Scam from craigslist?

[asian5625]

So I've gotten my fair share of scam emails from craiglsist, everything from Nigerian missionary to a worker on an oil rig asking me to send the item to two different adresses. So when I see "paypal" in an email I usually just skip it, but in this case the buyer is emailing me personally and I'm debating whether this is legit or not and I'm leaning towards not but I have used paypal to make a sale no problem so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Here's his email :

"Alright,I am buying this for my Fiance,I would have love to come over to your place and see it myself but my running of day to day business activities will not give me chance to do that and i will love to see pics, I will offer you $750 for including shipping and i will be paying you through PayPal so kindly get back to me with your PayPal email or send me money request so that i can make the payment as soon as possible to your PayPal account and you need to get back to me as soon as possible and i want the item to be shipped out as soon as possible because it is very urgent.

Awaiting your prompt response."

I exchanged a few emails with him telling him I want cash only, and instead of the usual automated message saying something that has nothing to do with my response, he personally emails me answering my question. 

But let's say this is a scam, would it be possible for me to give him my paypal info, have him send me the money, then transfer the money to my bank and withdraw the cash, THEN send it? 

[AZBikr]

I would cewrtainly wait for Olivia to check in on this one. Looking at the wording of that message, I have my doubts it came from Pay Pal or that it waws written by anybody who has English as a first language. To me, it has "Scam" written all over it. Good luck with it. I think they figure on getting that $650 out of your pocket, and I certainly wouldn't part with that bike until you see the cash in your bank account, not in some phony Pay Pal account.

John

[deanna3179]

John,

I thought it was a legitimate offer, until I received the emails from fake paypal. Now she's getting pretty rude in her emails to me. I told her that once I verify from the real paypal website that this is legit, I will proceed, but not until and only then will I do that. I have stopped responding to her emails for now.

[PayPal_Adrian]

deanna379 -

Your instincts are definitely correct on this one.  I can absolutely, unequivocally say that email isn't from PayPal and is a form of Advanced Fee Fraud.  PayPal doesn't work with Western Union to transfer money - after all, we already know how to move money (it's what we do!)

If you would like, please forward the "papal" email you received over to spoof@paypal.com so we can register it with our fraud teams.

For more information within the Community, I recommend these threads:

Is this email from PayPal?

Examples of Suspected Fraud

Stay safe,

Adrian

[gngrlnn3]

My husband is selling a laptop on craigslist and he recieved an email the next day saying that he would pay for it using paypal and he would also pay for shipping. I recieved and email from paypal saying that he transferred 550 to our account. I feel that this is a scam because he is wanting up to ship it to Nigeria. He says he is from Texas but wants it sent to his son. I sent the email to paypal to see if it is a scam but I'm not sure how soon I will hear back. His english is horrible and he has a link to paypal which also kind of makes me think this is fake. Here is what the email says:

Thanks for your reply toward my request to your item.i am very happy to hear that the item is still Available.it's my first time buying an item online and i will be glad if you can sell it to me,i due located at Texas  please send me a pay pal invoice to enable me make the payment  asap,If you are new to PayPal all you need to do is to log on to WWW.PAYPAL.COM and open an account with them,registration is free and is very simple to open. I am  paying you both the shipping cost and your cost price. and i will be  happy if i made the payment to you, you go immediately to mail out  the package to my son using USPS Express mailing to his address i am  going to give to you after the payment. get back to me cause i need  this item as soon as possible. Please do consider the item as sold as I will be sending out the payment immediately once I received the requested information for the payment.I wait to hear from you soon..
Regards
Justin

[AZBikr]

Sounds like a scam to me also. One thing you might want to check out first is whether or not you can even ship a computer to Nigeria or wherever. There are some laws yet about exporting certain technology and I would be real certain I wasn't violating any of them.  The other thing you might do is insist on shipping the computer to whatever address the buyer has used to register with Pay Pal. I think that is one thing you have to do to qualify for the seller protection. One of the moderators may be able to clarify that for you. Good luck.

John

[AZBikr]

One more step you should take is to check what you know for certain is your Pay Pal account (not the e-mail the buyer sent or any link they furnish) and see if the money is actually there.  Then, I would transfer the money to my own bank account before shipping anything . I don't think you can do much else to protect yourself beyond that.

John