"Mr. Frank Anderson" replied back to one of my classified ad on craigslist, namely, a very nice Mobile DJ controller setup.
I had a feeling something was fishy when he asked me for my email because of this was his second message after he asked about the current status of the item:
—Kindly get back to me with your email address because have try sending you large message is not going through this craigslist automated link.—
Well, since this being my first time with this type of "fishing" game, I thought it was okay to give out my email, after all, I don't want to deter a potential buyer. Then, after giving out my email this is what he replied:
—My name is Frank Anderson and I work with the military air-force and presently in camp serving the nation so i will want you to answer this little questions about it.
Are you the first owner of it?
Why are you selling it?
Does it has any fault affecting it?
Can you send me general close up pictures?
Can i have your contact phone number?
Alright. I have a private hauler who will be coming for the pickup and i will be making the payment via paypal and will cover the paypal charges. So please do get back to me with your paypal email address for me to effect the payment right now and i will need to know when best it can be picked up for me to schedule that with the hauler. Thanks..—
The questions he asked were vague and if he had any intelligent and read through my listing, he would know that most of them were answered already. What set off the alarm was the 4th question have already been answered in the previous email as I gave him my phone # to text if he had any immediate questions. After reading that, I immediately wrote this off as a scam and his response was simply a default automated response, copy and paste.
Lesson to all, don't deal with paypal if you're local or unless you're going through a reputable vendor/shop. Thieves always find new and creative ways to exploit money from you. And now, it looks like they can do so through the solid PayPal money transferring system.
The only damage that I received from this ordeal was my email given away. Now, I'll just have more spams sitting in the spam folder.
Good Evil
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