Clark White
Explorer
Just a heads up for everyone, I have posted a few items on Craigslist lately and received a number of replies that have turned out to be scams. With each one I am contacted by someone who is really interested in what I'm selling and is willing to pay some extra to get it shipped priority, and each one wants to use PayPal to pay for it. This sounds great, extra money for my trouble and it comes through PayPal, so I know I am getting paid (once the money is in my account that is, no waiting for checks to pass etc). Problem is, everything looks good, I receive payment confirmation from (for all appearances) service@paypal.com (the official PayPal e-mail that sends these confirmations). Well thankfully right from the get go I was overly curious and very suspicious of this person who wanted my camera right now and was willing to pay extra for it RIGHT NOW. Out of curiosity I clicked on more info regarding the sending address and noticed it did NOT come from service@paypal.com (even though that is exactly what is written in the from line on my e-mail). I then logged into my PayPal account and there was no sign of any pending payments of any sort. Turns out it was all bogus. The payment confirmation e-mail uses links directly from the real PayPal sites, so that it is by all right a valid PayPal e-mail, only it's not valid. All links work and take you to the various parts of PayPal, all images are actually the same images from the real PayPal e-mails, etc. Point is, even with something as sure and secure as PayPal, DON'T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN. If I had not logged into my PayPal account to double check, I would have sent off all my camera stuff thinking I was getting $1000, only to later learn I was getting nothing. I have since received a few more such scams but recognized them immediately since they are the same format. I've followed each one through the PayPal step so I can forward the bogus stuff to PayPal, though I doubt it really makes any difference.
Clark
Clark
Clark
Clark
