Story of my Scam

I got scammed by Britney Mariah Jones

I am new in the online business area, and I was selling an item online,
Got an Email from a person interested in my item and we started talking..
So anyhow, she said she wanted my product and that she would be paying via paypal, so she would send me the request.
The next morning I receive an Email from the address paypal (seemed pretty legit, reading that it did come from paypal) customer service stating ***MONEY HAS BEEN APPROVED YOU CAN GET THE PACKAGE SHIPPED IMMEDIATELY TODAY*** SHIPPING TRACKING NUMBER NEEDED FOR PROOF. The weird thing here for me was that the transaction was for actually more than what I had requested ($200 us dls and got $320) I immediately contacted my “buyer” and she stated that it was for appraisal insurance.
So first thing I do is check my paypal account and I see nothing pending there, this is not the first time I use paypal so I assumed that it would show up on my paypal transtactions.
I emailed my “customer” and she tells me that she did send the money and gave me a ref #.
SO since I saw and went thru the email, and really thought it was legit since it said it was coming from pay pal, I read about ebay wanting to ship items frist so the buyer would have time to review and try the product, so I stupidly shipped the item and sent shipping confirmation.
The next day I received this email from the same address stating it was from PayPal. ***SHIPPING TRACKING DETAILS UNDER VERIFICATION*** MONEY WILL BE REMITTED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. PLEASE BEAR WITH US
That email stated that my money will be released in the next 21 days and then gave me some explanations as to why, I immediately went online to find if this was true, I saw on PayPal’s website about the “Funds Withholding”, so I was calm until the next day when I received this email… (all of this is happening while still being in contact with my “buyer”)
***SHIPPING TRACKING DETAILS CONFIRMED*** MONEY DEDUCTIONS SYSTEMATIC ERRORS DETECTED...DUE DATE 31/3/2014. … This email stated that they had some sort of system mistake and that my “buyer” was deducted $450 dolars instead of the actual price of the item and that I needed to re-fund those $450 dolars via MoneyGram or Western Union and then they would credit me with my $320 dolars plus a 100 extra for an “inconveniency fee”, the email gave me an address and here’s and I quote, what the message said:

“Below are necessary information of Systematic Error PayPal online Customers Service Correction Department, you will need to send the systematic refund money to the Head of Correction department below are the details:
Name : RAE J RAKER
Address: # APACHE JUNCTION, AZ
City : AZ
Code : 85140
Country: USA
Hope you can read and understand us. Once again we are sorry for the inconvenient.
We hope to hear from you soon.
NOTE: Your Item Money will be credited along with the systematic error money refund and inconveniency fee of $100 immediately we here a reply from Systematic Correction Department. The total amount on your account on awaiting to be remitted now is $850.00”

I have noticed on this particular email (which I’m showing just a part of it) that there’s terrible grammar, an Address with NO number in Apache junction AZ, (I FB’d that persons’ name and came up as an Army member from Apache AZ) and the #’s just don’t add up to my point of view, I know at this moment that I have been scammed terribly and that my item will never come back, nor I am getting paid, so I have been just following along (I have reported both email addresses now and I need to keep them active as long as possible) back and forth with this person I wrote them an email saying that I will NOT be sending any money via western Union or Money gram and that I could not believe that being the big company that they are, they are making me pay for their “electronic mistakes” and that I felt like I needed some compensation for my distress… and the last email I got is now saying (with even worse grammar) the following:

“We do experienced this!!! once in a while, But all payment has been placed on your account, We need to recovered this electronic systematic error through the Payee acount because all funds are still going to reflect on your account. We do not want boards of directors to notice this error from Techincal Programming Department that is why we cannot reverse the total amount of systematic money that is about to be paid to your account, We have to re filled Mrs Britney Mariah Jones acount without the mistake been leak out to the boards of directors. Please we await the full detailed of the Re-Fund detailed, We do appreciate your understanding.”

