Craigslist Scams Using Pay Pal

The following two of five total emails received from this user are in response to an item listed for sale on Craigslist. I became suspicious when the user refers to my item as "item" only and not naming it for what it is because it's a wedding ring and the user states they want to buy the "item" for their niece who lives in Africa and offered to pay $125 more than my asking price plus $80 in shipping cost using Pay Pal. I thought Pay Pal was a secure payment method to use but the emails sound like a scam. If anyone has any facts about Pay Pal that may be helpful or knowledge that this may be a scam please let me know. Thanks.

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craigslist reply 272d

Okay,i will be buying this for my niece outside the country and i will be paying you $1500 for the item and i will also pay $80 for the shipping expenses.i intend on making the payment through PayPal, so get back to me with your PayPal email so that i can make the payment today if you have an account with PayPal.. i will like to see some more pictures please




From
craigslist reply 272d


You will be shipping it to my niece who lives and works in africa, but no worries about that, i will be sending you her full address after i have paid you fully for this item via paypal, so send me your paypal email address so as to send the money when you are through with creating your paypal account

[AlanJones]

Hello and welcome to Scamwarners.

PayPal is a secure payment method, but the scammers will not be paying you any money through PayPal. What they will do is send you a fake email claiming to be from PayPal that tells you that the money has been transferred to you, but is on hold for some reason and therefore will not show in your PayPal account.

What happens next depends on whether the scammer wants your item or not. You may be told that the payment will be released when you provide proof of shipping or the scammer may just be after a small payout by getting you to send some money by Western Union to a "shipper" who will collect the item - the shipper is fake and no one will collect your item in this case.

You're right to be suspicious. Scammers refer to whatever they find on Craigslist as an item, because it saves them the trouble of editing their script for every different thing they pretend to buy.

Thanks so much for the feedback and the helpful information.