with a 10 bin sorter. The first red flag was when they wanted it "yesterday" for a "perfect" gift, and they wanted me to gift wrap it for them before I shipped. I have always said that if it looks like a pig and if it smells like a pig, it must be a pig. In addition, I had listed the item for $800 and for all my extra efforts they were going to pay me $1000. Now this copier weighs a ton. If they wanted to ship regular, not ground, FedEx it might cost as much as the selling price.

I also love, especially after reading all the emails to you, how lousy their English is. Mine would be shipped to Ill. At least it isn't as Nigerian scam.

I feel like I have stupid stamped on my forehead because in addition to this one, earlier this week I won a 250K Canadian Lotto. They sent me the notice with a bona-fide looking check that was drawn off of Wells Fargo. I first called the branch that the account was set up in and they actually told me it was a valid account and said I should come into the bank and cash the check for cash. I forgot to tell you that the check was for $4,975 with the remitter being OLGC Financial (Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation - a real company in Ontario). The scam is to deposit the check in your account, then draw out $2,800 to wire to them to cover the taxes on the 250K. They check was drawn from my winnings. Once they received the wire they would then issue another check for the remaining 245K

Anyway, I went to my local branch of WF and told the branch manager that I thought it was a scam. I told them to look into the validity of the check and if they again told me that it was a good check I would cash it for the $4975 and walk away with the cash. Well, she looked into it and saw it was a valid account number with sufficient funds to cover the check. Only difference was that the account owner was not OLGC. They called the real owner and found out this company had been getting hit left and right with these checks, all for $4975. This verified that it was a counterfeit check. They tooks some copies and then I went to the Post Office and filed with them a Postal Fraud case.

The moral to this story is that there are so many scams going on it scares people from trying to sell stuff online. I feel obligated to require cash and even then I would suspect the cash.

But, just like you, I have been having a ball running these boneheads to ground. Good luck my friend. And to all the ones that got ripped off, please be carefull in the future.

Jim

thank God I found this site I posted a 1 month old cell phone on Craigs list to sell so I could get a samsung for bluetooth I asked for 250 for the phone & case and thislady name Ruth Douglas from texas emailed me back saying she sent a payment thru the online postal money order and they sent me 3 emails saying it was approved and said in 3 hours I would receive tracking number but did not now she offered to pay 120 above asking amount for shipment. I was skeptical cause I never heard of anyone offering more than one is posted and the email for any questions to usps_delivery @ excite.com now i knew it must be a scam Thank you. I will find a way to sell it

Thanx Jim if I didn't find this website I would be in a jail cell now because I almost fell for the OLGC scam I got the same letter saying that I would get 250K if I sent them $2800 for the taxes but since I fill out A LOT of junk on tha internet I didn't pay attention to it until I noticed it waz a bank check made out from National Bank of Comerence but still at this time I still thought it waz fake but I did go to my bank 2 double check and they did say it waz a "REAL" check and they would let me deposit it but I didn't and went home 2 check w/ the BBB and I ended up finding this site which REALLY helped thanx again Jim

Darren

Thank you so much for the scam information. I received almost identical emails and promise of USPS money order from someone in NW Duluth, GA. I listed a Treo 90 PDA for $65 on Craigslist last week and although the USPS money order thing was something I'd never heard of (I admit I don't know everything) I figured for that small amount surely it wasn't a scam. But the more emails I got and especially the misspellings on the FAKE USPS emails and the fact that when you tried to click on the links it took you to some mail.com website completely unrelated to the USPS. That's when I really got suspicious. I'm still stringing my buyer along, she things I can't print out the mailing label because I use a Mac computer so I'm waiting for her to get back to me on that issue at the moment. Meanwhile I'm going to the local post office here in San Diego tomorrow morning and delivering the emails to see if they want to persue the fraud attempt. I have her address or at least the one she is receiving what I consider to be stolen goods at this point. Or perhaps I'll contact the local news to see if they are interested in yet another internet scam story! Thanks again for posting this information to your website. Margo

I had the same thing happen from a Jennifer Brown. Said she couldn't use paypal but would send a postal money order instead. and then I got an e-mail from uspsacccountancys@post.com saying the same "send out the product and we'll send you your MO" that other folks have got. Of course the fact that the domain name is from post.com instead of USPS.org was my first clue. The horrible spelling and cheezy graphics came next.