To what I replied:

“I really do not care if your “Board of Directors” finds out about the huge huuuge mistake you made, it was your fault you should be covering it…. If it was “electronic” why wouldn’t you just reverse the payment?
I should not be getting bothered by this any longer. This was not my fault. It was your stupid mistake,
I will NOT be sending any money via Money Gram or Western union.
I know you are ripping me off already so just end this stupid game and just please stop bothering me.
I can’t take your poor grammar emails anymore.”

Last one I got was about them making it very clear that they need to receive that payment in order to get my “buyer” her money and to get my payment as well….

Like I said I know that I am not getting what I shipped back, and I am not getting any money either, I just wanted to vent and tell you my story and hope it helps if you’re going thru something similar,
I will post an update since this is still going on.

Thanks for reading me.

I'm sorry that you were scammed. Unfortunately, you were right--if you didn't ship the package using a service that can be recalled, or if the item has been delivered, there is no recourse. And like many scammers, this one is extremely greedy--he is not happy with just stealing your item, he wants to take your cash as well.

I do want to make sure that you (and anyone reading this thread) understand a few things to help avoid these scams in the future.

Paypal was never involved in this scam. The emails were sent by the scammers and paypal was completely unaware of them.

I read about ebay wanting to ship items frist so the buyer would have time to review and try the product

I'm not sure where you read it, but this is inaccurate or maybe just taken out of context. ebay expects items to be shipped promptly, but not before payment is received. An ebay seller does wait for payment to arrive AND be cleared (if they accept other payment types like check or money order)

I saw on PayPal’s website about the “Funds Withholding”

Paypal does not hold funds so that the buyer can decide if they like the product. That is the function of an escrow service, and paypal clearly states that they are not one (they actually refer customers to a recommended escrow service if one is needed.)

They DO put a hold on payments sometimes for new sellers and for sellers who have a poor record (e.g., high number of complaints from buyers or reversed transactions.) BUT--and this is the important part--if you are subject to funds withholding, (a) paypal will notify you by name, in an official email, which you will be able to see in your message box when you log into paypal and more importantly, (b) when you log into paypal and look at your account, you will be able to see the payment--you just won't be able to withdraw it.

Please do post the information the scammer was using, including the name(s), email address, shipping address, and any email addresses associated with the fake paypal. It is also important to realize that names used were fake, but since the scammer may use them again, posting the information may help a future target of the scam.

Thank you Dotti!
I appreciate the feedback and will certainly will put it to practice on my future transactions, it is hard for me to believe how can someone be so greedy and how there's people that take advantage of someone else I woud never even think on doing that to someone else!
I have not received any more emails either from my "buyer" or the supposed "PayPal online Customers Service Correction Department" as of right now. But here's a list of the "people involved"

The people involved are:
Britney M. Jones / email - [email protected]
The shipping address she requested was:
Adam Castle
143 Cooper Hill Road Nottingham,
New Hampshire 03290USA

She did give me a phone # along with this message:
You can call or drop text message anytime. When you call my house maid will pick and tell me anytinh you said with hand sign language.
Mrs Britney M Jones
(469) 209-9693 text only... Deaf by nature...Appreciate it...

just googled it yesterday and guess what?!
It's a phone # in Plano Tx!!!

So this just keeps getting better...let's see if they keep pushing me to sendmoney over Western Union or Money gram...

[AlanJones]

The phone number is a VoIP number, so the scammer could be anywhere.

The address appears valid for an Adam Castle, so the police might be interested - he's probably only a victim of a re-shipping scam, but you may get lucky and he hasn't shipped your item on yet.

Thank you Alan,

I have a question and I really apologize if it's a dumb question, as I said earlier, I am new to this type of terms since it had never hapenned to me before..
What is a re-shipping scam?

In most situations where the "item" is shipped to someone in the US the receiver is re-shipping it out of country.

