If you haven’t read my first example of a scam I ran into on craigslist.com yet, Craigslist.com is a global online classifieds listing that anyone can use. It is a great source for finding items and services in your local area as well as jobs and housing and everything else that appears in your local Sunday newspaper except at craigslist, it is Sunday every day. It is extremely easy to start an account and then anyone can post their desires for free. But along with the thousands of legitimate postings, there are lots of scams in the making and scammers watching for opportunity.
My first example was of a simple scam where the scammer responded to craigslist.com postings advertising various services trying to get the advertiser to cash a bogus paycheck for him and send him the change after deducting the cost of their service. This next one was a bit more complex and took a lot more time to play out.
I responded to an ad on craigslist.com that was seeking experienced eBay sellers. I have been a casual buyer and seller on eBay since 1999 and was looking for work, so naturally, I responded to the posting.
I was to sell computer monitors on eBay for anything over a designated price and was allowed to keep 20% of the sale for my expenses and profit while sending the other 80% to the supplier. I quickly did the math and figured out I could make somewhere between $30-$40 per sale after expenses and signed up for the deal. I even did a little eBay research and discovered several others already selling the same product and seemingly finding buyers with ease. I was very anxious to get started.
I listed my first auction and had my first buyer two hours later. It seemed too easy and that was when my suspicions began. I took a closer look at the other people selling the same monitor, this time looking for feedback from buyers who had already received their monitor and were reportedly happy with their purchase. I found none and optimistically explained that much away thinking I had gotten in on the ground floor and people hadn’t had time to receive their new monitors and leave feedback just yet. That much did prove later to be true.
However, in searching for feedback, I noticed one seller had no feedback at all of any kind in their history. One of the requirements to start selling these monitors had been a minimum of 100 previous transactions with a 98% or better positive feedback rating. So apparently the supplier wasn’t too strict about their own hiring guidelines and another red flag went up.
So next I sent an email to a couple of the other sellers who, according to their listings, had already sold a few monitors. One of them responded saying she had sold two and had just received the FedEx tracking numbers so they were still in the mail. I asked her if she had to pay the supplier yet for the monitors sold, thinking this was the scam, we send the supplier the money for the sale and they never send out the monitor. Then we have to reimburse the buyer out of our own pockets because the supplier is suddenly nowhere to be found. But she said she wasn’t required to send any money in until the monitors were received and the buyers were happy.
With that red flag lowered again, I sent my order to the supplier for my first monitor sale, stating at the same time that I had no intention of passing along their 80% until I knew my buyer was satisfied with their purchase. They responded saying that was not a problem, and in fact, I would not need to send them their 80% until I had accumulated many sales and all the buyers had received their monitors and were pleased. Nevertheless, I waited until I had heard from my first buyer that all was well before listing another monitor. In the meantime, I watched the other auctions continue to move the monitors like hot cakes.
A few days later, feedback for the monitors did begin to show up for the other sellers and all of it appeared to be great. My first buyer got their monitor and reported back to me that they were also very happy with it. Now feeling quite excited about getting in on the ground floor of this opportunity, I proceeded to list and sell nineteen more monitors over the next week and a half. Once again, it appeared almost too easy.
I had five monitors that had been delivered to happy buyers and a couple more already in the mail when I received an email from the supplier stating that orders 8-19 were not going to be delivered because they had reason to believe that the addresses were not real and that they wanted me to pay them their 80% for the seven that had been delivered before trying to sell anymore. In my ongoing communication with another seller, I discovered she had received the same email. She and I both decided this sounded a bit shady and we agreed not to send them anything until we got some better explanations. One of my buyers I knew personally and could vouch that their address was indeed real.
I canceled my existing eBay auctions in the name of caution and immediately refunded the money to the 12 buyers whose addresses had been deemed bogus by the supplier along with an email of apology for not being able to supply them with their monitor. The very next day, I got the following email from a seller I had not been in contact with.
IF YOU ARE SELLING THIS PRODUCT FROM CRAIGSLIST, STOP DOING IT NOW. I HAD TO FILE A CLAIM WITH PAYPAL AND CONTACTED THE FBI. THE GUY YOUR WORKING WITH WILL ASK TO TRANSFER MONEY TO ME-GOLD AND THEN TO LIBERTY RESERVE. I GOT SCAMMED OVER $8,000. IF YOU DONT BELIEVE ME I CAN PROVE IT TO YOU. He is using stolen credit cards to make his transactions. He buys it at HP then sends it to your customer. Here is what my buyer had to say – I have been contact by a person saying that his credit card was charged by www.hpshopping.com for HP W2207 Monitor and it was shipped to me. I received an email from the Seller through eBay giving me a FedEx tracking number. The person who contacted me about the charge on his card also had the same tracking number. Please explain what is going on here. Thank you. – I have filed a claim with FBI and also I called HP and FEDEX. I emailed the scammer today and got no reply. He usually answers very fast. Do you need any more info?? He is using stolen credit cards buying the products from HP then sending it to your customers. Then you send him the money via wire transfer to Singapore. Then you will transfer it to another account called Liberty Reserve. I sold over 50 products. You will see, I am not trying to ruin you. I know it is good money but he is a fraud. We can talk on the phone if you want, I can call you or you can call me. I don’t want to be alone in this.
My supplier had indeed asked me to transfer the money from the sales in the same manor described in this email. And a few hours later, I got another email from a different seller.
One of my orders got returned to HP because HP said it was bought with a stolen credit card. I thought that was weird and tried to get the customer another monitor but Bill wouldn’t ship another one out. I started to figure out what these guys were doing and stopped all my listings. Luckily, I only had 4 confirmed shipments.
I had already canceled my listings by this time as well. I wrote to the supplier and asked for further explanation as to why my orders had been canceled and explained that I would not be wiring them their 80% until I knew they were acquiring these monitors legally. I also expressed my current belief that this was not the case. I got a reply accusing me of being neurotic, and saying I could wait as long as I wanted before sending them their 80%, but there was no denial or defense offered in his email regarding my accusation. Then I watched eBay and over the next two days, I noticed that where last week there had been fifteen listings for this particular monitor, now there was only one. And that one disappeared before its designated end time the following day.
Thankfully, I had not cashed in on my profits yet. It appears there will be no profits and the money will be needed to reimburse those that received their monitors and consequently get them confiscated as stolen goods. I will be out the eBay listing costs, but thankfully not out the purchase costs when my supplier is nowhere to be found as the new monitors get confiscated and returned.
It’s been another week now and I have not heard from the supplier though I have been in continual contact with a few of the other sellers as we try to figure out exactly what’s going on. I did hear from PayPal, however. They called asking for any information I might have as to how to contact the supplier I had been using for the monitors and requesting that I not sell any more. I told them that I regrettably knew very little other than his email address, had already canceled my ongoing auctions, and that I had not followed through with the supplier’s money transfer requests due to my own suspicions of his legitimacy.
So once again, I would like to list a few guidelines that will help prevent this from ever happening to you.
1. Never wire money to anyone you don’t know for any reason.
2. Try to do business with local companies that have an address you can visit.
3. If they are not local, get a phone number and address that can be confirmed.
4. Do they have a web site? Customer service?
5. Never give out any personal information.
Always do your research. Look for feedback from previous customers. Never trust anyone you haven’t met in person. And it is advisable to report any attempted scams to the appropriate authorities.
