So, I'm selling my 360 on eBay ...

[Hollywood]

This has nothing to do with videogames, except for the part about me selling my 360 and GTA IV on eBay. This is where the fun part starts.

Someone hits the buy it now option for my 360, and its a seller with no feedback who registered TODAY. Suspicious? Then I get this email:

"Hello,
    Greetings to you.I am James innocent from London,I'm contacting you concerning your item on Ebay which i eventually became the winning bidder for your item.Morever i'm presently  in USA on a business trip and i intend sending this item to my Child who works with the American Embassy in Lagos,Nigeria as a surprise birthday gift,I will be making my payment to you via PayPal and also will be paying you $150 for the shipping cost,So get the package ready for immediate or next day shipment okay?and don't forget to send me your PayPal Email Address so i can immediately make out my payment.Please i want the item to be shipped via  USPS GLOBAL EXPRESS MAIL( www.usps.com ), or EMS 3 to 5 business day for the delivering.Please mail me now Cause it`s urgently needed.
Regards
James innocent"


Uh, okay. So this is a scam basically. I email the email to eBay with no response back yet. So I go ahead and send the invoice to the guy, just for the fuck of it just to see what he does and I get this:

"Hello.
    Thanks for your bussiness..I have made out your payment for your item Purchase into your paypal account and the money had been deducted from my Account. I also had to mail out an Extra $150.00 to Cover the Shipping Cost to my son in Nigeria . So you can afford to Shipped out the item to my son with the courier service *USPS Global Express (US Postal Service) 3-5 days Delivery. Cause i notice shiping to africa cost alot with other Courier .So check your mail & you can ship out the item to my son as soon as you receive the confirmation mail from Paypal.Here is my son shiping address Below.Feel free to email me if you you`ve any problem with the shiping cost.And do not forget to send the tracking number to paypal at (prove-cust-sec-vicl@accountant.com) so as for your account to be credited ..as soon as the package has been ship out.

Name........Amaka Innocent
Address.....18 seidu ajibowu St
City............Ikeja
State...........Lagos
Zip/code.....100001
Country......Nigeria
Phone Number...2348030408455"

Of course I haven't got anything in Paypal, I was at LEAST expecting a fake Paypal confirmation page sent from a bullshit address, but the guy can't even put any effort into it.

I would get a kick out of pulling a P-P-Powerbook scam here and sending the guy some ridiculous bullshit, but I don't want to pay shipping. What should I do evilbore?

[Vizzys]

scammmmmmmmm

[duckman2000]

I had one of these idiots email me about an "item" I was selling that he would very much enjoy to have as part of his home. Funny that the "item" happened to be a CD boxset. Of course, he couldn't pay right away as he was currently on a business trip in some other nation, and instead asked me to invoice his "secraterey", and of course also send the "item" to some weird address. I actually kept this going for a while, feigning interest in doing business with this character out of sheer morbid curiosity.

The real crazy thing is that there are people who fall for this shit.

[demi]

Sounds legit... ask him if he knows any wrestlers

[Hollywood]

And here comes the inevitable spoof email. Saw it in my spam folder just now:

"Dear PayPal Member,

As part of our efforts to provide a safe and secure environment for the online community, we regularly screen account activity. While reviewing your PayPal accounts, we observed activity that we would like to further verify. For this reason, limitations have been placed on your account until your will review your registered intormation. In order to resolve the account limitations, complete our online form by clicking on the following link :


Log into your PayPal account


After we have gathered the necessary information, your account will be reviewed for reinstatement and you will be notified by e-mail of our decision.

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter and apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Account Review Department "

The login link goes to a spoof site, of course. I'll forward the e-mail to Paypal and get it shut down.

What's funny here is we're spending a trillion on this Iraq War. Imagine a couple billion going to agencies where you can forward those stupid spoof sites down, get their information, and with their home country police agency you can track them down and get them arrested.

[bork]

Haven't you seen the Dateline NBC videos on these 419 scammers?  Not only are there shitloads of them, but they are looked as heroes in Nigeria.  There's a video of a newly-formed police squad that shuts down these operations, and after raiding an internet "cafe," they have to high-tail it out there, because the entire fucking village is descending on them.  It looked like Resident Evil 5.   

[Brehvolution]

It's an obvious scam. Who in their right mind would buy a used 360?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The glorious '3 year warranty against the RROD' doesn't transfer.

[close]

[Brehvolution]

I wonder if there is a city named Please, Nigeria.

[bork]

I wonder if there is a city named Please, Nigeria.

NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE.   

[Candyflip]

"I am James innocent"

[Don Flamenco]

Next time, hit the "Require Immediate Payment when buyer uses Buy-It-Now" button. 

and for your sake, don't do an auction, only do buy-it-now.  Ebay has been completely fucked up by asshole buyers ever since they took away the seller's ability to leave negative feedback.  So now you have guys who will bid on every 360 and pay for the lowest one. yay.

[Kestastrophe]

Ebay has turned into an absolute shithole. Last fall I was one of the lucky ones to get Mass Effect a full 10 days early, so naturally I put up one copy on Ebay. It went for $100 buy it now, but the buyer never paid. The bad part was that I had to wait a full 2 weeks before I could report any of this to Ebay, and by that time the game had already been released.