Examples of Suspected Fraud or Fake Emails

[PayPal_Andy]

Hey Everybody!

In an effort to make things easier to find and research, I'm going to consolidate as many threads as possible where we have examples of people trying to defraud hard working sellers (Craigslist emails, 'PayPal' emails asking you to send money outside of PayPal, etc).  This will also be used as a master thread for future posts regarding this same situation.

When you post your examples here, please remember to not include last names or contact information of whoever is sending these emails.  There's no way to confirm if that person has been defrauded as well and the name is being used fraudulently.

Thanks for your cooperation and remember, keep the conversation productive, on task, and above all, keep it clean. I know these things can be difficult and frustrating, but bleep filled posts or posts that look like government redacted files will never benefit anyone. 😄

Andy

[skymom1946]

I had the same thing happen to me with my sailboat. Buyer claimed he wants to buy my sailboat, sight unseen. He didn't even ask any questions about it. When I asked him if he didn't want some info, he replied to send him some pictures. He also said he could only pay by PayPal and when payment was complete, he would send someone to pick up the boat.

From the wording and grammar, he sounded like a foreigner. I just thought this was really weird.

[SamuelD]

Thank you this post! I received the same story today from the same "Marine Engineer ".  Almost felt in sending agent via western union $1,000 ...

I decided to check in with PayPal before running to the bank to wire the money and I am glad I read this post !!!!! He supposly overpay $1,100 to cover the cost of the car and cover wester union fees...

Thanks so much for post - It takes one minute to make others aware....

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@temp20180326s wrote:

OH, thank you so much for this post! I am glad I am not the only one who thought the "Marine Engineer out at sea buying the car as a surprise for her Dad" was fishy.

How can you have a bank account tied to a paypal account but not have internet access to said bank? anyway, THANK YOU!!

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[jma7260]

The same thing has happened to me

[Owl]

This was sent to me as was previous correspondence from same person. Im new to PayPal so am skeptical. Friends use this service regularly as well as Craigslist where my add is published for the bike. Im glad for this forum to help our community.

On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 1:46 PM, ********* wrote 

 Thank you for getting back to me. Can you assure me that it's in good state and that i will not be disappointed with it. I'm ready to pay
your asking price  to be honest, i wanted to buy this for my son, but the issue is i 'm an oceanographer and i do have
a contract to go for which starts tomorrow and am leaving any moment from now. The contract is strictly no call due to the lack of
reception on the sea area. But I'm able to access email anytime as we will make use of laptop so my only quickest payment option is PayPal
as i can send money via PayPal anytime.Since I'm requesting this transaction to be done via PayPal, i will be responsible for all the
PayPal fee/charges on this transaction and if you don't have an account with PayPal, its pretty easy, safe and secured to open one.

Just log on to www.paypal.com. I hope we can make the purchase as fast
as possible? I have a mover that will come for it once payment clears
and they will get it to my son's location safely.

So i look forward to hear from you soon.

[drywallmichael]

Hi everybody, I'm glad I joined this forum also had a person send me an e-mail about buying a wheelchair I had on craigslist and said he was out in the middle of the pacific ocean and was an oceanographer and he can only do paypal to pay for it and that it was for his son.so he said his agent does'nt use paypal and wanted me to send 650.00 westrn union to his shipping agent.friend were telling they thought it was a scam.but this person made it all sound legit.what i don't understand is how can paypal guarantee that the funds will be in the account once verified the money was transfered.but what keeps the buyer from removing the funds afterwards.i thought paypal was a very secure money site to use but i now have second thoughts.      thanks everyone for imformation on these scams

                                                                      mike 

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi drywallmichael, and welcome to the forums!

That oceanographer ploy is a common one. Check out what happens when you do a search on the word "oceanographer" in the PayPal Community Help Forums.

Incidentally, one of the results of that search is a thread I started, which describes a common scam that people have labeled The Nigerian Email Scam. It points to articles that describe the original Nigerian Email Scam, and also explains the one that is more commonly seen now that people reference by the same name. Your description of the email you got fits the description of that scam.

Additionally, no buyer should ever have any need for you to send anyone any money by Western Union. That's an instant clue that things are not as they appear to be. There's another list at OnGuard Online of some more of the common scams conducted by email.

[WeLieInsanely]

Ah, he was an Oceanographer you say. My scam person wahad s a Marine Biologist.  She was at "sea" and had an agent who would pick up my car for her.  Tis a minor little problem with that plan.  I live in Portland, OR and her agent lives in Greenville, SC.  Please take a look at my current three posts on the Help Forum and give me your opinion of my input.  Then file a complaint with PayPal not putting these scamers out of business.   Jerry 

[skeptical]

Hello, I got an email from "Jack *****" , it was jck***** at the Google mail server,  responding to a craigslist post for furniture.  I was suspicious and now, after reading the others here, I figure it was a scam but can't imagine why someone would do this.  He said he was military on a mission with limited access to email and phone, would send an agent to pick up my furniture after depositing $ into my paypal account.  I called paypal to see if this was a scam and they said I would be protected because all I gave him was my paypal account email address.  After repeated requests for him to send me the name of the agent who would pick it up, and seeing that there wasn't any $ in my paypal account, I decided to check the community.

What do you think?

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to pop in for a minute to explain why I have removed the names, addresses, and email addresses that were posted in this thread.

I'm actually going to quote Adrian, who summed it up rather nicely in this post: 

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Very often, the names, phone numbers, and addresses given to anyone by a fraudster is a real name, phone number, or address.  But whose information is it?

Well, most often, it's another victim.  It's not the fraudster.

I can't stress enough that by repeating that information in the Forums or elsewhere, you may be unknowingly victimizing or re-victimizing another person.  Individuals whose information is used in these scams repeatedly receive harassing phone calls, letters, emails, and in some cases, wind up in physical confrontations with people who think they're the scammer.

To all of our members, please don't track down, contact, or confront spoofers or fraudsters on your own.  In most instances, the person you track down has nothing to do with the fraud and not only are you harassing them, but if this is the real spoofer, you could be placing yourself at personal risk.  Do the right thing - if you have information that you feel can lead to the arrest of a real fraudster, don't confront them yourself.  Give the information over to the local authorities and let them take care of it. 

Your life, liberty, and well-being aren't worth losing over an email.

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Olivia

[skeptical]

Thanks, Olivia. and everyone.  Yesterday I got the western union part and planned to call authorities (but not sure which ones) today.  Now I'm concerned that my email address will be compromised.