Craigslistscammer.blogspot.com, a blog dedicated to helping people unmask scammers who prey on Craigslist advertisers, will surpass 150,000 page views at the end of November.
Austin, TX (USA), Wednesday – November 16, 2011 — Craigslistscammer.blogspot.com, a blog dedicated to helping people unmask scammers who prey on Craigslist advertisers, will surpass 150,000 page views at the end of November, according to its publisher Joe Gimenez.
The site receives between 400-600 visits per day from people who search the email address or other information contained in correspondence they’ve received from a person responding to their advertisement on Craigslist.
Since its inception on May 4, 2008, the blog has received 140,100 pageviews and is projected to hit 150,000 on November 29. The site has more than 3,200 comments from viewers who either confirm that a scam was attempted on them or adds information about other scams in their posts.
Typical comments might read like this one: “drjamesrobbert08@gmail.com posing as Melinda Robbert responded to a craigslist ad I posted for video tutor for daughter, sent two checks for almost $3K each, from two different addresses and two different banks, with instructions to take out my portion ($250)and send the rest by Western Union to the daughter’s nanny in Florida. I am in Maryland. So red flags went off left and right. I googled the nanny’s address and called to find no nanny at that address. Sent an email to “Melinda” and asked her to phone me. ‘She’ responded by telling me that she ‘has a little problem with her phone.’ Uh-huh . . . ”
Or this posting by a reader: “Add JohnWeb234@gmail.com to your list of scammers. The person just contacted me about sending his dog to board with me for the month of December using exactly the same MO [modus operandi] as with the tutor inquiries.”
The blog site started as Gimenez’s reaction to a scammer who was responding to his advertising a white couch for sale. The scammer said they’d send their movers to pick it up and that he was sending a check by FedEx.
When the check arrived, things started to seem a bit more fishy and then the scam really began. The check was $4,000 greater than the amount agreed upon for the couch and the scammer emailed to say that his secretary made the mistake, would Gimenez kindly deposit the check and wire the overage back to a Western Union address, less $100 for the inconvenience.
Gimenez’ reaction was “I mean really, who has a secretary these days and is looking on Craigslist for items.”
Upon further research, Gimenez found newspaper articles that described the exact same scam – the check was fraudulent, but close enough to real that his own bank would have credited his account and sent it out for delivery. Then, when the bank found, maybe two weeks later, the check to be fraudulent they would charge Gimenez’s account for the amount that he had wired out. The scammer would have received those funds and been long gone, but Gimenez would be out the money. You can read about the original scam attempt and Gimenez’ reaction here.
“Thank God I Googled something in that check that was already on the web,” Gimenez said. “And thank God so many people have responded in the same way over the years so that they might not fall for this evil trick.”
“Craigslist is very good about warning people about these sorts of scams, but few people understand why the warning is necessary or how they can be scammed. This site seeks to get the Craigslist scammers through the combined effort of thousands of people and its working,” Gimenez said.
The name of the blog is Let’s Get the Craigslist Scammers.
