Thanks for saving me some time.

"She" was from London and said she was moving to the US and needed a place to stay, but first she was going to travel around a bit. She wanted to pay for 3 months in advance plus the security deposit.

Sounds tempting, right? Wrong!

Then she goes on to say that her accountant will send me a check to cover the 3 months plus deposit, and would I be so kind as to wire the extra amount to her in.. wait for it.. Nigeria, where she was going on holiday.

Um. Yeah. Okay. I'll get right on that.

people STILL fall for this???!?!?!?!??????? Thats it - I'm going into the scam business.

@nocturnaljames: I am considering moving there if you can live like a king on $5,000 per year...

@xcharliemx: And mention that you will be digging that hole in your basement...

FULL NAME:
MAILING ADDRESS (no P.O.Box please):
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP CODE:
CELL PHONE:
BEST TIME TO CALL:
PRESENT JOB STATUS/POSITION:
EMAIL:

Is usually a scam. Also if in the email it has the word "kindly" such as Please Kindly respond then it is usually a scam as well.

I suppose the problem will solve itself out when I'm homeless and won't have any private information left to steal.

Anyhow, when I answer a want ad on craigslist that requests personal information (a resume should only contain your name, phone number, city and state) I write, "Due to the recent news stories regarding craigslist, I am unable to provide private information such as references and letters of recommendation at this time, but will gladly do so once all parties have been firmly established."

To be fair, real tutoring jobs can be found on craigslist - just not always the American versions. As an American expat in South Korea, the SK craigslist is filled with people either willing to be a tutor or people that want to be tutored. So the tutoring thing isn't the scam - it's ANY PERSON who wants to deal with paper checks, returning money...

Seriously? I can't even remember the last time I wrote a paper check.

It's part of the rules of the game. You have to give your victims a chance. Plus, you feel less guilty about it since you figure you're only scamming the really stupid people.

I got a Nigerian scam email warning me not to fall for Nigerian scams. "Contact Mr. So-and-So (in Nigeria) and he will help you get your money back."

Whatever. Nigeria government didn't do it because it wouldn't benefit them in any way whatsoever. They spend money capturing criminals just to help a bunch of rich (and stupid) people in another country? They make nothing out of it, but possibly make something if they allow the scammers to scam money (bribes, taxes, buying goods, whatever). Chances are if they did go after and catch them, they'd have no money to confiscate. Losing situation for a nation already disgustingly poor.
That being said, I don't think it's inappropriate to call this a Nigerian scam since it has been established that most of them really do come from Nigeria...

@RandomHookup: I doubt it. T%he "nanny" is most likely in with the scammers-otherwise having the tutor advance the fee to the nanny would not benefit the scammers.

While I don't disagree with them, I think it's a flimsy excuse to not help stop them. So in my mind, clearly the Nigerian government at least partially encourages this behavior, thus branding their country - at their own choice - a country of scammers.

If Nigeria wants to change their image as a country of scammers, then they can join the rest of the world and crack down on them.

The thing about any of these scams is that you are in a world of trouble even if all you do is deposit the check and haven't yet been scammed out of your own money.

@TinkishDelight:

Yeah, that's why if anything seemed remotely questionable, I put in my 'junk' email addy for the contact info. It really helps me cut down on the spam I get in the address I have for 'professional' contacts.

My girlfriend's work got a similar scam. $5000 for a block of dance lessons which only cost like $3500 or something. They were going to send a foreign check and wanted the difference sent back after it was cashed. I warned them off of it of course.

Fuck nigerians. Scamming people is practically their national industry. They can all eat shit and die.

The 150 million citizens of Nigeria once again thank you for using their demonym to describe all fraud.

Criminals come from every country. How would you like the world to judge you by the acts of Republicans?

Err... yeah, because this is the year 1700 and international commerce and exchange rates haven't been invented yet.

@Murph1908: Remember, that someone else is being scammed with a "be a nanny for a 15 yr old" ruse. Maybe better worded as: hang out with German teenage girl who knows no one else and can't speak much English.

I think I wrote a letter once to Penthouse Forum using this as my starting point.

@ramfan1701: I also got my job from Craigslist, but I'm still deleting (a year later) scammy/spammy emails sent to the address I used.

My boyfriend's odds weren't as great when he was looking there but he's also in the tech field while my field is somewhat more obscure.

My wife is a music teacher, and we get a half dozen of these every year. Unfortunately, we know other teacher who have fallen for this, and now every time we get one of these, we forward a warning to all her colleagues. It would be nice if warnings or notices were sent out by the provincial and national associations, though. Won't catch everyone, but it would help...

I had a similar incident, but it was more, um, interesting.

$5,000 order for part from my not-so-well-known computer shop. To ship to Jakarta (LOL).

Well, my business partner plays along and get some CC numbers out of him (4 in total).

We call the banks to get them cancelled/inform their owners that their cards are stolen, which was actually INCREDIBLY difficult. At least half of the banks didn't even understand the situation and didn't have a procedure for handling such a good-Samaritan "complaint". Even when I spoke directly with the fraud department.

It seems the scammer didn't like that he couldn't use the cards anymore because for the next few months we got random shipments of "junk" he'd bought with other stolen cards, ranging from cigarettes from Russia, weird posters from some place in the US, some biker stuff (can't remember what now), to a bird feeder from a place a few hours away.

We tried contacting all the places, the ones we could get ahold of (the place selling biker stuff had a perma-busy phone, so we just junked it) all told us just to keep the stuff since they wouldn't pay for reverse shipping. Can't remember what happened to anything else, but the bird feeder got given as a gift to someone...

Eventually we noted a specific mispelling in the address he used every time, so we explained the situation to the postman and he just bounced any further shipments with that mistake. :D

But at least the scammers are giving a plausible reason for their bad English and grammar with this tutor scam.

I think this would be a fun one to play along with for a while. "I've always wanted to visit Germany! From which part do you hail? Perhaps we can arrange a different arrangement. For $700 a week, I'd be happy to come to YOU to do this training, and would provide more than 4 hours a week."

But they are scam central. The apartments and housing portion so far is the worst.

@dragonfire81:

I just got a (completely legitimate) job from a Craiglist ad, so they're definitely out there.

I also received at least 3 of these type of scam responses, so you do have to be careful.

Seriously, given the well-earned German reputation for precision, you would think their correspondence would contain fewer errors.

Heh, 'shovel my car'.

@dragonfire81: There are still good jobs out there on Craigslist, especially the "please cut my grass" or "please help me shovel my car" ads. With the death of local classifieds and the lack of connection of many of us with our local communities, it's the best way to get a person to help you do small jobs.

As an employer, I still use it...some cities have to pay. Those jobs are mostly legit. They may suck, but they're legit.

It's always been scam central.

To be fair, we almost got hooked into a scheme. Someone had emailed us for pricing and shipping info for a large number of our products. Since we, like most other companies, are in need of cash, we jumped on it. Several things about the order didn't make sense though. Like the buyer ordered 50 of a specialized part that we sell maybe 20 in a year or so.

Once he mentioned payment by Western Union and shipping to an address in Nigeria, we cut off all communication.

I do regret not getting a picture for www.419eater.com.