The Juicy Cow

Being pretty disapointed by eBay, I had a go to other online marketplaces; Gumtree and Craigslist. They are both free and have quite a large community. They are also much easier to use than eBay and you can have your items for sale quickly.

So I put an ad on Craigslist here to sale my camera gear and I looked at various cameras on Gumtree.

Well, in both cases (selling / buying) I had to deal with scammers… Here is how it happened:

When looking for a camera to purchase on Gumtree:

I sent emails to 5 sellers, asking for a meeting somewhere in the city (there where all located in Sydney city center) to have a look to the gear, saying that if all was alright I would pay cash then.

I always got the same kind of model of answer:

Hello
Thank you for being interested in purchasing my item .I want to take this opportunity to assure you that this deal is 100% legitimate.I am an architect and I was requested to work on a big project,i`m out of Sydney and i can`t meet with you. I need this deal to be managed in a secure way, by a shipping company and I think you want that too. For that I will need your full info (SHIPPING NAME and ADDRESS ) so i can ship the item trough www.globalinecargo.com I’m sure that we can close the deal as soon as possible.
Thank you for your time and interest!!!

The email address of the “seller” is some random yahoo email address. I focused on one of the scammer and traced his IP addresses and ended up in Colorado USA. Already pretty dodgy when you pretend to be in Sydney, Australia… Ofcourse the shipping company that he provided the link for was more than dodgy and the website is not even up anymore at this moment…

So I answered his email saying that I was going only for cash and pickup, he answered saying that he could only proceed with this shipping company…

Sorry i can`t accept cash because i`m out from Sydney we can only complete this deal trough this shipping company.

Let me know asap.

I traced his IP again and this time I ended up somewhere in Bulgaria. So I’m assuming my scammer was using somekind of proxy.

That was the end of the game, I reported him to Gumtree and forgot about this top end camera for a bargain

So to summarise here is how they do it:

- They pick genuine ads on other services (eBay…). Copy the text of the add and the pictures.
- Then they create ads on Gumtree with a disposable Yahoo email address, having a good proxy setup to hide their IP address.
- They have a model answer that they email you automatically whatever your enquiry is.
- They have a fake website online, supposely a shipping company, that is nothing more than a way to get your credit card details.
- They repeat the procedure with hundreds of potential buyers and once in a while conclude the scam, get the money, take the whole structure down, and start over again.

How it work the other way around (when selling something on Craigslist for example):

It’s pretty much the same system. After putting my ad online I got an email from a dude saying:

Hello Seller,
Got your AD on craigslist, i want to know if this AD is active, tell me the price and plus shipping you want the item to go for, and the present condition, I would be on the look for your Email reply.

Again the email address was some random Yahoo address. IP address takes me somewhere in California. I replied saying that all info were in the ad and got another email:

Thanks for the responds i am managing director of cambrige university in london,and we want to inform you that we can’t offer you cash,we can only pay you with well secure payment paypal,and you we help us ship the to one of our client that got a transfer to cambrige university in west african(nigeria) as a photo graphic lecture,and you you agree to  help us please get back to us with your real name and your paypal id to pay you up and the cost of shipping,and you we get the item ship through usps global express mail(ems)please we need serious seller.hope to read from you back

Thanks

This time the IP address takes me to New York… And even more dodgy; he offered to use Paypal… lol

In a nutshell, always pay cash on pickup. Always! (And to make sure you don’t get mugged when carrying your cash, arrange the meeting in a safe place…)

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