Craigslist verification scam - but with a Paypal secure card.

[eharsh87]

I (foolishly, I'll admit) fell victim to a verification scam on Craigslist. The same one documented on this site; the names and e-mail addresses and URLs are different, but the e-mail the person received after their 'verification' was the same one as mine, down to the URL mentioned in the mail.

The gist is this: The company running the site would (supposedly) only use your credit card to verify that you're of age, and do some sort of background check, I guess, to make sure you're not a crazed axe murderer, at which point you'd receive the other person's contact information. In reality, what happens is they charge you 40 dollars for crappy porn.

Now. I'm doubtful that there's any hope of getting my monies back, since those types of sites usually have crazy pages of legal doublespeak that somehow makes it so ripping you off is legal - so I'm willing to accept that it was a $40 dollar lesson on the internets and ways they can **bleep** you.

My main concern, then, is safety and security. Having the foresight to use a secure card (read: being too lazy to dig out my actual physical card), I decided to use a single-use PayPal secure card, which I promptly closed once I realized what had happened.

So, am I safe? I mean, the card was single-use anyway, and it's been closed on top of that. They can't use it to do any crazy fraudulent things with it?

Secondly, do I have any hope of disputing the charge and getting a refund? - 40 dollars isn't an insane amount of mony, but it's a lot when you're working minimum wage.

I'm rather new to getting ripped off, so I have no idea where to go with this.

[surplusdealdude]

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@clou627 wrote:

Hey,

I'm new to paypal and online selling. I listed something on KSL (similar to craigslist but for the western US only). I got an email from a "Mrs. Laura Jax" who said she is not local b/c she is taking care of her sick grandma. She offered me an extra $100 to ship the stuff to her. The grammar in the emails is pretty horrible. I'm suspicious but I want to sell the stupid things. Any thoughts? Here's a snippet from the messages:

"thanks for the mail...am okay with the explanation,so you will have to send me a paypal money request or send me the full name and the e-mail address you use to register with paypal so that i can send you payment for the items on time...thanks"

Any thoughts would be appreciated...I'm a paypal noob.

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The basic rules are;

1. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

2. ALWAYS TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS.

This is a scam.  Stop communicating with the scammer.

[clou627]

Thanks, I'll take your advice. I was really suspicious, but wanted some input. Much appreciated 🙂

[surplusdealdude]

snteev,

I would love to find out how (if possible) to take some legal action against this guy, even though I didn't fall for the scam,

Don't bother - there are millions of these guys, some of whom are part of organizd crime, some of whom operate independently.

Above all, do NOT take these guys on yourself.  There are cases on the web where someone sent a skidload of rocks to Nigeria ( collect, of course). 

He thought it was really funny how the Nigerian scammer was jumping up and down until they sent him a picture of his house, with his car clearly visible, two gangland gorilla types standing in front of it, the names of his wife and children and their school schedules.

The guy that this guy fooled disappeared - we think he was murdered - organized crime doesn't tolerate failures.

These guys are NOT fooling around.

[RaeAlphi]

You have 60 days to dispute a charge through your bank. Otherwise, the charge will stand.

You may want to actually go in to your bank, rather than calling. One of the sales associates there will be able to help (this is what my husband does for a bank, and he has helped with fraudulent charges a few times). Take any and all documentation you have (emails, etc.). It will help them help you. Seeing you in person, with your documentation will let them know that you are being honest, and not trying to scam them. Banks can be ambiguous, and most of it is to protect them from scams.

Also, I would definitely contact paypal with as much info as you can! It will help them protect you and others in the future! If they really care about customer service, they will listen to you, and if the other person has a paypal acct, they will kick them off!

Hope everything works out for you!

[surplusdealdude]

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@eharsh87 wrote:

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@profdata wrote:

This is consered an unauthorized charge. You need to file with Paypal or your bank

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And, erm. How do I do that? Sorry, I'm just an idiot when it comes to this stuff sometimes.

You might have to either spell it out for me, or point me to the Help section that does.

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Just call the customer service number on the back of your credit card and report the unauthorized charge.

Keep an eye on your credit card for a while - they might try to re-charge you on a monthly basis.  If so, report it as an unauthorized charge again.

[RaeAlphi]

I recently listed two rings on craigslist.

I had one reply, with an offer of an extra $100 to pay for shipping. they are a marine officer, and due to the nature of their job cannot pick the ring up themselves, want it packaged nicely for a birthday gift for their friend.  They asked for my paypal email. I went ahead and gave it to them. I'm not shipping it until the money is safely in my bank acct. I replied again to the buyer later, to ask a few more details. I haven't heard back, and its been about 12 hours. (She did have good spelling, decent grammar, but there is zero punctuation in the whole email)

I happened to wake up around 430 am (two year old who is refusing to sleep through the night at the moment), to another email (second email from the person) stating they are glad I still have the ring for sale, offering an extra $100 for shipping to West Africa. and asking for my paypal email. I let him know i may already have a pending transaction. I don't want to put anyone out. (also run on - no punctuation, spelling ok, but didn't even bother to use capitals?)

I started to get suspicious though. Its very convenient I got two emails within around 10-12 hours, both wanting them shipped overseas... I immediately got up and changed all account passwords. None of them are the same.

Any other thoughts on these being scams? I'm fairly certain at least one of them is! I tried to put as much info in as possible. Please let me know if anyone else has had these!

One of the names is Sandra Bett (gmail acct), and the other is Like Williams (an aol acct)

[surplusdealdude]

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@RaeAlphi wrote:

I recently listed two rings on craigslist.

I had one reply, with an offer of an extra $100 to pay for shipping. they are a marine officer, and due to the nature of their job cannot pick the ring up themselves, want it packaged nicely for a birthday gift for their friend.  They asked for my paypal email. I went ahead and gave it to them. I'm not shipping it until the money is safely in my bank acct. I replied again to the buyer later, to ask a few more details. I haven't heard back, and its been about 12 hours. (She did have good spelling, decent grammar, but there is zero punctuation in the whole email)

I happened to wake up around 430 am (two year old who is refusing to sleep through the night at the moment), to another email (second email from the person) stating they are glad I still have the ring for sale, offering an extra $100 for shipping to West Africa. and asking for my paypal email. I let him know i may already have a pending transaction. I don't want to put anyone out. (also run on - no punctuation, spelling ok, but didn't even bother to use capitals?)

I started to get suspicious though. Its very convenient I got two emails within around 10-12 hours, both wanting them shipped overseas... I immediately got up and changed all account passwords. None of them are the same.

Any other thoughts on these being scams? I'm fairly certain at least one of them is! I tried to put as much info in as possible. Please let me know if anyone else has had these!

One of the names is Sandra Bett (gmail acct), and the other is Like Williams (an aol acct)

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Well, they're both scams, of course.

If someone asks for your paypal email name, you'll get a form that looks like it's from paypal ( it's not), stating that money has been paid into your account, but it won't be posted until you ship the item by express mail and put the dc number in the link provided.

You lose the ring because there never was any money, and the scammer gets your password and likely downloads a keylogger to your computer to steal other passwords.

NEVER sign in to your Paypal account from an email link.


And, to make your Paypal account bullet-proof, visit the security center in your Paypal account and buy one of their security keys for $5.  It puts a separate, randomly-generated numerical password on your account that changes every 30 seconds and cannot be hijacked, even if the scammer has your password.