I have found other consumer complaints similar to this and they all deal with the same thing: purchasing a laptop off of craigslist.com. Here is just one report that is similar to mine, even though there are many: http://usacomplaints.com/reports/0/312/ripoff0312119.htm
The date of first email: 3/19/08
I was trying to purchase a laptop off of pittsburgh. Craigslist.com. After emailing a seller, I received an email back the next day. The seller mentioned, "I moved to England and have to get rid of this laptop because of the voltage difference."
The short story: 'Kathleen Scott' says she is selling this laptop for $550 dollars. I contact her and she says she moved to England and we can do the transaction through this 'TNT' shipping service. I tried searching for info on this 'TNT' third-party company that handles the shipping and transaction. I found tons of mispellings on the website and something else that isn't surprising is that I emailed 'TNT' and asked for a phone number to talk to someone, but they said they only use emails. Sorry, but any "real" world-wide shipping company has a contact phone number. Nothing seemed to add up.
As anxious as I was about the laptop, I luckily studied the conversations and the website and found things that didn't correlate. The website has phone numbers for different offices around the globe except for the US office. BINGO! Since the email they sent me claimed that they have no phone numbers and only use emails, I immediately knew something didn't fit. The scammer (s) messed up. How are there phone numbers on the 'TNT' website when you are saying that 'TNT' has no contact phone numbers?
I reported this scam to '[email protected]'. I will probably get another email from this scammer before the end of the day since they don't know I figured out the scam.
Be careful who you deal with online. Check out other similar consumer complaints like mine to see how common this is.
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