Sounds like scam?

molested_cow · May 16, 2011

Hello Ma/Sir,
Am interested in buying this lovely item for a close friend of mine as a surprise Gift.i will offer you $900 for the item including shipping/insurance Via USPS Shipping Company. So kindly get back to me with your registered PayPal email address for an instant payment or if you don't have an account with PayPal, you can easily set up an account with them through www.paypal.com and get back to me with the email you use to sign up.
You can send me a money request to this mail([email protected])
Hope to read from you pretty soon.
God Bless.

I listed my lens on craigslist for $775. The scam crap I usually get don't use Paypal account. I wonder if this is some new trick that they now are able to pull.

Overread · May 16, 2011

Hmm normally paypal supports the buyer more than the seller - so yeah they can cause you all kinds of problems - of the kind where the payment goes through, you send off the item to an address, then they query the sale on paypal. Most of the time paypal sides with the customer not the seller/shop and chasing after it is a right pain in the neck for you.

The other scam is to use a hotlink in the email itself and to have the paypal address be slightly different from normal, but have the site look legit. You enter your details and things go through as normal, but the redirect site has stolen your account details - so that later they can syphon off any amount they can from you.

Trever1t · May 16, 2011

what they do is send a fake paypal receipt and ask you send the goods thinking you, the average human and devoid of intellect, will not check your paypal (never click links in email) and see that no transaction has occured.

They are getting smarter and the new plots are very clever. Be smarter. Tell them ok and give them your paypal address but remember to NOT click any links in the emails and check your paypal.

Josh66 · May 16, 2011

Yeah - scam. He wants to pay you more than you're asking, makes odd capitalization choices ('Gift', but not 'i'), refers to the USPS as a 'shipping company' (which I guess is technically true - it just sounds really weird, lol).