anybody else out there been scammed on craigslist? i was when i advertised for a roommate.?

Question

twenty minutes after posting i was answered by someone who said she was from moscow. i felt sophisticated that i would be doing something towards world peace, HA! turns out that this scam is known as the nigerian 419. first they get you to agree to some kind of transaction, then they send you, in my case wal-mart international money grams(which are real)for the deal you've made. then they want you send some of the money back to them, say for shipping personal belongings over. they sent thirty eight hundred and needed three thousand of it back. cept the money gramswere counterfeit, came from nigeria and these people now had my phone number, name and address. they tried to get me to wire them back through western union. luckily my bank is returning the money grams to me and not turning me into a criminal like the people who i thought were going to be new friends from far and away. it has only cost me ten dollars in fees with my bank. so beware you all.

Answer 1

Thank you so much for sharing this story.
Please go to www.ripoffreport.com and post there so that you can WARN more people of this.

There are plenty of people that DO NOT have a bank like yours and they will surely get scammed for way more than they can afford to give. Getting scammed does not turn you into a criminal....it would have turned you into a VICTIM! There is a HUGE difference.

I would not worry about them coming for a visit.
Most of them are so poor that they do this TO MAKE A LIVING! Besides they would gain nothing by coming by your house except a trip to the police station as you would surely notify the police as soon as you asked 'who is it' and heard that accent'.

These guys are good at what they do.
This is a job for them 18 hours a day / 6 days a week...a kind trusting person like you seem to be is exactly who they look for in a 'roommate'.

$10.00 is a small price to pay for graduation in the school of hard knocks, but please don't let this change the core of your good easy going nature. That will give them way more power than they are worthy of. They tried to scam you, it didnt work. you can be cautious now of other scams but remember 99% of the world is NOT like this! Good luck in finding your roommate!


P.s. A box of chocolate is in order for the sharp eyed teller who saved you a small fortune!

Answer 2

And the first thing Craigslist shows everybody is deal locally. You have nothing to be wary of if one uses common sense. Craigslist is hated by Commercial Enterprise's because it is free, there is no big mystery there.
Scams have been around since that one dude sold the Pharoh the plans to that Water Fountain and left town that night. Pharoh built the fountains upside down and 10x the the scale.
The plans said 1/10 on them, something got really lost in translation, so the Pharoh made it a tomb.
Moral. Beware of Water Fountain Dealers in the Desert. And use common sense.

Answer 3

First off, never give people money over the internet. Why would you do something like that? That is your own fault. I think that Craigs List also has some kind of fraud warning about wire scams on their list before you post on their website about that kind of thing. And also, we've had several stories on our news recently about people in nigera doing that. Just be wary next time when something like that happens....better safe than sorry!!

Answer 4

Um, yeah, there's a whole thing on craigslist about housing fraud and scams...

When I post my rental, the scammers respond within seconds of the post, it's actually pretty funny to string them along. I like to make all sorts of demands (No opening the windows on alternate tuesdays), goofy things like that, and they always ALWAYS ALWAYS get really frantic "we MUST have this housing TODAY!" and rude...and then the kicker is, I say "Certainly please fill out this application and I WILL HAVE MY HUSBAND THE FBI AGENT CHECK YOUR BACKGROUND"
ding ding ding! We have a WINNER!