Ipad Ghana Scam

Put my iPad 1 up for sale on Craigslist and got a similar email from someone in United Arab Emirates

ive gotten a few scam emails myself. usually you can tell whats a scam and whats not. Always check your actual paypal account. many scammers will send you fake emails showing you that the money is sent, but in actuality, it was a really good fake paypal message

I use Craigslist as a last resort for anything now. That's all I seem to get when I list anything from an iPod, to an iPad or computer, to a table.

They never send you money. They just send emails that look like they are from paypal and stupid people send it off without checking their account. I had similar emails from Nigeria when I sold my iPad 1.

adamfilip said:

I had my Ipad 2 up for sale on craigslist

I had someone email me with the following

"well thank you for the response,am buying it for an orphanage home in Ghana as a gift and am ready to pay $1000 with addition $200 for shipping,i will like to made payment through paypal so kindly mail me your paypal account so that i make payment.thank you and looking forward to hear from you soon.."

At first i wasnt sure but now am convinced this is a scam. Buddy's name is
john david <jodav.david@gmail.com>

he kept pushing me to take a paypal payment with im sure would be fine at first and then 4 weeks later.. paypal would say there payment had bounced.
and by then i would have shipped the ipad over.

Moral of this story: Stay away from Ghana

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I have no problems with such emails. What I usually do is respond to them with my paypal email address and a message saying:

"Sure. Here's my paypal email address. I will ship the item ONLY after 1) you transfer money 2) funds clear 3) I withdraw money successfully. Thank you."

Not a single email thereafter. LOL

CIA said:

P-P-P-PoweBook!!!

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I LOVE this prank haha. I have even thought about doing something like that myself because I get so many of these damn scam emails when I sell stuff.

CIA said:

P-P-P-PowerBook!!!

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LOL. Quite a story. Thanks for sharing. I wonder what ever happened to Jeff though.

These scammers have no shame.

I got a variation today on the "email from a bank who had a dead customer with millions in cash and gold and no living relatives".

Why? The mail stated they were all killed in the tsunami in Japan.

A new fscking low.

PBF said:

I have no problems with such emails. What I usually do is respond to them with my paypal email address and a message saying:

"Sure. Here's my paypal email address. I will ship the item ONLY after 1) you transfer money 2) funds clear 3) I withdraw money successfully. Thank you."

Not a single email thereafter. LOL

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That's a good trick, scammers never reply to such emails only a genuine buyer would.

http://helsinki.en.craigslist.fi/sys/2219127056.html

This link is from Craigslist Finland.

I contacted him, the guy said he is in London and has an Import Export business, He would ship it to me free of charge... (Craigslist Finland he is in London) Hmm smelling BS.

Hmm 500€ - Just look at the specs on this thing, the apple website does not even do the specs this thing has... it gets near to them but at a cost of 2600€. He contacted me again promising it was not a scam and really wanted me to buy it so as not to lose out on a great deal.

Surprisingly he would not ship it to me for COD.

Regarding the P-P-P-Powerbook Scam..

At the end the guy said we never heard from Jeff again...

I would assume that Jeff is D-D-D-Dead.

He probably worked for a gang that scammed for a living, he probably got the 550 for taxes from his BOSS who he promised he would pay back after he got the Powerbook and sold it on... not having the Powerbook or the cash to pay back his BOSS he is probably in bits on wasteland somewhere... this is only a guess but knowing people like that in my past life I will lay you odds that it is right.

Magic words for craigslist:

"Local sale only, cash only. Out of area offers will not receive a reply. Thank you."

But yeah, CL does seem to be overrun with scamming BS artists these days.

miamijim said:

Regarding the P-P-P-Powerbook Scam..

At the end the guy said we never heard from Jeff again...

I would assume that Jeff is D-D-D-Dead.

