Re: Nigeria - Update

IncubusD wrote:
On Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:41:29 -0500, IncubusD <incubusd@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I finally found out what happened that caused eBay to close out my
auction for the PSP... It finally sold for $224.50, which was way more
than I expected it to sell for (I verified the final price based on an
email I received from eBay before posting this)... when I got up this
morning, I had the email from eBay, but then I had an alert that the
auction had been removed by eBay because the winner had used a
fraudulent account. There was also an explanation that I would not be
charged for the fees associated with the listing, but due to the
security issue, I could not just relist the item using a "Relist"
option. This same message appeared in my eBay alerts, and based on my
current balance with eBay, it appears that they have refunded the
costs.

Then, a couple of hours later I received two of the worst attempts at
faked eBay and PayPal emails I have ever seen (originating from free
gmail and yahoo accounts). The spelling and grammar were worse than
my postings on here, so you know it was bad. The emails claimed there
had been a mistake and that the buyer was valid, but due to security
issues caused by eBay removing the auction, PayPal had received the
funds under a "secure acount" ("account" was spelled "acount")... once
I sent a tracking number to the buyer, they would release the funds
into my account. Both emails also said that I was obligated to ship
the auction item within 24 hours or both my eBay and PayPal accounts
would be suspended... as you can guess, I was truly terrified (sarcasm
here folks!) There was also a statement at the end of the PayPal
email that said that once I had supplied a tracking number to the
buyer, PayPal would take full responsibility for any damages that may
happen during shipping, AND they would refund my shipping cost to help
make up for this "eror" (once again, that is how they spelled
"error")... like PayPal would ever offer something like this... by
this point in time I was starting to get just a little suspicious that
this might be a scam... what do you think? (once again, sarcasm...
I'm not seriously asking).

Next, about an hour after these two fake eBay and PayPal emails, I got
an email from the "buyer" that thanked me for giving her such a great
deal. She also explained that the "confusion" regarding her buying
status was because of her shipping address... she said that she is
here in the US but that she has a store in Nigeria... you know where
this is going... she went into long detail about how she was having to
leave for Nigeria immediately because of some urgent problems, so she
needed me to go ahead and ship the package directly to her store...
she said that she would give me an extra $100 to cover the shipping
costs... I guess it's easy to promise money you never intend to
send...

I was planning on looking at her eBay account, but it just says:
No longer a registered user
Member since: Oct-18-07
Location: United States

Is there any way to prevent this type of scam? In this case, all I
lost was my time, but it sure is annoying to have to create a new
listing for something you thought you had already sold. I have been
listing most of my auctions as being only available for shipping in
the US (I have two auctions that would most likely interest German
buyers, so I have those open for non-US buyers). I have set the buyer
restrictions to not allow bidders from outside the area in which I
ship, which for most of my auctions is limited to just the US... all
this is great and fine, but it seems that one of the scammer from
Nigeria can still create a fake account that says it's here in the US
and cause me a headache at any point in time.

Settings for most of my auctions:
Block buyers who:
Are registered in countries to which I don't ship
Have a feedback score equal to or lower than -1
Have 2 Unpaid Item strikes in the last 30 days

Is this a relatively "normal" situation I have run into and just part
of selling stuff on eBay, or have I overlooked a setting in either my
listings or my account that would have prevented this?

Also, I won't be back on here till Monday (I wasn't supposed to be in
the office today actually), so don't think I'm ignoring any responses
if you don't hear back from me before then.

Thanks in advance!

-Aaron

I actually received several more emails from this scammer trying to
convince me that there really was a "secret fund" at PayPal with my
money waiting in it... yeah, right!

I broke down and sent a couple of rather nicely worded responses on
Saturday, and the scammer sent yet another demand that I ship the item
immediately before they had my eBay and PayPal accounts shut down
(this would be a really nice trick to know how to do...),

Anyway, I got a final email from the same email account, and this time
it was not in broken English... the person explained that she had been
locked out of her account since last week when all her passwords were
stolen/hacked. She appologized for all the trouble and said that she
would soon be closing this account since I was apparently not the only
person on eBay that the Nigerian Connection tried to scam with her
account... makes you kind of wonder if this is true or not, but I
consider the matter closed now.

Interesting experience though...

-Aaron


Not the old "locked out of her account" scam again, surely.


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Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
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