Scams

Des Moines woman’s purchase of car through craigslist goes awry:

A woman from Des Moines, Iowa paid someone on craigslist $5560 for a 2005 Acura but the car was not delivered as promised. I can’t tell if she paid for the car and it was never delivered or something else happened.

Be Leery Of Craigslist Contractors:

KIRO TV in Washington State seems to have caught a craigslist scammer in the act. Unfortunately it was after a viewer had already lost $1300 to the less than reputable contractor.

A contractor calling themself Copper Creek Restorations/Copper Creek Renovations advertised their business on craigslist. They allegedly posted valid license numbers except the license number wasn’t theres. They also misled people by claiming to be a division of a reputable construction company.

A woman paid them $1300 to build a fireplace and they never finished the job and have basically refused all calls.

They are being investigated by the state’s L&I board.

SSF: SCAMMERS TARGETING NANNIES ADVERTISING ON CRAIGSLIST:

Scammers are now trying a new angle on the old fake check scam. This time they’re targeting people who are looking for work as nannies. The scammers send the nannies the fake checks saying they’re paying them in advance. Of course the checks are over the amount requested asking the nannies to wire the difference back.

As we should all know by now that’s one of the oldest scams on the internet. Luckily none of the nannies that the article talked to fell for the scam.

FBI Says New Craigslist Scam Preys On Landlords:

The FBI is warning about a new real estate scam on craigslist. This time instead of targeting would be renters the scam is targeting landlords.

The scam starts out in the usual way, the landlords who place craigslist ads get poorly written responses from people who claim to be doctors from overseas or some other preposterous story.

Then eventually they try and hit up the landlords for money. In the case mentioned in the article the scammer asked for money saying he needed help getting his furniture.

This time I don’t think the scammers have thought their cunning plan all the way through. But you know eventually they’ll hit that one person with a trusting heart and take them for all their worth.

At least 3 people sign up for bogus job posting on Craigslist:

3 people in Michigan have been taken by a job scam. They had provided money and personal information so the ‘employer’ could do a background search. I don’t know about you but I’ve never applied for a job where I had to give the employer money for any reason.

The people were told to meet with the employer in Flint but when they showed up no one knew what they were talking about.

Which just goes to show that even the job postings on craigslist, which are paid postings, are suspect.

Port Angeles man charged in jewelry scam:

Back in January I posted about a fake jeweler with fake checks who did his craigslist business out of a Starbucks.

It turns out he is 33-year-old Scott Schindler of Port Angeles, Washington. Yesterday he was charged with two counts of first-degree theft in Snohomish County. He’s already pleaded guilty to four counts of theft in King County.

No word on what his sentence could be but I doubt it will stop him.

Police: Be on the lookout for Internet fraud:

A 19-year-old Cal Poly student placed an ad on craigslist to sublet her apartment for the summer.

A man who claimed he was from the UK sent her a check for $2500 more than she was asking. You can see where this is going can’t you?

She deposited the check and wired the excess back to the ‘renter’. Of course the check was a fake and now she’s out a few grand.

Remember kids, cash only and local only.

‘Puppies R Dead’ :

In Novia Scotia Gail Benoit is being investigated by the SPCA for selling dying puppies to people through the website Kijiji.

Benoit was already facing animal cruelty charges from another incident.

In the most recent incident Benoit is accused of selling dying puppies out of a van that says “Puppies R Us”. Because as we all know all reputable sales come out of a van.

Benoit claims she is going to reimburse the people whose puppies died within days after the sales but she’s waiting to be reimbursed from the ‘breeder’ who sold her the bad puppies.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for your money people.

Internet Scam Uses Fallen Soldier’s Name:

Some unscrupulous scammer is posting an ad on craigslist purporting to sell a car that belonged to fallen soldier from Michigan, Byron Fouty.

The ad is for a BMW M6 going for $2,800. According to the article the Bluebook value is $80K. The ad claims to be from Byron Fouty’s father and it asks to wire the money to a fake escrow company.

