interesting kijiji scam?

I nearly fell for one of these scams years ago when I was looking to rent a room out to a student. They even went so far as to send me fake Western Union money orders. I took them to the bank and asked them to not cash them unless they were legit. They weren't.

There's a whole forum dedicated to people who bait and scam the scammers... This particular thread is quite funny: http://www.thescambaiter.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109

A similar situation happend when I was looking for a student apartment for my son. "Beautiful fully furnised 2 bedroom condo, send first, last and damage deposit money to a UK UPS firm, who will refund the money if the apartment is not suitable. Total B.S.

The emails stopped when I said I would be happy to leave the deposit money with any local apartment rental agency.

My way of thinking is - cash in the hand or no deal.
 
These scammers are ruining it for the legitimate buyers who really do work out on an oil rig with no access to computers and want to buy the item for their son.
 
Paypal will screw you in a heartbeat if your a seller. A scam that got me a while back was I was selling something on Ebay, and the buyer paid me with what turned out to be a stolen paypal account (which is what appears to be going on here). I only agreed to send the item after the funds were in my bank account, which cleared fine. Once the person figured out they had their account hacked they did a chargeback through their credit card company. So guess who paypal comes after? Not the hacker, and not the person whose account was hacked, but me, the seller - and least responsible party in the transaction. They fully acknowledged that it wasnt my fault but still pursued the funds from me because I was the only one they could pursue. They claimed that my transaction didnt meet the criteria for their "seller protection policy" and that somehow that meant I owed them the money lost in the fraud. I told them to get $#%^^& but it didnt matter. They sent the matter to collections and my credit became at stake so I eventually paid. Nobody wanted to hear my story and I would have had to go to court which would have been more time and money than the item was worth. But this is how paypal operates, they totally screw you over and then leave it up to you to defend yourself. If you dont bother, they win. Its part of their business model- they will not take a loss They lose class action suits all the time but its basically not worth the effort to fight them alone. Anyway, check out paypalsucks.com. Tons of stories like this. If I were you I would report your suspicion to paypal and have them clear anything first, in writing, before you accept the funds.
 
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