OK, so I am peacefully trying to sell this computer over Craigslist. I tried in my local CL section and got almost zero results. It was disappointing! So I decided to try another area. I tried the Tacoma-Seattle area of Craigslist. I got almost immediate results! I got several inquiries about this computer. I was asking for $400 for this computer, but figured some people may instead offer me $300, which is what usually happens. I expected it. So I entertained offers. Well, this morning I woke up to about 4 messages in my inbox all inquiring about this computer. I answered all of them. Only 2 have written me back, and they wanted to have the computer shipped to them. Well, Craigslist advises against that, but I played along anyway. They both offered me the full price, PLUS an extra $150 for shipping. Sounded reasonable, but I told them I would have to have the money today. As soon as I got that money, I would ship the computer to them.
Well, one of them sent me the money, through their PayPal account. This is why I absolutely HATE dealing with Craigslist!!! So many people taking advantage of one another. The e-mail that was sent had PayPal's official logo. This was what I got:
As you can see, the top of the page looks official, but the body of the letter has too many spaces where there should not be any. Another thing that caught my attention was this guy's address. When I scrolled a lot farther down the page, I saw this:
Notice his address is located in Ife, Osun in Nigeria, and his name is very different than the name he has on his PayPal. Well, I looked up the address, and sure enough it is a verifiable address. But what gets me is the guy lives in Nigeria, and he could not meet me (actually he would have met my ma), but said he was buying this computer for his son who is overseas. OK, I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but I was still iffy on this Nigerian transaction. Something about it felt wrong to me. Then almost immediately after getting this e-mail, I got another one, which also looked official, but said something very different than what I had seen PayPal send:
Again, it looks official with the logo on top of the page, but take a close look at this line:
It said that this person has transferred money to my account, but that it is being held in ESCROW. I didn't know PayPal had ESCROW services! But it said that I will get my money when I provide them with a tracking number that I am supposed to get when I send this computer off. Well, something smelled fishy, and I still sensed something was not right. So, I e-mailed the guy again and told him that I got this message, but that I cannot send him anything until I at least got the money for the packaging and shipping. He kept on demanding that I send the item NOW!!! I told him he will just have to wait. I also told him that I would like to contact PayPal and ask them about this ESCROW service because I never heard of that service before! And it doesn't sound like something PayPal would offer. I didn't hear from him after that. I looked all over PayPal's website and saw
nothing about escrow services. I even looked in their Merchant services section and got nothing. So, I called PayPal.
The man I spoke to said that PayPal does NOT have escrow service, that it is nothing but a money exchanging site. I looked closer at the e-mail, and there was something funny. I looked at the e-mail address at the top. This is an official e-mail from PayPal:
That is their OFFICIAL e-mail. Here is what is on the fraudulent e-mail:
Notice there is a difference. You can barely notice it, but there is a period after paypal.com that does not belong there! It just goes to show that you should check the address
carefully. Well, when I contacted PayPal, they said they know all about this kind of transaction, and that it is a scam. So please, if you get an email from someone from out of the country, and it's not on ebay, be careful!! Shoot! Even on ebay you have to be careful, look at the ratings from the people who purchase from you. Good buyers will have good feedback. I've got 100% perfect feedback, which means I may be purchasing from out of the country (as I often buy from the UK), but I am a good buyer! I've never scammed anyone.
Well, I e-mailed this guy back and told him that I contacted PayPal, and they told me the e-mail was a scam. So I told him if he would like to send me the money from the official PayPal site, I will be glad to send him the computer. But I warned him that PayPal does not have escrow services. Believe me, I do not expect to hear from him again any time soon!
And remember when CrystalK said on my old MySpace blog that I am so easily misled? LOL! Well, I can seem that way, on the internet. Because I often like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Unless I know better. For example, I didn't buy for one second that Mcgillicutty was a 50-something year old man! A teenage boy I would have had an easier time believing, but definitely NOT a 50-something year old man! Men in their 50s generally do not do the things Mcgillcutty did. I've seen 50-odd year old men at their worst, and Mcgillicutty did NOT in any way fit the description. So I knew better than that. CrystalK always wants everyone to think the worst about me because I don't like her. LOL! Which is fine by me! No one decent or intelligent is going to believe her anyway, because she has never met me. And it's
her own fault I don't like her, anyway! She should stop acting like such an ass-hat and get rid of her double-standards. I mean, I don't mind people speaking their minds like she does. But she doesn't like to give anyone else the right to do so without her jumping down their throats and cussing them out.
That is why I don't like her! I
never do that myself! I speak my mind and I like to have others tell me what they are thinking. That is the whole point of having something called 'a discussion'.
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