Nigerian scammers now using complex personas

Got this email (along with 20 other similar emails) following a posting to Craigslist. I always find these emails amusing, and read every single one of them, just because they highlight how pathetically desperate these scammers are getting.

LOL... what will they think of next.

 

implied girl on girl action and they don't tell you what the offense was? maybe next time, they'll just make a video and sell it online... that's the purpose of the internet after all (that, and video games)

 

I know it's a scam but I can't figure out how the scamee actually gets scammed. How do they rip you off? Do they dispute the paypal payment and get their money back? Are they using you to launder money somehow? i dun git it.

 

yeah, that was a bit confusing. im guessing that they expect you to buy and ship it before they pay? or maybe its something to do with the item being bought having some connection to the scammer

 

When I tried to sell my warhammer account, some dude was like "ill send someone over to recieve the goods and pay you with a check"

I was laughing so hard, like. He is gonna come get my account? then give me a ficticiuos check, rofl.

Or when I was selling BOV that I had for an evo, some dude was like "ill buy it. Ill send a check and then you cash the check (was selling for 150, sent me a check for 1,100) then you take our your money, then give the rest to my Shipper in the form of a check. I lol'd sooooo hard.

 

Soooooo Rubius......what was this so called 'item' that you were selling and interested a lesbian couple? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?



SPEAK UP!!!!!! NAO!!!!!

 

I believe Paypal will always give you your money back if the transaction is over $400 (or some such amount). So if you want to sell something over $400, DO NOT use Paypal, as the buyer will always be able to get their money back from you with any lame excuse.

At least that's the way it was a couple years ago, my uncle had someone rip him off using paypal. Paypal is only good for small transactions.

I want to know what you were selling that lesbians wanted!!

 

Interesting. Noted.

Also, since the whole buy + ship by proxy system requires a fair deal of trust in the first place, I'm not sure how they expect an absolute stranger to do it for them.

Edit: Oh, except this is buying something you were selling. Yeah, that pretty much requires screwing around with PayPal.

 

Very amusing...

 

it still doesn't make much sense to involve physical goods in their scam since they have to receive them and resell them?

 

Usually the scammers start with some form of "safe" payment first, but then have some issue with it. Then they ask to make a direct bank transfer, and try to get you to give up your account information. In the meantime, they've tried to engage you in converstion to get enough info to be able to access your bank account.

Not the most effective way to scam, but some people are dumb enough to fall for that shit and give up all the info.

 

Yeah, after they "gain your trust" they tend to have an absurdly convoluted way that bleeds you dry in small steps so that if you catch on at one point.. they still got a bunch out of ya :x

 

Exactly lol, pretty much a good rule of thumb is NEVER do ANYTHING involving money with ANYONE in Africa.

Also, I'll say it again for paypal noobs: for large amounts, Paypal is the most unsafe method of receiving payment I am aware of. I would trust a cashiers check before paypal. That's why as a buyer you always want to use paypal whenever you can. If you don't like the product it's very easy to get your money back. It's like an online American Express card that anyone in the world can get.

 

Pretty much a necessity for any online transaction site (ebay, craigslist, etc.)

if (message.contains("Africa")) {
delete(message);
}

 

An iPhone which had the pleasure of being rubbed against my manly, hairy, sweaty, delicious (attested to by other (female) subjects) balls.

 

iPhone T-Bag edition is very popular with the ladies.

 

Hehe your friend is lucky. The person who bought the car could get his $4000 back and keep the car, and there's not a damn thing your friend could do about it.

This happened to my uncle almost 2 and a half years ago with paypal. Sold something for $3000 (I think, right around there) the buyer took the item, got a refund through paypal 2 weeks later, and disappeared. My uncle had no recourse. Paypal told him tough shit.

(To be fair, I don't know if it was through ebay or not, that might be different)

 

If you use paypal it better be through ebay. Cause ebay will fix the shit that paypal fucks up.

 

regardless of what you may say, i believe that legal action would be easy enough when the person registers the car. and depending on how delivery is attained, you could be looking at a federal offense to try. prison's not worth $4k