Obviously this thing is still going on. I reiceved the e-mail on 5-20-06

Thanks for this blog. I'm feeling really silly right now. I did send them my contact info at first. Then I recieved the fake email. AND I recieved a phone call. I happened to miss it, but when I dial back the number the voicemail says it is a USPS Shipping Warehouse. I guess you can make your voicemail say anything...
I didn't send out the package, but is there a reason to be worried because they do have my contact information.

I have a series of e-mails from this same guy or same name anyway. I knew from the first e-mail it was a scam. The guy wants me to ship it in the same town after I receive his US Postal MO lol. I asked him for a phone number so we can discuss this and he replied with this:

"here is my # 866-278-3053 you can ask of Davis.
Thanks"

Wasn't his name Joseph??? I wish these clowns would all just piss off!

Dave

Well, it happened to me too. I placed an ad on craigslist for a brand new $150 air conditioner and recieved a response from a Jenifer Brown - jenifer02@freedom.usa.com.
Didn't think much of it and agreed to the deal. Although, something about her tone bugged me, like she was trying too hard to sound intelligent. My ad states the air conditioner was opened and then put back in the box just as it came, and she said in an e-mail that it was a present for her son so "you have to package the item in a more presentatable manner". HA! And how the hell did she know how I packed it?!
Then I got the (very gramatically incorrect) e-mail from the "USPS".
First of all, I found it hard to believe they would use such cheesy graphics like flipping dollar bills.
Then, it said I would recieve a money order in 3-5 business days, BUT the item MUST be shipped within 48 hours of this e-mail. Well thats reassuring.
Then came the last straw:
"This is the sample of the postal money order that will be deliver to you" - now, I'm pretty sure the USPS would at least run a spell check. I did a google search right away for "uspsacccountancys@post.com" and found this page.
Thanks so much for stopping me from falling for this scam! I hope my addition to this thread helps someone else as well.
Anyone need an air conditioner? ;)

yeah, well i realized a little too late that it was a scam. thankfully my sig. other sent out the wrong item, which still leaves us out a couple of hundred bucks, but the item for sale is worth 1,000, and was just trying to get 8 out of it. Live and learn.....I wonder if they feel any remorse at all? I needed the money for a family emergency and some jack ass is making cash off people like me, who had I not been so distracted with my fam issues, hopefully would've seen the red flags prior to shipping out anything.

UGH.....PS my seller was cathy hellen akacathycare2020@dbzmail.com

Thank goodness for my intuition and this blog. I can't believe people get away with this!

thanks for this service you provided
i got the same orig email today.. words were changed slightly

i didnt respond to them and dont intend doing so.

someone else asked if they have remorse.
they do not have remorse. if they did they would not continue.
true remorse should inspire a change in conduct.

anyway..thanks again for the 411..

I think we should start sending them BIG, Heavy Boxes of garbage . . . they pay for the postage and we keep our landfills empty.
I got one of these for an entire stereos system I have on Craigslist . . . it would need at lease 4 boxes to ship it in. So I could list the stereo system every 2 weeks, FedEx all my garbage to the jerks, cancel my garbage service and save myself money. Just think if everybody did that to them.

I figured this was a scam when I got the same email from 3 different names.

Right now I think I will have to reply with the FBI's address and the promise of the immediate shipment of something large, smelly, brown and a bio hazard.

Shame on FedEx for accepting packages for shipment to Nigeria.

Regarding the OLGC scam....unfortunately I fell for it and am currently out almost $2000. I have a close friend who is a lawyer and has suggested that I try to contact other victims of the scam to organize a class action or multi-claimant suit against the Real OLGC, an Ontario based company that runs under the supervision of the Ontario Government. He feels that the Official OLGC has a responsibility under international law to protect the populous from a predator that is using their logo and name. I went through the same steps, even going as far as contacting a casino in Las Vegas where the contest was entered via a fill out type card. Everything checked out so I cashed the check and Western Unioned the money back to Canada. To date I have received no check for the winnings...

I am available to contact at blairmarshall79@comcast.net if you would like some more info about the case. The lawyer is confident that all participants will at least get the bad check covered.

Thank you for reading this.

