Craigslist scam

All I wanted was a tent trailer, for crying out loud in the dark!!!

Brian found a good deal on Craig's List and sent an e-mail. He was afraid it was already sold because the guy didn't respond right away. In all likelihood, the delay was due to the time difference between here and Nigeria...

Brian started getting all these weird e-mails referring to "the product" and telling him he'd have to use this third-party escrow-type service that would guarantee everything was safe. The first thing that caught my attention was that the e-mail said there were no scratches when the ad clearly said there was one "purley" (sic) cosmetic scratch. I Googled the name of the third-party service (Online Outpost) and my browser suggested that I might want to search for "Online Outpost Scam," indicating that there were more than 85,000 hits for that search term. That was clue #4. (Clue #3 was too much irrelevant information (e.g., "I'm a construction engineer.") which is typical for liars to give.)

I immediately called Brian to give him a heads up this was probably a scam. He replied to the e-mail saying he needed to see the trailer in person. The guy replied with pictures, but otherwise exactly the same e-mail. Then Brian said he'd need to talk via webcam. The exact same e-mail was received again (claiming to need a fax number and all kinds of other unnecessary information). The e-mails kept promising that after providing all contact information, then he would receive "confirmation" that the third-party had "the product" in their possession.

At this point, Brian started messing with him and e-mailed asking whether it was a V-6 or V-8. I'm fed up with it though and asked him to stop wasting our time and told him he's a pathetic waste of oxygen who should learn a real skill instead of trying to scam others out of their honestly earned money. "Pathetic waste of oxygen"probably isn't translated in their detailed scam instructions, so from what I've read about this scam on the Internet, I can still expect the same response as all his previous ones: "Please let me know what is your opinion and if you agree to start the transaction."