Scambusters, Preventing Internet Scams & Phishing Attempts

This blog is dedicated to help preventing internet fraud and internet scams. Scambusters was a radio show I started in Albany Oregon, but due to defaulted payment by the radio station we took the show offline. Regardless of this issue we still wish to help prevent internet fraud and save people from internet loss. I have been interviewed and featured in various publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times & Daily News, The London Times & AARP Newsletters. Please watch this blog for latest tips and tricks and scams to avoid.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Craigslist / PayPal Scam Part II Christopher Lewis > Re: PAYMENT COMPLETED

Here is the follow up email to the post below.  I did email them and tell them I checked my PayPal account, but there is nothing there, it does not match the emails I received, what should I do.. then the communication stopped.  I was hoping for a fun excuse, but they figured out they were busted.  Oh well...



On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Ebenezer Smith <ebe.smith714@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hello,

I have transfer the fund into your PayPal account from my PayPal  and now I expect to have PayPal emailed by now, I sent $3,185.00 USD in all,PayPal said it would have been required funds and will not be credited to your account because of payments more than $650.00 USD I thought added to pick up and delivery, they said you have sent to this effect, you must send the $650.00 USD take my headquarters Agent by wire Western Union Money, so that they may credit of $3,185.00 USD in your account as soon as you have emailed details Western Union with them, I added $100 to cover the cost of Western Union should not be more than $70-80, but just to be sure I have added $100, here is the agent required to pick up info get the money sent through Western Money Transfer Union: i have the receipt of this payment let me know if you will like to have a look.

Name:   Christopher Lewis
Address: 1027 Holland Park Blvd,
43528 OH US.

I need the details of the transfer, once you have sent the fund. . .
1.The 'MTCN number which is the 10-digit number on the receipt of Western Union
2.Sender 'name and the address used to send the money
3.Actual amount sent.

Regards

Ebenezer Smith




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just had the same group try to scam me on Craigslist as well. Almost exact same arrangements to be made. I am reporting them tonight and will call Paypal in the morning.

Anonymous said...

Same thing happened to me on an attempted scam with a CraigsList car purchase. The buyer (Parker Johnson) was supposedly an on-the-road engineer who didn't have reliable cell phone coverage, and was buying a car for his wife in Ohio.

Identical arrangements and "transfer agent" (Christoper Lewis).

Anonymous said...

Here's the entire text of the first response to my ad:

Thanks for the prompt response..I fully understand the condition of what i am buying. I'm ready to buy it now for my wife in Ohio, but am not local and due to the nature of my work,,I am a freelance Mechanical Engineer Basically into maintenance and construction of pipelines and refineries and that takes me around a lot,i would have love to call but mobile phone connection is very intermittent here,so lets continue this conversation via mail and,visiting craigslist is restricted but i squeezed out time to check this advert and send you an email regarding it.Note that you will not be responsible for shipping and handling. My shipping company will come to your location for the pick up do provide me your name and full address so i can forward it to the shipping company to calculate the cost of pick up for me. And concerning the payment, i will prefer PayPal because i don't have access to my bank account online as i don't have internet banking but i can pay from my PayPal account because i have my bank account attached to it. I will also need you to give me your PayPal email address so i can make the payments immediately and if you don't have an account with PayPal yet, it is very easy to set up, go to http://www.paypal.com and get it set up, after you have set it up i will only need the e-mail address you use for registration with PayPal so as to deposit the fund. So get back to me with the following details


1) The pictures
2) What is the condition?
3) Are you the Original Owner?
4) Your PayPal Email Address
5) Your Picked Up Location Address

Get back to me with your address so i can forward to the shipping company to schedule an appointment with you for pick up. I have a private pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been made. And if you don't have a paypal account, you can easily go towww.paypal.com and sign up. its very easy. I await your reply asap..
Parker.

Anonymous said...

I too had this same exact scam tried on me.....They even tried to communicate with me via gtalk. ( chatting through gmail ) "Andrew Roberts" was on a business trip and wanted to buy the phone I had listed for his brother. He didn't ask to lower the price, since it was " or best offer" that was my red flag. Told them I perfer in person meetings and local. They finally gave up. This is very worrisome since I couldn't figure out how it was they were trying to scam me....did they want my email address? Were they hacking into my computer each time I wrote back to them? Now I know, so thank you! Funny, my very first craigslist posting and the first response was this....I really dislike this world and what it is becoming.

Anonymous said...

I had the exact same thing happen to me on craigslist with basically the same arrangements over a pool table that I had for sale. The guy claimed to be Parker Johnson.

Anonymous said...

I just received an email and txt from the same company 24hours ago wht should I do to avoid this scam