Response to my Craigslist Vehicle Posting, sounds & smells Fishy!

[ReidC]

The following is the cut & pasted email I received from a "buyer" regarding my Craigslist Posting, I X'd out the persons last name per PayPal's instructions to protect the identity.  I've received emails from Scammers in the past, but this one is a bit different (if it is a scam).  My question(s) to the PayPal Community is:  How would it be harmful if I provided my PayPal email address & full name as he has requested?  If I did this, what or how can this person scam me?  My obvious concerns are that a person wants to pay my full price for a vehicle sight unseen, which raises a huge Red Flag.  I would appreciate any feedback & explanation of how this scam can or would unfold?  Thank you!

Oct 14 at 2:58 AM

Received your response and I appreciate it. Anyway, I have read through your ad. and from what I have seen,it is priced favorably compared to others so I want you to consider it sold to me because I am ready to offer you the demanded price. I am Tech Sgt Morris XXXX (Air Force) currently on duty serving the country. Presently,I am deployed in a remote area until December 20, 2014. Network here is bad otherwise I would have called you and seal the deal on phone. At the moment, email and text messages work best for me.

Notwithstanding, I hope we can make the purchase as fast as possible as I am ready to seal the deal right away and pay you via my PayPal account that is attached to my bank account as that is the only secure form of payment that I have access to right now. So,I'll need your FULL NAME AND PAYPAL EMAIL ADDRESS so as to initiate the payment immediately. If you don't have a paypal account, it is absolutely free and easy to set one up. Do visit www.paypal.com and set up your account. After we are done with the payment aspect and you have received your cash, a shipper will be hired that will come over to your place for the pick up. If this is a deal, then let me have the requested paypal details to proceed with the payment.

Sincerely,

Morris.

[PayPal_AshleyP]

Hi ReidC,

That is a great question!

I cannot confirm nor deny that the email you received was part of a scam, but I can clarify on a couple of things. 1.) If someone wants to send you money through PayPal, all that they would need to do so is your email address or mobile phone number. 2.) The buyer could be trying to scam you by using your email and full name to send a fake email claiming to be from PayPal. We frequently tell our customers to be on the lookout for fake emails and always state that PayPal will address you by your first and last name. 3.) If this Craigslist buyer brings up anything relating to Western Union or MoneyGram, I would seriously question the legitimacy of this transaction because a lot of scams request that money be sent through Western Union or MoneyGram.

I hope this information has helped!

-Ashley P

[Me_Me_Me]

ReidC, Ashley – I respectfully am assuring you this is a complete scam. It is also common.

Yes, there is  that one in a billion seller that messages a buyer/stranger and will literally be looking to toss money at you with zero assurances that you will deliver. However, this is not the case here.

The way to get rid of these scammers if they are persistent is to have them send the funds.

Before they wire the funds, you need to explain something to them. Inform them they will have to wait until all recourse has expired for you to release the item to them.

(sidenote - I personally like to do it after they send a MO because it irritates them. I also would try to get the PayPal transfer sent before the explanation because I would turn it over to Security just for fun. I do not recommend this; many of these characters are shady). 

If PayPal’s policy is 6 months to dispute a credit card, then you explain they should expect delivery on Day 181. FWIW, on day 179 I would call PayPal and get a verbal reassurance before releasing it on day 181.

Explain to the buyer that as long as they - the buyer - can dispute the original charge via ANY method (PayPal/ Card Issuing Bank/Western Union, whatever), it means that their payment does not even hold the value of only Monopoly Money.

At least Monopoly Money can be used for something. Examples;

sold to a game collectors or those who have incomplete Monopoly Sets

as fuel for emergency fires

as a napkin for babies  

as Lobster Bib for a lucky Yorkie

as a grease absorber Hot Dogs

as an entire cruise ship for Sea Monkey’s

and, dare I say

as alternate toilet paper in an emergency.

Furthermore, in addition to being worth less than a tiny bib for a tiny dog, uncollected funds have none of the properties that that define value. In fact, they are the opposite of value. They represent the costs because of associated risk.

 A payment tendered to a seller that is reversible cannot actually be classified as a payment at all.

“If it is not final, it is not yours.” (fwiw, Bitcoin solves much of these problems through its decentralized nature)

The eBay Seller Protection was set up to assure that there would be sellers on the Market. The Seller protection program was never intended as a fringe benefit. It was not implemented because sellers are nice folks.

Without Seller protection, the market implodes in a day and ceases to exist. Yes, we use these payment systems in their current form. Do we have a choice?

 However, we use them to conduct business with, or through major Corporations who share our risk. We do not accept PayPal for cars off craigslist without serious precautions. However, we accept PayPal for eBay motors thousands of times a day. The difference is due diligence in the trading partner we are using.

Do not underestimate some of the “players” on craigslist, or anywhere really, whose goal it is to separate you from your money. If you balk at accepting PayPal, they will move to the next stage of the game. At this point, it is common to see the money order enter the picture. You will be lured in by the fact that you indeed "hold escrow" since you have not parted with your property. However, this is not about whether you go out and cash the Money Order – they know you cannot cash it cleanly – this is about either moving you on to the next level or abandoning you because they realize you are too smart.

So, the victim is prodded forward. Whether you use your laptop or your car, that you can drive around for a week and never find any true method of converting the Money order into cash without having to assume 100% of the liability risk.

These are not USPS money orders, or Bank Official Checks. There is no walking into a check cashing store and walking out with currency.

So you realize that this is a problem. You quickly decide that if you have to deposit it through your bank, he certainly is not getting the property until the bank clears it. Since he is on to your intelligence now, he is gone forever and your email is entered into his personal “do-not-call” list because you are a waste of his time.

