Brenda Caff wants to purchase my Craigslist Item

[Hurricane]

I received this email. No questions about the item which I found very strange. Is this legit?

Hi
 thanks for reply, i am a marine engineer, i am at sea right now. I am buying this for my son as a surprise gift. I can  only pay through paypal at the moment as i dont have access to my bank account online(i dont have internet banking with it), but i have it attached to my paypal account, and this is why i insisted on using paypal to pay,all i will need is your paypal email address to make the payments, and if you dont have a paypal account yet, you can set one up at www.paypal.com  it cant take you less than 3mins to do that, i will be expecting your paypal email so l can pay.  I have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been sorted, and also do get back to me with your best offer. l will be waiting for your reply asap

[topcat484_123]

Hi i had the exact same email last week exept she wanted to by my partners boat, we asked her many questions an every reply we got wanted our paypal details, we never replied with our details thank god, i googled her name today an found this site. Why hasnt paypal done something like close this fraudulent account ????

[Kelly10]

That is so funny.  I had posted a 4Wheeler for sale on Craigslist Saturday evening, and by Sunday morning I had the following email:

Thanks for the mail, i am buying this for my son as his birthday gift because i would not be around to celebrate with him i am a petroleum engineer currently on a rig offshore and due to the nature of my work,phone calls making and visiting of website are restricted but i squeezed out time to check this advert and send you an email regarding it. I really want this item to be a surprise gift for my son so i wont let him know anything about the item until it gets delivered to him , i am sure he will be more than happy with the item.I insisted on paypal because i don't have access to my bank account online as i don't have internet banking, but i can pay from my PayPal account, as i have my bank a/c attached to it, i will need you to give me your PayPal email address so i can make the payment as soon as possible for the item and pls if you don't have PayPal account yet,it is very easy to set up, go on www.paypal.com and get it set up ,after you have set it up i will only need the e-mail address you use for registration with PayPal so as to put the money through.I have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up immediately you have receive the payment in full.what is your final price including the paypal charges?.

Since I don't normally use Cragslist OR paypal, I wasn't sure why he was insisting on using paypal, but was skeptical, especially since he didn't even care to see the item, and said he was sending an 'agent' to pick it up. 

Thank goodness I saw this.  He has to be the same person.  The name on his email was Andrew Smith and his email was similar to what someone else posted earlier.  I tried to put it in but I got an error message saying that email address is not allowed in this community.  There you go!  This guy needs to be punished!

[scloyd]

NEVER respond to a Craigs list buyer named "Smith Ray".   It's a scam!  He sends out fake emails asking for a delivery tracking number.  I contacted Paypal by phone to verify that it was a scam.

[branelli]

This scam has obviously hit the UK now too as my parents-in-law have just received an identical email to the one you've cited asking to buy their camper van. Luckily they're not too computer literate so checked with me and my husband. I did a quick google search for "Brenda Caff" and found your posts - so many thanks - you've probably saved my in-laws a lot of money and stress.

[Jeane1231]

I received the exact same email about my motorcycle on craigslist yesterday. Someone needs to stop this person.

[Marie_k7]

I got an email from Allyson Duncan requesting my paypal email for a ring to purchase.  (Offshore rig occupant also)  So if I send her the email address I just have to make sure the funds clear before I send the ring right?

[lfisch]

Don't send the ring. The funds will not clear. The funds will not even reach your paypal account. Watch out for a fake paypal account.

[chelsey_3697]

I received almost the same message from a buyer named ALLYSON DUNCAN who claimed to be offshore drilling. She wanted to by my ring off Craiglist and he was very insisting on getting my PayPal email address. I finally gave it to her and she said I would have to Mail the ring 1st and get a tracking number and send it to her. I called paypal to verify and it is FRAUD. Paypal said that is not their policy. I did not even see the money in my Paypal and ALLYSON DUNCAN insisted that I would get my money as soon and I sent her the tracking number.  I got like 3 spoof email from paypal that were fraud. I was almost out like 2 grand. thank goodness I called PayPal and talked to their fraud department.

[NikkiJean]

I also had the same experience, except it was Grace Gudpal and she was a pilot trying to purchase my van for her father off of Craigs List. I was supposed to Western Union money to Robert Kinney in Pennsylvania. The person also said that they did not have access to their bank account nor had a credit card on them to pay the person that was to pick the van up. The place that was suppossedly Paypal messaging me to verify the funds had another known email site at the end of it.