Nigeria paypal scam. What do I do now?
So i recently posted an ad on craigslit for my blackberry. I got an email from a person named David Diamond offering to purchase the phone. He said that he was buying it for a friend in Nigeria and offered me an extra $60 to shipping fees. He really pushed me to use paypal so I gave him my paypal email and name. The same day, I got an email from paypal saying that he has given me the money and that the payment was APPROVED AND PENDING and that it cannot be credited into my account until I gave them the shipping tracking number for proof. By this point, I got a little suspicious so I searched up some craigslist scams on google. Turns out, Ive been scammed. Good thing is that I havent shipped out the phone yet so I didnt lose any money yet. Now what do I do? Do I just stop replying to this David Diamond person? Do I report this to Paypal? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Comments
Yes, just stop replying to that David Diamond person.
No, there is no reason to report this to Paypal since the scammer doesn't actually have a Paypal account and was never going to pay for the blackberry.
Thanks for posting up that information on a scam.
Making a scammer's scam googlable on every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find is a great way to slow that scammer down when a suspicious potential victim goes looking for information, finds your post containing the name the scammer is using, his email address, phone number and the emails themselves and then that potential victim does not become a scam victim because you took the time "get the word out".
Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of being the perfect buyer, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your possession or cash via Western Union or moneygram.
Wasting a scammer's time legally and safely is called "scambaiting". If you google that word, you will find sites where you can read scambaits, post up the emails and email addresses of scammers, post up a fake website, read up on how to alert a hosting company that they are hosting a fake website, ask questions and learn all about the hobby of scambaiting.
Since that scammer intended to steal your money, he did not giving you his real life information. All you have is one of his fake names, one of his free email addresses, one of his fake stories and one of his paid-for-in-cash cell phone numbers. None of that information is going to help your local law enforcement agency track down that anonymous scammer sitting in a cyber cafe half way around the world from you.
If you google "cragislist buyer scam", "fake paypal email scam", "ebay escrow fraud" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near victims of this type of scam.
Check out the one and only official paypal website, read up on what paypal does and how it really works.
You forward any supposed "paypal" emails you got to [email protected] and you cut off ALL contact with this criminal
The next part of the scam will be another fake Paypal email saying you will be sued or your account will be closed if you don't send the Blackberry. If you ignore that, then you'll get a fake email from a "lawyer" or the "FBI" threatening you with arrest or a lawsuit if you don't send it. Ignore all of them - it's all part of the scam and the scam follows the same script. As long as you don't respond they will soon give up - but you'll now get tons of spam on that account.
This is why Craigslist tells you to only deal with people you can meet face to face and never give out Paypal details
http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams
Any time a buyer cannot meet you in person in a public location and pay you in cash you will always get scammed on Craiglist
Scams are the largest part of Nigerian economy (no kidding). Having said that, judging foreigners by their poor grammar is a bit harsh, do you not think? I am sure you yourself are multilingual and would easily converse with Nigerians in Hausa, Igbo, or Yoruba. You just feel more comfortable using English, right? EDIT: "He added it later but then was rather rude to me in the email. I felt wary because of the poor grammar in the correspondence" - so it was Paypal that wanted to buy your stuff?
Just stop replying lol. I can't believe you almost fell for it.