Now you must be thinking that nobody is stupid enough to have released property from that money order alone. Well, fortunately for the bad guys you were simply a statistic they had to work through reach their payday. A payday that is predictable, steady, and easily measured for future optimization.

Using your specific “dude” that sent the PayPal offer, here is how he goes home each night likely with more money that you for a day’s work.

The candy from a baby sector:

These criminals often just happen upon the seller that will simply fall for releasing the property before the funds have cleared. This is the easy pickings. This is better than low hanging fruit. This is bunches of sweet, ripe bananas that by sheer luck + gravity fell to the forest floor right at their feet as they were walking by. Yummy! 

Next up; the truly gullible:

There is absolutely some tiny percentage of Grandma's selling their old car or some jewelry on craigslist that are completely insulated of the realities of places like craigslist, They have never heard a word about the increased prevalence of people trying to rob them in this new, confusing internet age.

They will walk into these deals blindly. The Confidence Man never so much has to say anything convincing and within one hour he is walking away with clean titles and/or bling.  

I will conservatively estimate this sub-group to be 2% of people selling on craigslist.

Next, we have a group of victims I like to call the 'Impressionables':

These individuals are hard wired to see only the best in people. Their brains are wired in such a way that is incredibly easy to gain their trust. The confidence man introduces differing levels of psycho-ops techniques that they will employ when needed.

We move to a branch of this group that classify as true rubes.

e.g. - There are several thousand people on this planet with the ability to sniff out, and then prey on people who are easily subject to full hypnosis. There are other folks that will never enter a classic hypnotic state, but are easily duped by a variation mind controlling tactics.

They will easily succumb to carefully orchestrated - subliminal AND overt - master's in the power of persuasion and suggestion.

Their confidence scheme is well choreographed, rehearsed, and obsessively practiced over and over.

In the end, your Grandma walks away thinking it was her idea to take a Money Order from the Bank of Nairobi’s Iceland branch!

The con’s mastery often times has the victims swearing to anyone that will listen that they must have been drugged. In fact, they were not given anything more than a performance from a script.

In reality, likely less than 100 victims a year worldwide are slipped a micky as part of an ongoing business con. It is INFINITELY easier to do a stick-up on a mark than it is to properly dose a psycho-substance that will deliver perfect compliance as a handgun would. Those drugs are expensive and just about every one of the victims gets sick, over-sedated, and under-sedated or dies. The criminal gets no payout beyond stealing from the pockets of a person passed out. As I said, it is easier to simply Mug you have both criminal and victim home in time for Wheel and Jeopardy.

I will conservatively estimate this sub-group of highly susceptible, low-hanging fruit victims to be at 3% of people selling on craigslist.

Next, we have the analytically deficient population.

This group is less work than the gullible. Some Confidence Men specialize ONLY on these type victims.

 The way it works is simple. You have magnificent websites, amazing looking money orders with holograms and "backed by the IRS: or anything else you decide to print on them, etc., plus the element that ties this together. Mainly, the Confidence men have accomplices.

I am not going to get deeply into it. Just imagine everything from what appears no different than customer call center operators verifying the Money Order is good Plus, on top of having every marketing aid that Wachovia Bank has- and Confidence men WILL have all of it, with the only discernible difference being their bogus financial company name on it.

Yes, they have All of it!

Brochures, letterhead, office space, staff, pro website etc.

This serves as a powerful illusion and completely confuses the analytical thought processes of some. These people are oblivious that there is fraud involved. The possibility never once appears on their radar. Interestingly, this is the group that claims they must have been drugged because they can't remember even a second of doubt that ever crossed their minds.

The best of the Confidence men are so utterly talented and prepared at their mastery, you would turn cynical for life if you watched the ease at which it unfolds. These confidence men do only one thing, but they do it so well that one almost wants to forget they are petty thieves and instead look at them with respect for what they have achieved in their "craft".

But, don't be lulled in.

Though the cons vehemently disagree, they are not artists, actors, creators, spiritualists or folk heroes.

They are petty thieves, pure and simple. They have acquired a curious skill that shows they were more suited for Carnival work than an honest paying career. They consider themselves Ring Masters at the Greatest Show on Earth because at will they can at create a nearly quantum, parallel reality that many people have no defenses to fight against. When looking in from the outside - for many well intentioned people - this may be remarkable. However, it is not respectable or exceptional.

I will conservatively estimate this sub-group of that most of the time "would know better" to be at 15% of people selling on craigslist.

Finally, the subgroup that houses most of us:.

We are the 80% that would never fall for any of these confidence games. The bad guy senses that immediately and we won't ever get to see a molecule of their schemes because they have ditched us for more fertile ground. This often is old news without ev before we are even sure there was a scam. They will disappear. It is only the sudden disappearance of the con that will settle the fact the buyer was indeed a Scam Artists.

Therefore, we are left a with 20% possible conversion rate for the thieves to work toward. If they are trying for clear titles on Grandma's cars, or trying to get at some of that heirloom bling she should be leaving for you, they will have a successful haul on 8 out of every 10 replies they send through craigslist. it does not take much extrapolation to figure out that getting some throw-away phones, a website, and a bunch of degenerate buddies to work with you will be a very profitable business for those willing to take things seriously,

Do you think ANY hacker could have busted into Target's system last year? No.

It was done by people that fully understand the concept that 20% uncollected funds payoff only comes with 80% failure. It was done by the best of the best. To the riches go the spoils, and the amount of crews operating out there become more sophisticated and organized every day, It is a fact that they are developing methods much faster than we are uncovering them.

Be safe out there!