He probably worked for a gang that scammed for a living, he probably got the 550 for taxes from his BOSS who he promised he would pay back after he got the Powerbook and sold it on... not having the Powerbook or the cash to pay back his BOSS he is probably in bits on wasteland somewhere... this is only a guess but knowing people like that in my past life I will lay you odds that it is right.

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No.... in the story Jeff is the one that pranked the scammer. So perhaps he was threatened, went underground for a bit, whatever but it makes for a bittersweet ending to a great story.

I got about 10 responses like this. I asked them why - if they were stationed in Iraq - the email came from Lagos, Nigeria (see below).

Not to be prejudiced, but these 419 scams are getting out of hand.

Why not launch 1,000 cruise missiles into Africa instead of Libya.

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Thanks =2Ci want you to know that am really interested buying your craigsli=
st item.Am new to this online stuff=2Cand am not in the country at the mome=
nt am in Iraq for an official assignment been a military officer=2CI will b=
e glad if you can help me ship it down to my daughter whom school overseas =
for her Birthday Gift=2CSo i am ready to pay you $1050 USD for the item cos=
t including the shipping cost via USPS Global Express Mail International (E=
.M.S) and i will prefer paying you via PayPal=2Cso do get back to me with y=
our PayPal email for the instant payment or you sign up for a PayPal person=
al account at http://WWW.PAYPAL.COM. I look forward in hearing from you.

MasonH said:

No.... in the story Jeff is the one that pranked the scammer. So perhaps he was threatened, went underground for a bit, whatever but it makes for a bittersweet ending to a great story.

Click to expand...

Damn Oh yeah It was Jeff that vanished...

That is actually quite scary....

I have a buddy who owns a multi-million dollar online business. He ships 10's of thousands of products every year. He stopped selling outside the US because there were so many scammers. Most of them were pretty obvious, but there were also some that were very good and slipped through. He just got tired of dealing with it and decided to stop shipping outside the US. the scammers were from everywhere in the world--not just Nigeria.

The author of the article is "MyNameIsJeff" (right on the first page).

But yeah, selling on craigslist is always a headache. That is why I sold my old iPad for less than I could hav just because I wanted to get it over with and holding out (and dealing with the hassles) for an extra $25 to $50 just isn't worth my time.

But I always put on my posts, whenever I do sell on craigslist, "I will only meet in person and sell for cash." Despite this, or any variation of it, I still get the occasional scammer but not as many as when I just put something up for sale outright.

Jeff didn't die, he became an internet celebrity and stopped replying to all the email:

http://www.myspace.com/iameljefe

Looks like he logged in a couple weeks ago.

adamfilip said:

I had my Ipad 2 up for sale on craigslist


Moral of this story: Stay away from Ghana

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The only way to deal with Craigslist is locally in person and cash only.

ucfgrad93 said:

The only way to deal with Craigslist is locally in person and cash only.

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Totally agree. I sell stuff on CL all the time. You'll find some unreliable people and Nigeria scam attempts, but anyone with half a brain can navigate through it all quite easily.

Ebay fees and scams have become outrageous IMO. I still use eBay for items that are generally hard to sell (need a larger market), but my preference is CL.

Craigslist local only

Yep, Craigslist = local only & cash only. Otherwise eBay is a much better choice if you really wanna sell throughout the US or international.

I've been burned a few times from international buyers not wanting to pay customs fees, so I don't ship outside US anymore either...

herdnerfer said:

Yep, Craigslist = local only & cash only. Otherwise eBay is a much better choice if you really wanna sell throughout the US or international.

I've been burned a few times from international buyers not wanting to pay customs fees, so I don't ship outside US anymore either...

Click to expand...

Smart move. The CONUS delimiter is on all orders.

lindros2 said:

Not to be prejudiced, but these 419 scams are getting out of hand.

Why not launch 1,000 cruise missiles into Africa instead of Libya.

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At the risk of sounding like the pedantic douchebag I sometimes am, where do you think Libya is, if not Africa?