It’s time for another anti-scammers post!

Yesterday I listed my SLR camera on Craigslist. Since I have a dSLR now and the fact that I haven’t shot much film since 2004 anyway, Steve insists I try to sell it (even though I don’t want to). Anyway, within hours, I had an email from someone who was asking if it was still for sale, that it would make a great Christmas gift. Nothing about the email was suspicious, or the emails following where we discussed payment and shipping, etc.

Some might say the whole idea of shipping things with Craigslist is strange, but I actually live an hour away from the area I “subscribe” to with Craigslist, so I don’t have a problem shipping things. I always mention that I can meet the people in such-and-such areas or ship but since I often get responses from people who are on the North end of the area and I on the South end, if the item’s shippable, I assume that’s what’s gonna happen.

So the guy ends up telling me that it will be a gift for his son who’s away in college that I ship it there. I really don’t think anything of it because, again, it’s Christmastime and there was nothing red-flaggy about the emails.

But when I got the payment email this morning, I knew right away it was a scam. How?

– He “paid” me for $200 when I was asking $125 for the camera and a max of $12 for shipping.

Anytime someone sends you more money than what you are asking for, it’s a scam. I’ve never heard of this NOT being a scam.
A friend of mine who I do her website and she breeds dogs recently had this happen. Actually, I just called to verify and they’ve had it happen in excess of nine times now. Of course, it was only the first guy that got the farthest, the others were nipped in the bud right away. But basically, someone sent them a check for more than twice the cost of the dog and shipping and they were supposed to cash the check (which turned out to be a legitimate check, stolen from an airline) and give the difference to the courier who was supposedly coming to pick up the dog. Of course, if it all went to the scammer’s plan, they would have lost the dog and been out all the money when the check came back bad.

If someone sends you a check/cashier’s check/money order for than what you’re asking for and what has been agreed upon, report it right away. If the check looks legitimate, call the company or person on the check and verify. That’s how my friends found out the check was stolen, and the airline was very happy to hear where it ended up. If it comes from PayPal and it’s really in your account, report it to PayPal immediately.

– The email didn’t address me by name, it said dear [email address]

PayPal will ALWAYS address you by name. Never “dear member” or “dear anything else” – ALWAYS by your name that you have on the account. The ONLY time I have received mail from PayPal that didn’t have my name on it was when I forwarded this spoof email to spoof@paypal.com and got a response that it was fraud and thanks for forwarding it. Then they responded with Dear name that appeared on my outgoing email, aka my company name.

So any time you get an email from “PayPal” that doesn’t address you by name, just delete it, it’s fake!

– The subject line of the email was non-PayPal-typical, every word was capitalized and it had misspellings and said it was a payment for an “auction.”

Proper PayPal emails actually spell things right and usually follow the same format that is to say, basically, “Notification of Payment Received from [name] [(email address)].”

– The email header image was not the one that PayPal uses for payment notifications.

This good:


(followed by solid blue line)

This bad:

– Email said it was from Service@paypal.com

Also a dead giveaway. The email claims to be from service@paypal.com but it’s actually from some address at mail2pal.com which is apparently a free email service much like Yahoo or Hotmail.

– Shipping address was:
Name: Kevin Innocent F.
Address: #26 Peter Okoye Street Uwani,
City: ENUGU,
State: ENUGU STATE,
Zip Code: 400001
Country: NIGERIA

Need I really say more?
Now I don’t know that that’s a real address or not (Engu is a real city, the capital) but, well, I feel sorry for those legitimate Nigerians ’cause those scammers really have ruined it for them. I am very wary of anything that claims to be from Nigeria. That’s just the way it is.

But let’s say I’ve fallen for the scam? And I do ship to Nigeria? Then not only have I lost any income, but I’ve lost the camera, AND I’ve spent a buttload of money in shipping. I have a friend who was a missionary to Nigeria and now is in Niger, trust me, it’s not cheap!

– Besides all that, the bottom of the email said:

This PayPal. payment has been deducted from the buyer’s account and has been “APPROVED”but will not be credited to your account until the shipment reference/tracking number is sent to us for shipment verification and this is done to secure both the buyer and the seller against any fraudulent activities. Below are the necessary information requested before your account will be credited. Send tracking number to us or email us through this Mail paypal_service@mail2pal.com our customer service care will attend to you. As soon as you send us the shipment’s tracking number the money will be credited to your account and this is done for security purposes and the safety of the buyer and the seller.

This payment is Approved but it will stand as payment pending until we receive the shipment reference/tracking number from you.

First off, not only can you note that that paragraph has bad grammar, spacing, punctuation, etc. Second, note the bad email address to you. And third, it’s their last ditch effort to get you to fall for it. Let’s say you’ve been iffy so far. You read this paragraph and go, oh, that’s why there’s no money in my PayPal account yet.

No, it will never be in your account! Real PayPal payment notifications say this on the bottom: “Have you lifted your withdrawal and receiving limits? Just log in to your PayPal account and click View Limits on the Account Overview page. Sincerely, PayPal” At least mine do. But even beyond that, the rest of the email is just clearly not legitimate. Here is the email I got alongside an actual one I received yesterday:




You’ll have to click to get the full images.
I’m sure if you really picked at it you’ll find more reasons the email is not legitimate. Also, sorry for the pixelation, but gotta have privacy. :)

So, anyway, just another reminder, be careful out there! They wouldn’t try to pull this crap if it wasn’t productive to them on some level. And always remember, don’t just click on links in emails claiming to be from PayPal, mouse over them and see what the link really is. But more importantly, just open a new browser window/tab and type in paypal.com.

And in conclusion for me, I’m not out anything. I wasn’t going to mail anything until the money was in my account completely from PayPal anyway.