I'm selling a PS3 and a woman asks me to ship it to nigeria

Hi, I'm selling a used playstation 3, I put an ad on an ad site that is italian based, like I am.

Then after 2 days I get a mail from a woman, that says this :

Hi,
Do you still have for sale?

My reply was that I only had one, that it was used and that I did not deliver it outside Italy, in order to prevent shipping troubles. The day after she writes back to me saying this :

Hi
Am ***** ***...Am very happy to read from you soonest..i want you to know that i really want to buy this item for my Friend who went for program on research about coco in West Africa..and i need to buy this item for him there and i want the shipment of the item fast and i want the shipment by FedEx or UPS....and i can make the payment Via Bank Transfer or Via PayPal...and i want you to let me know the item cost plus shipment cost to West Africa.kindly get back to me so i can know how to process with the payment...i wait to read from you soonest...Thanks
***

So I wrote back telling her that I needed to know where her friend lives, to let her know the shipment cost.
She replyed saying that her friend lives in nigeria :

Hello

Thanks for the mail....am very happy to read from you.......so
kindly let me know the total for item and shipment cost.....and here is
the shipment address....



Name......******* ****
Address......***************
State...Lagos
City.....Ikeja
Country...Nigeria
Zip Code...23401
Phone Number....+2348*********


and i want you to know that i can only make the payment by Bank
Transfer Or Via PayPal......so kindly get back to me so i can process
with the payment fast.....Thanks

***

I came to this forum searching both their names through google... what do you think?

Hi Franco
Welcome to Scamwarners

It is a definate scam, please cease all contact immediately.

I will do some searches later but for now I think this will help

Auction site scams can be divided into 3 basic categories, there are those who are selling goods who you need to pay up front delivery fees for and never receive your goods, usually larger items such as cars or boats.

There are those scammers who buy your goods and are paying by (fake) cheque who include delivery fees and ask you to forward the money to a fake delivery company or other fake organisation, often by Western Union.

Then there are the ones who are after your goods without actually paying anything, in this section, that is what I will be concentrating on.

This scam is perpetrated by people, more commonly in Africa but pretending to be elsewhere, who scour auction sites buying up goods and hoping people will send them their items without receiving payment

This scam usually targets smaller expensive items such as phones, laptops or jewelery, a few key indicators are (but not limited to);
The lack of previous transactions
Poor Grammar
Wanting the item to be sent to Africa
Calling the item "item" which makes it easier for them to use generic emails
Use of paypal and suggesting that the payment has been made and offering excuses as to why it doesn't appear in your account
The rushed nature of the transaction

Further in the scam you may see;
Fake emails from paypal confirming the payment sent from a free email providor and not actually from paypal
Fake emails from the auction site suggesting that you are obliged to send the item or they will take action, again from a free email domain
You may receive real notification from ebay suggesting the person is attempting fraud
You may notice the person's ebay account has been suspended

There was a scammer that I was receiving information about for a while who operated under these circumstances which is posted here viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1937

Often when we see these types of scam we will see familiar phrases, they will often use similiar script in their emails, a common phrase is this one " I would like to proceed with the payment. I'm buying it for someone special as a gift. " when we spot a phrase like that we can do searches on them to find other examples of the same line being used, here is a search result on that phrase Click Here

These scammers change their ebay IDs and email addresses constantly so please be on the look out and if you have the slightest doubt, please dont hesitate to ask.

100% scam.

Ralph is taking care of some additional searches, but I would be comfortable calling it based strictly on the correspondence so far.

Am ***** ***.

Since the author of the letter is apparently claiming to be from Italy and is supposed to be sending this to a friend who is temporarily in Africa, you can put this is "scam" based on these words alone. Obviously many people make mistakes in English, but often specific mistakes and types of mistakes are common to specific areas of the world. This particular grammatical error is a sure sign that the author is African, we see this mistake daily from African writers and almost never from others. There are some other grammatical errors here that place this person in Africa, but I won't go through them all as I don't want to alert scammers of mistakes to avoid.

Also, note how the first email does not refer to the PSP, and the 2nd email contains this text:

so kindly let me know the total for item and shipment cost

Note how this says "item" instead of PS3. As stated in Ralph's post, this is because "she" is sending this same email to lots of different people who have posted ads for electronics, and does not want to have to change out the name of the product.

Since this is a definite scam, could you please go ahead and post the details that you excluded, so that other victims can google the names/addresses and be prevented from falling for the same scam?

edited for goofy copy/paste info at the top.

The fact that she used the word "item" and her poor grammar are what set me on alert.
Ok here are their names and email address :

[email protected]

Name......Adekunle Tony
Address......20a Medical Road Ikeja
State...Lagos
City.....Ikeja
Country...Nigeria
Zip Code...23401
Phone Number....+2348054586401

What I tought tough was that she wanted my bank account details in order to do something with them. I think it's 99.99% not possible, but you never know...

Anyway thanks alot guys!!!

Thank You very much for posting this information, it will alert and save others from being scammed.

Note - this scammers mail using the same telephone number

Thanks for the mail......Am very glad to read from and it is a pleasure ........ and i want you to know that the item is mostly needed in west Africa for my friend who went for program there is will be very happy if you can kindly act fast because the item is needed as matter of urgent so i will like you to kindly get back to me with your full bank details arrange below.....

Full Name........
Bank Name........
Account Number...........
Iban................
State..........
City............
Country............

so i will like you to kindly get back to me fast so i can forward your details for the payment because i have contact my bank about this and here is the shipment address below......

Name....Adegoke Adebayo
Address........ Dupe Photo Dogo Bus Stop Apata
State...Oyo
City...Ibadan
Country........Nigeria
Zip Code.......23402
Phone Number...+2348054586401

so kindly get back to me fast with you details so that i can forward it for the payment so do act fast and i want the shipment by FedEx Or UPS so kindly let me know the total cost for the shipment.i hope you understand....Good Seller..God bless Thanks
Joak