New Scam

Hey, I'm in the USA. Is this site mostly for the UK?

Anyway, I advertise my services as a guitar and piano teacher on Craigslist. Some cretin set up lessons and gave me a fake address. When I got near his home, using public bus transport, his phone started going to voicemail.

Later, I got an email saying he'd wired 650 in US dollars to my account and would I send the difference back. I charge 65 US dollars for 4 lessons, once a week, an hour each. [email protected]

Have this bloke on a bit if you want. Tell him you teach lessons and see what he does.

He claims to want to learn the piano

Hi Ev105.

In answer to your first question. No - Scamwarners is an international site and we deal with victims from all over the world. At a push, I would have to say that most of our visitors are based in the US.

As for your scammer: do you have any email content? If you could show us one or two of his emails and provide us with the full header, we may be able to tell you a bit more about him.

Welcome Ev105!

Well done for spotting that as a scam. Unfortunately, many people are caught off-guard by tricks like that.

Hi Ev105, thanks for posting that. It's a classic overpayment scam, becoming more and more prevalent on sites like craigslist. As you found out, they invariably send you more money than you are asking for, and then ask for the difference back.

They will usually send you a cheque or money order which is fake and will be returned unpaid by your bank. This takes some days or even weeks, and in that time the scammer has dissapeared with your money.
In this case the scammer looked to have been flashing your bank account, that is paying in, and then withdrawing the payment not long after.

I'm glad you haven't fallen for it. As the others have said, please post some of his emails here including the headers, and we'll be able to tell you (in most cases) where he is based. It'll also help others to find him on a google search if they suspect him.

And yes, we're very much an international site, I'm in the UK but we have volunteers from the USA, Australia, Europe, everywhere really.