Was doing some research for my book.
Here's a guy called Justin Credible that rips off a Nigerian trying to rent a room from him on Craigslist (from 2005). He incorrectly assumes the person sending him a check is a scammer (hint: scammers don't send you money). Worse, he thinks he is smart. The guy is a crook. Frankly, if he didn't like the sound of transaction (it seemed risky given the potential that he was laundering money from an expense account), he should have ignored it.
You're absolutely right. Scammers don't send you money, they send you a bogus cheque for much more than they owe you and have you send them the much larger difference back, in the hopes that you will do so before the funds clear (which is different from when the cheque clears, the detail they know and most people don't). It's a pretty standard scam. They get a bunch of money, you get left with a bank that takes the whole amount back from you.
So, I think it's a bit presumptuous to call the guy an idiot for assuming it was a scam. Odds are way in his favour that he was right about their intent. He's not clear as to whether he actually cashed the money and whether it turned out to be bogus but that would fit the pattern.
He does seem a bit of an arrogant turd, though, but crook, no.
Posted by: brentashley | March 05, 2010 at 08:56 AM
Ok, who are you and what have you done with John Robb?
Not enough information in the craiglist posting to know exactly what was happening, but the "I'll send you a check and you send me back the excess amount" is a very old scam. Brentashley described the details, so no need to go into detail again.
John, how can you not see the potential for fraud in the "here's a check for $5,000 dollars, keep $1,500 as deposit for the room and send my travel agent MARTINE OKORE, $3,500". Did you not do a quick search on that name to see how many hits it had for the 419 scam?
Admittedly these were less common in 2005, but these days it happens all the time. Even selling a car on craigslist will get you an email asking you to ship the vehicle to some distant land, the only catch is some larger than necessary payment check that you are requested to forward the excess on to someone else.
Posted by: Joe Strummer | March 06, 2010 at 05:35 PM
Somehow, someway, I suspect that Justin never got $4950 from Ms. Love, and was just stringing the Nigerian scammer along for fun and...fun. Savvy people with a twisted sense of humor have been doing this for a pretty long time here on the interwebs.
Does Robb really believe that Justin really ripped off Sandra Love? Jesus, I hope not, because I tend to grant Robb a lot of credibility on networks.
Posted by: Scott | March 08, 2010 at 01:12 PM
I find Justin Credible to be just incredible.
Posted by: Solarray.blogspot.com | March 17, 2010 at 10:48 PM
..and who's the idiot here?
Posted by: Andrew Warner | May 28, 2011 at 12:06 AM