Blair Marshall

I also received an offer to buy something from a "Jenifer Brown" (jennybilly08@graffiti.net) The fact that s/he wanted to offer me 50$ more than I asked was a good warning flag. It's too bad we can't block all IP addresses from that part of the world (presumably Nigeria), but I suppose that would be technically unfeasible...sigh...sometimes I wish craigslist was still the local underground that it used to be. Good luck all!

Jake

Hi,
The same thing happened to me that happened to Arthur. I got the same confirmation email from the "post office" as he did. I lost my item to this. I paid $130 for the item I lost.

James Alex is the person who stole my item. He also lives in Nigeria. Why does Nigeria have so many criminals?

I want my item back.

Sorry I did not leave it in last post, here is James Alex's address or atleast the address I sent my item to.

Blk 240 Flat 2
Abesan Hosing Estate
Ipaja-Lagos, 23401
NG

Anyone if it is real?

Let me know. THanks

Watch for the name Amed Olumide. He almost got away with this scam with my son. Thank goodness I reached a kind person at FedEx who stopped shipment. FedEx was so helpful. And thanks for posting your experience. We had almost the same scenario!

Does anyone know if FedEx can go to the location of where the item was sent and pick the item back up and ship it back to me?

Let me know.

I really want the item back from the thief or atleast the money. Now they are saying they will send me a check for $4000 and they want me to take my money and send the rest to James Alex because they say he was in an auto accident.

Thanks

Now I am contacting James Alex through another email address and he wants to do the same fraud again. I even got an email from the fake "postal service" saying I had to ship with in 48 hours. I am NOT going to fall for this scam again. If I do send them something, they will hate it. What should I send?

Why do people do this? Are they so poor that they will steal your items and sell them? Don't they think before they do these things? They are pure evil thiefs.

James Alex, why are you so evil?

If anyone has any advice, let me know

Thanks

Again, Don't send items to James Alex or Fred Grey, they are evil thiefs.

James says Fred is a friend, but I am wondering if they are the same person? Fred even says he has a bank account with Chase Bank. I wonder if it is real? Anyone know how I can check that?

Let me know.

I should have posted this above, here is a warning. If you ever get an email from uspsacccountancys@post.com DO NOT BELIEVE IT, THEY ARE NOT THE REAL POSTAL SERVICE. I contacted they real Postal Service and they said they never send out emails about money orders.

If you get an email from the above address, go to this website and tell them about it. http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors We have to stop these evil people. Why are so many people in Nigeria evil?

If you want to contact Fred and James and ask they why they are thiefs, may they will return your email.

Fred's email: fred.contact101@gmail.com

Jame's email: josu4life1@gmail.com

Just to let you know, gmail is a google email system you need a cell phone to activate and account with them.

I wonder if google could give us their phone number's? Anyone have any ideas?

Look at this email from the fake postal service I got.

This is an official email directly from our service inorder to notify both buyers and sellers once paymet has been processed and approved.Since you have receive the payment confirmation email from us regarding your item,we advise you as a seller to send out merchandise within 48hours and the reason why we made this policy was that some sellers aren't not faithful because after payment has been received , they would intend not to release the merchandise for shipping.Once payment has been approved by our service,we are assuring that buyers can't stop or retrieve money order unlesss the seller write us saying He/She is no longer interested in the transaction.

With the payment confirmation # we sent to you,it shows that your payment was received by our system on 25 Jun 2006 , so be expecting a money order of $700.00 within the next 3-5 business days after confirming that the package tracking # you emailed us has been shipped via the courier service used by the buyer.Kindly notify us immediately shipment has been done so as to mail out your postal money order.

If you are really serious and willing to go ahead with this transaction,our advise for you as a seller is to go ahead and contact the buyer for shipping documents inorder to make fast arrival on your payment.

If you have any more question about your payment,feel free to reply back to this mail and we will be glad to answer all your questions.Looking forward in serving you the best online auction in the future.

Sincerely,

The United States Postal Service.

--

Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/

Look at the very bottom about the free games, the real postal service emails do not have that line. Did you see all of the bad english in the email. Why do theifs do that?

They are evil.

Hi,

Does anyone know if I can take in a shipping label from fedex and they will give me the cash for it. This may be they only way I get some money from the thiefs for mailing them the camera.

Let me know.

Thanks