There is no buyer.
There is only a scammer trying to steal your money.
The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be "Paypal" saying "kindly send some fee via Western Union or moneygram and we will release the funds".
Or the next email will claim "too much money was sent" and you must send your cash to pay the "car shipper" before the paypal transaction completes.
Paypal does NOT send such emails, ever. Paypal does NOT demand the receiver pay a fee. EVER. No exceptions.
Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.
Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of being the perfect buyer, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.
You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.
Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.
Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.
If you google "cragislist buyer scam", "fake paypal email scam", "ebay escrow fraud" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near victims of this type of scam.
Check out the one and only official paypal website, read up on what paypal does and how it really works.
100% SCAM which is why Craigslist tells you to only deal with people you can meet face to face, never give out paypal details and avoid all transactions involving shipping. I don't know how much clearer the warnings can be. http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams and there is the red warning across the top of every vehicle listing page
This article explains how the basic scam works http://consumerist.com/2008/10/how-a-nig... but in the case of cars, instead of the fake email saying that the money will be credited when you provide a tracking number, it will say the money will be credited once the shipping company confirms they have picked up your car. Then the "shipper" (scammer using another fake name) picks up the car. You check paypal and there's no money. You call paypal and there never was any money - and they tell you that vehicles are one of the categories specifically excluded from their protection policy. You call the police but they can't help since the buyer and "shipper" gave fake names, used pay as you go phones that they ditched, and contacted you using a free email account from an internet cafe. In the meantime your car has been stripped for parts in a chop shop or is on its way to Mexico with new plates to be resold on the black market there
And remember ONLY a scammer offers you MORE money. Any real buyer would try to negotiate the price down. Scammers are looking for victims whose greed is stronger than their common sense
DO NOT write back or your email will end up on a Nigerian scam list and you'll get tons of spam. I made the mistake once of responding to a fake apartment ad and had to close that account as I was getting up to 200 spam mails, phishing scams, etc every day
DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON - follow this one rule and avoid 99% of scam attempts.
red flags:
- buyer doesn't mention what item he wants to buy (he send the same letter to every sucker)
- "can offer you little bit more" (to get your greed take over)
- "fastest and secure way to pay online(PayPal)." (no paypal is not a secure way, its the key to the scam)
- "private courier agent that will come for the pick up" (yeah right, he needs an excuse why he cannot pay cash ....)
You'll get a fake email from paypal, or the scammer uses a stolen account. After they get the car the true owner of the paypal account will report fraud, and get the money back. And you'll be the loser since you don't have any proof of delivering the item.
100% Scam.
You will get an email that looks like it is from PayPal but it is not.
These scams don't even change the wording. Unreal.
You really can't see the scam? Really?
I'm selling my car on Craigslist for $7000. I've received an email from a potential buyer, however, the second email she sent me didn't seem so legit. What do you think?
"Thanks for your swift response. I will be glad if you can mail me the
present condition cuz due to nature of my job i will not be able to
come for inspection, am a very busy type as i work long hours
everyday, i have gone through your advertisement and i am satisfied
with it.
Your price is Okay and i can offer you little bit more like $7,150.00,
am offering you more than your asking price due to other potential
buyers i hope my offer is Acceptable..?
As for the payment..i will be paying you via the fastest and secure
way to pay online(PayPal).
I have a private courier agent that will come for the pick up after
the payment have been made ... So no shipping included.. My private
courier agent will come for the pick up and sign all necessary
documents on my behalf after the payment have been made, as they will
also be coming with all the information needed, my details and
transferring the name of ownership to me will be done by the pick up
agent so you don't have to worry about that...
You can now send me your PayPal email so i can pay in right away and
also include your address in your reply. If you don't have a paypal
account, you can easily set up one...log on to www.paypal.com ?and
sign up. its very easy.I await your reply Asap."