Byron Fouty’s stepfather says that Byron never even owned a car.

I hope karma finds the assclown that posted this ad and punches him right in the face.

Craig’s List scam almost hits family at Christmas:
Dwight Lowdermilk and his son of Alabama were offering car parts for sale on craigslist. They got the usual check from Canada that was more than twice the amount they were asking. Luckily Dwight’s son did some research on the internet and was able to discern that this was a scam. As we’ve seen other people are not so lucky so I’ll remind you again.

Cash only, and only do business locally.

Craigslist Marriage Scheme Busted:
The Smoking Gun has a nice little post about 25-year-old Yuliya Kalinina. Kalinina was arrested for marrying 30-year-old Benjamin Adams just to stay in the country. She advertised the proposed scam marriage on craigslist.

According to a criminal complaint unsealed today in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Kalinina’s various Craigslist posts sought a “business marriage” or “Green Card Marriage” in return for a total of $15,000. The proposed union, Kalinina noted, was a “strictly platonic business offer, sex not involved.”

Adams was arrested as well for taking part in the scam. Both are facing a max of five years in federal prison.

Fallen victim to a phony Craigslist job posting?:
Investigators in Larimer County, Colorado are on the look out for one 33-year-old Todd Armstrong aka Tom Anderson. They say he’s been swindling people by asking for money on craigslist for what turned out to be phony job leads.

They say he asked for people to meet him and put down a deposit in exchange for what turned out to be false information about an envelope stuffing business, modeling with NASCAR and bicycle racing.

Three occupations I would not readily admit that I applied for.

Police: Man Used Craigslist To Sell Cars With Altered Odometers:
26-year-old Ricky Ephrem of Gresham, Oregon was arrested for selling a car on craigslist that had its odometer turned back at least 100,000 miles.

He was trying to sell a similar car when police arrested him.

I guess he never heard of Carfax.

Pets Held For Ransom Is Craigslist Scam:
It seems you can’t do anything on craigslist without some kind of scam being involved.

Take for instance the people who post on craigslist when they’ve lost a pet. They’ll post an ad on craigslist with the usual information. The next thing you know they receive responses from people who say they have their pet and will return them for money. This particular article is from the Austin, Texas area but you’ll never guess where this particular scammer is from…

Department of Public Safety officials have taken a report and are investigating the case.

It seems, however, that the scammer is based out of Nigeria and is targeting Austin-area craigslist postings.

What will those Nigerians think of next?

The check is in the mail, but it’s fake:
It happened almost a year ago but it still bears repeating…

It’s been about a year since Kathy and Robert Milton got taken, and they’re still angry and hurt.

The Marysville couple wanted to sell their bedroom set, so they put an ad on the Craigslist web site.

Within a day they got a response from Melody Landrus, who said she wanted to buy the furniture and have it shipped to Alaska. In her e-mail, Landrus told the Milton’s to expect a check for $3,500, which was much more than the Milton’s were asking.

“We were supposed to send $2,000 to her mover and then the rest was ours to keep for the troubles and the transaction fees, ’cause it was all Western Union,” Kathy said.

Robert said they assumed they would make a few extra hundred dollars off the deal. “It looked like a valid check, right out of a checkbook,” he said.

Before wiring the $2,000, Robert and Kathy contacted their bank to make sure the check had cleared. They were assured that it had.

“We assumed when it clears, it clears,” Kathy said.

A week later, when the check bounced, the bank pulled $3,500 — the amount of the bogus check — out of the Milton’s account.

“After late charges and bank fees, it was well in excess of $4,000 that we got hit for,” Robert said.

The article also contains this helpful piece of information which most people don’t realize…

The scam takes advantage of the fact that just because a check supposedly clears and the bank posts the money in your account, it doesn’t mean the bank can’t later take that money back if it finds out the check was a counterfeit.

Again, if you absolutely have to do business on craigslist always insist on cash only.