Don't Let This Happen To You

So as many of you know, I'm making a big move back home soon.  I had lots of things to get rid of and posted a few onto Craigslist.  One of the things I posted was my PlayStation and all of the games and parts that went with it.  I asked for $200 and I even felt that was a little much considering how outdated that system is now. I had an offer from someone and they offered $300. I was surprised and figured, well they must really want it! I received an e-mail from PayPal that said payment had been received and would be delivered to my account as soon as I sent the goods to his cousin in Nigeria.

Uh, hello?? That was not part of the agreement. I don't care that you claim to be an engineer and don't have time to look at what you're buying before you pay for it. But really? I'm not sending a 20lb package to Nigeria when a perfectly good new Wii or Xbox would cost less. Mr. Handy Dandy at the post office looked me straight in the eye and said "Nigeria is known for electronic fraud. I wouldn't go through with this if I were you."

I trust that post man. He's there almost every time I've gone to the post office and he obviously knows what he's talking about. I went home and did a little research on the PayPal account. The names on the e-mails and the PayPal invoice sent to me didn't match (Tharry Smith and Lukas Gold if you ever have a situation like this). I messaged the potential buyer and said I was no longer interested in selling the item.  I also looked at my account and there was nothing about the transaction at all. I had actually sent my own invoice and he had disregarded it for his own.

After I responded to PayPal asking for the transaction to be cancelled and the money to be
returned to Lukas or Tharry or whoever it was.  Funny story, the e-mail wasn't sent to PayPal, but it was transferactivations@officeemail.net I I google searched the e-mail and found a link to a blog 
with my exact story. 


Here is a link to that blog so you can have a secondhand account.  (link link link!) 

In conclusion, thank you to my instinct for telling me something funky was up 
and thank you Mr. Postman for helping me out.


If you EVER feel uncomfortable about a transaction through PayPal or an e-mail that you have 
received from them forward it to spoof@paypal.com and they will verify it for you.