InLuv101
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2008
- Messages
- 706
I was so upset over the weekend and can''t imagine how upset I''d been if I was actually scammed. I tried to make this as short as possible without leaving out the important details.
I was looking to purchase an item from someone on craigslist. I''ve purchased from craigslist before so I thought if I could save a few bucks on a new/almost item that I''d go for it. Well I found the item being sold for a good price. The poster said it was used for 1 week and after initiating contact we exchanged several emails about it including him sending me real life pics of it. I agreed to purchase it. He was in another city in my state so I agreed to send the money via paypal (I''ve used paypal many many times) and he would send the tracking number and FedEx the the item overnight. His paypal account email was different from the the one he was emailing me with but I didn''t think anything of it since I have several personal email addresses as well.
Well later that evening after coming home from dinner I checked my email for the tracking number and it wasn''t there. I emailed both the email address he was communicating with me from & the paypal email address requesting the tracking number and stating that if I hadn''t heard from him in the morning I would contact my bank & cancel the transaction. I got an email a little bit later from the paypal email address from a woman who was confused by my email asking if I was the person who purchased her $300 Best Buy Gift Card from Ebay. After a few more confused email exchanges she gave me her phone number and we talked.
Here was the scam: He purchased a Best Buy Gift Card from Ebay and told the seller that his "sister" was going to send the money via paypal. He then instructed her to send the gift card via fedex and give him the tracking number as well as the gift card number & PIN in case he wanted to buy something online before it arrived. He had me (his fake sister) pay for the gift card & I would have received a fedex with a Best Buy Gift Card with a $0.00 balance because he would have spent the money before it reached me.
The Ebay seller was very nice and did reverse the transaction on paypal & we both changed our passwords on paypal/email accounts. I just couldn''t believe someone would do that! I must be incredibly naive, but I just didn''t think for a second he might scam me. I''m very glad it didn''t work. Lesson learned. I''m only ever buying things on craigslist where myself and DH can meet the seller in person together.
Anyone have anything similar happen to them? If not, just passing my story along so others can be more cautious as I clearly was not.
Thanks for reading!
I was looking to purchase an item from someone on craigslist. I''ve purchased from craigslist before so I thought if I could save a few bucks on a new/almost item that I''d go for it. Well I found the item being sold for a good price. The poster said it was used for 1 week and after initiating contact we exchanged several emails about it including him sending me real life pics of it. I agreed to purchase it. He was in another city in my state so I agreed to send the money via paypal (I''ve used paypal many many times) and he would send the tracking number and FedEx the the item overnight. His paypal account email was different from the the one he was emailing me with but I didn''t think anything of it since I have several personal email addresses as well.
Well later that evening after coming home from dinner I checked my email for the tracking number and it wasn''t there. I emailed both the email address he was communicating with me from & the paypal email address requesting the tracking number and stating that if I hadn''t heard from him in the morning I would contact my bank & cancel the transaction. I got an email a little bit later from the paypal email address from a woman who was confused by my email asking if I was the person who purchased her $300 Best Buy Gift Card from Ebay. After a few more confused email exchanges she gave me her phone number and we talked.
Here was the scam: He purchased a Best Buy Gift Card from Ebay and told the seller that his "sister" was going to send the money via paypal. He then instructed her to send the gift card via fedex and give him the tracking number as well as the gift card number & PIN in case he wanted to buy something online before it arrived. He had me (his fake sister) pay for the gift card & I would have received a fedex with a Best Buy Gift Card with a $0.00 balance because he would have spent the money before it reached me.
The Ebay seller was very nice and did reverse the transaction on paypal & we both changed our passwords on paypal/email accounts. I just couldn''t believe someone would do that! I must be incredibly naive, but I just didn''t think for a second he might scam me. I''m very glad it didn''t work. Lesson learned. I''m only ever buying things on craigslist where myself and DH can meet the seller in person together.
Anyone have anything similar happen to them? If not, just passing my story along so others can be more cautious as I clearly was not.
Thanks for reading!
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