These re-shippers on most occasions believe they have re-shipping job. In reality they too are victims of the scammer. They have responded to an online ad or was contacted by the scammer via email. Sometimes the re-shipper knows what he is doing is illegal but believes he is not the one scamming. But, for all purposes he will be the only one caught by Law Enforcement.

You need to report this to your local Police, USPS and IC3 ( http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx ). Print out all the emails and show them to the Police.

[AlanJones]

The person that you sent your items to thinks that he has a legitimate job receiving items and re-shipping them to people overseas (because it is cheaper for them to buy the goods that way). In reality, he is receiving goods either paid for using stolen credits cards of scammed from classifieds site victims like you.

I really appreciate everybody's input on this, I know for sure that I will be more careful in my next transactions.
I passed the point of feeling bad or being upset and I am just getting informed so I can avoid these type of things.

Thank you All!!

I will post an update shortly on the mule Adam Castle .

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From: "Britney M Jones" <[email protected]>
To: xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: craigslist
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 06:54:46 -1000

sorry for my late reply. I have some urgent call to attend to some personal business, I will like DHL overnight delivery. I am OK with the price, my delivery address still remain: 143 Cooper Hill Road Nottingham, New Hampshire 03290, and don't forget to send me your pay pal detail for payment to be placed immediately. Appreciate.

Hello everyone, first of all I want to thank you for all the great responses I have gotten from you, and well, lat Sunday evening I decided to contact this Adam Castle guy, explaining to him (not in full detail) what happened to me and in hopes of him understanding my situation.

I basically told him that on Monday March 24th I had shipped an item over to his address which was given to me by someone else, and that I have a tracking # showing me that he did receive the package, so I wanted to know if he still had it.
His response was really fast and positive (which seemed weird for me) and supposedly he was going to the police to let them know that his address is being used to scam people and that he would get back to me with the outcome.

So this was Sunday evening, I sent another email this morning to know what was going on, you know… just out of curiosity, I have a strong feeling that this person knows what he’s doing and that’s working along with the scammer.

I will keep you updated.

Good morning everyone,
First thing I do in the morning is check my email, and I found this in reply of the message I had sent previously.

from: Adam Castle [email protected]
to: ME
date: Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 6:56 AM
subject: Re: Usps Package
mailed-by: yahoo.com
signed-by: yahoo.com

Roxana,
I just hit back from my police department and they might contact u about this scam. Also, I sent ur package back to u but you would have to pay for the postage.

So I immediately replied asking for a tracking #, we'll see if he gets back to me during the day...I have also contacted USPS To let them know

I would contact the police in his town and verify they really were notified.

Hi everyone,


Well I just got and Email from [email protected]
With just a subject that reads

“***SYSTEMATIC RE-FUND DETAILED NEEDED URGENTLY FOR FULL PAYMENT*** Transaction ID: 0000-06982-7492-9648***

Nothing in the body of the message, just the subject, which is pretty weird because it's been a long time since I've gotten any emails from them.

And about 3 minutes later I got this message:

“On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 10:59 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Value Customer, We detected some days ago that a man named Adam Castle of 143 Cooper Hill Road, Nottingham, New Hampshire 03290 USA, is using our web related link to scam pay customer of their value item. We find you to be one of his victims. Please call Nottingham Police Department now through the following number and placed an alert now!!! 603 679 1506 OR 603 679 2225. Our source let us know that he still have your bracelet in his car. He also scam a man from calgary Canada off his precious stone worth $11,500 emerald stones collections 43 pieces. You customers are the only link that we can use to track him. Please make police call now!!!”

I did call the NH Police department, but that was last month, they told me that they had no report whatsoever of that person, tried calling him several times with no luck.

So my question right now would be, Why do they keep trying? And what’s up with that message?

Your input is greatly appreciated as usual.

It appears that Adam Castle has stolen from the scammers. The scammer is wanting you to report him to the Police because he did not forward your property nor the property of other victim.

Did Adam Castle ever send your property back? Just ignore the emails from the scammer.