Craigslist, Ebay and other online buying/selling scams.
#178033 by KennyC Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:24 pm
Thank you Jacadette and rmesmer. What you both describe lead me to believe that this scammer is still involving innocent victims in 2 ways in his scams:

1/ Jacadette, he is trying to use you as a mule. He wants to get you to cash checks that have been sent by real victims of another type of scam and then send the money on to him/his associate (accomplice) or another innocent mule. You have done the right thing by not cashing the check as this would have made you an accomplice. He needs mules in order for his other scam to work. (Detailed below)

Jacadette, please contact me by personal message on this forum or by my email: [email protected] if you are able to. I will ask you to send me the original emails plus a copy of the header. (I will tell you how to do that when I hear from you.)

Another type of mule recieves payments by bank transfer Western Union or MoneyGram and then sends payment on again by the same means, or by personal check, or by bank transfer to another party - usually another mule or the scammer himself by some anonymous means. All these steps in the scam serve to further distance the scammer himself from the scam and make it increasingly difficult for law enforcement to trace.

Most arrests connected with this type of scam are not of the scammer himself, but of the mule (accomplice) as these are very often the only people who are in the jurisdiction of law enforcement. Law enforcement in West Africa where many of these scams originate are almost useless.

2/ rmesmer, I would say that for certain that the first mail you list looks like this scammer's script. This is his primary scam. He contacts sellers on classified advert sites such as Craigslist and expresses interest in buying their "item" for sale. He then offers to make payment by PayPal - often encouraging those who don't have an account to open one. He then sends "payment has been made subject to condition that you forward payment to his mover" from a faked PayPal email address - be assured that this is definitely fake, PayPal does not offer the service of holding funds in escrow until the payment is made to a third party.
Sometimes in this scam he has used the idea that his wife requires this payment for a vital operation/surgery/treatment.

He asks for your PayPal email address - the one that you use to make and receive payments with - a genuine buyer would need to know this in order to make a payment. There is no way that I know of that he can directly remove funds from your PayPal account, he would need to trick you in some way in order to make the scam successful eg. by using the above method of faking an email from PayPal claiming they are holding funds in escrow - and then you make a payment by bank transfer/Western Union/check/Money-gram in good faith that the funds would then clear in your PayPal account - which they won't of course.

rmesmer, please contact me by personal message on this forum or by my email: [email protected] if you are able to. I will ask you to send me a copy of the header for this mail. (I will tell you how to do that when I hear from you.)

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#178483 by KennyC Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:53 am
More email addresses that this scammer is using to place his fake job adverts:

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],


Edited: to remove an email address added in error.
Edited: to remove an email address added in error. 17/June/2014
Last edited by KennyC on Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

#178602 by KennyC Fri Oct 11, 2013 10:08 pm
Please, anybody who reads this and is affected by this scammer, please contact myself by Email.

The more information we are given by you and people in your position, the more we are able to publish usefull information to prevent people becoming victims of this scam and others like it.

Do not worry, we will not publish any personally identifiable information on this site - we are only interested in publishing scammer's details, and the details of how they draw people into their scams.

Every Email we receive is invaluable in the fight against these people who have no decency, no scruples and no hesitation in taking money from even the most vulnerable among us, so don't be shy, we don't judge, so Email us now.

Thanks so much,
yours,
Kenny Clayton.

PS. My Email is here below.

#178828 by KennyC Tue Oct 15, 2013 1:31 am

#280364 by Shakree28 Mon Jan 04, 2016 10:33 am
I received a text message regarding my ads on Gumtree today. First he asked me "what is the item's condition and what is the best price" and told me to reply to his email instead. So i did. Next he replied me this (below) and i thought its a scam, so I googled it and found this website. Thankfully i am saved from a scam. His email is [email protected]

Thanks for your response. I will be happy to buy it but i will not be able to come and view it at your home because I'm not at home right now. Note that you will not be responsible for shipping and handling and the payment will be made through PayPal. My shipping company will come to your location for the pick up. Kindly provide me with the address where it will be picked up so that i can forward it to the shipping company to calculate the cost of pick up for me. Do get back to me as soon as possible so that i can proceed with the payment via PayPal.

Craig

Best Regards.


becareful guys!
#284306 by Alfie101 Fri Feb 12, 2016 8:54 am
Just posted a couple of items on Gumtree and got a text asking to email condition and best price to craigswilliams01gmail.com, i queried which item they were interested in and received the following;

"Craig Williams <[email protected]> Today at 12:41 PM

let me have the list of the items your have for sale, i only copy your number also what is your final price?

I'd had already tried responding to them via text and it was undelivered which I thought odd, so googled the email address and found all this on here and then had the response above. Thanks for saving me!

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