Scam??

[grimsbylander]

I've listed my motorcycle for sale on Kijiji and received a strange email.

 

"just wanted to make sure nothing has been left out

I will purchase at your listed price.Payment will be sent using PayPal and ill handle the PayPal surcharge if they are any.Let me know if you are ok with this,so that I can arrange for pick up as i wont be able to do it myself as i am out of town at the moment.I would appreciate if you email me with more pictures (if available) too,since i won't be be able to see this in person,what's the PayPal email to send funds to in order for me to pay you ASAP."

 

Who the heck buys a bike unseen and offers full price? Can you scam someone using PayPal? Selling my baby is hard enough without the thought of getting ripped off looming.

[johnnyb]

Total scam....super common. Do not proceed!! I have found that a short reply informing them that I don't deal with scammers and have reported their activity to the proper authorities usually scares them off. And for sure you can report them to PayPal.

[ccmtcanada]

A quick google search for "kijiji paypal scam" returns hundreds of examples...stay away from this one!

 

"My daughter was also almost scammed. She had posted a cell phone for sale on Kijiji (Windsor) and received a reply from someone named Ines Olivieri (probably fake name). Ines made an offer for more than my daughter was asking, supposedly to cover shipping costs and asked my daughter to ship the phone to an address in Nigeria. She said she would pay through Paypal and requested my daughter's Paypal account name, which my daughter provided. Shortly afterward, Ines replied saying that she had sent the money through her Paypal account and the money had cleared at her end. My daughter waited to hear from Paypal, which she did shortly afterward, or so she at first thought. She received an email, supposedly from Paypal, stating that, in order to protect both the buyer and seller, they would require confirmation that the item was shipped. The emails stated that as soon as they received a tracking number from my daughter, they would release the funds from the buyer. I had been skeptical about this from the beginning but now I knew something was wrong. Why would Paypal get involved in this transaction when Paypal had nothing to do with it? My daughter checked her Paypal account and there were no transactions pending. This was obviously a fake email, not from Paypal. I googled "Nigerian scams involving Paypal" and got numerous hits! Apparently this same scam has been going on for years, using different names & addresses, mostly in Nigeria. I read stories about many people who got scammed in this way, some sending money as well as merchandise. I did the research and found out that Paypal does not offer to put a transaction on hold for any reason & we reported this scam to Paypal. DO NOT GET SCAMMED LIKE THIS - IT'S SO EASY TO DO THE RESEARCH ONLINE!"

[danklegrand]

Yes, this is a scam. This reply and others like it are very common on kijiji. I've bought and sold numerous items using kijiji with no problems, but I've also seen this many times. Usually a weird name, usually sounds WAY too good to be true. Basically, if something sounds fishy on kijiji, stay away. I also usually reply back to these kind of people with fairly blunt remarks stating that I don't deal with scammers. If you want it, come take a look at it and pick it up in person with CASH. If you want to ship it, fine. Call me and make proper arrangements over the phone.

Kijiji can be great for buying and selling with the right people, but beware... If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. If someone is serious about buying what you're selling, they'll usually call... Lots of emailers out there looking to low-ball or scam... Drives me nuts.

Good-luck with your sale. The right buyer will come along eventually, and you'll know it when they do.

[mike rousseau]

dead give away...

 

they almost never mention the item in the email... its a generice email that says "item" instead of bike or boat...etc...

 

they play a numbers game... the more emails they send the better chance they hit someone that is willing... so they copy and paste the same email to a ton of ads....

[discophish]

... just don't let this discourage you from using Kijiji, it's an excellent resource and a shame to not use it because of these incidences. If you maintain a good level of awareness during your sale, it all works out and everyone is happy. Best of luck with the sale of your bike. Ride safe and have fun. It's going to be a great season

[BillM]

Scam. Anytime the buyer doesn't specifically mention the item you have for sale, ignore them.

[paul_614]

I have received a few of those e-mails and I love playing with them. E-mails go back and forth for days.

[grimsbylander]

Thanks for the replies and advice.

 

The people that sit at home and remotely scam people are cowards. So easy to avoid getting socked in the mouth when you're hiding behind a computer screen and going to great lengths to conceal your identity. I have more respect for the lowlife that actually has the stones to sneak onto my property to rob me.

Strangely, I'm more ticked off that they're cowards than the fact they steal. My Grandfather used to say "You can watch a thief but you can't watch a liar." Not anymore I guess.

Spineless, gutless cowards. Imagine how p'd I be if I did get ripped off?? hehe

[Lunatic]

"My daughter was also almost scammed. She had posted a cell phone for sale on Kijiji (Windsor) and received a reply from someone named Ines Olivieri (probably fake name).

I had this name e-mail me!

the odd part was,i was selling tires and they didnt like the idea of me setting a meeting place.they then e-mailed me using another name using the same lousy grammar ect. by the end of it all,they used 4 or 5 different e-mails all using arab sounding names and all trying to play one against the other. i had fun messing around with them tho.

[Christopheraaron]

Don't do it, total scam.

[Rod Caster]

Kijiji could easily do isp searches on these scammers. If word got out that there were scammers working kijiji in your area, that would save a lot of people from getting ripped off. I guess kijiji doesn't want any kind of bad media attention.

[BillM]

Kijiji could easily do isp searches on these scammers. If word got out that there were scammers working kijiji in your area, that would save a lot of people from getting ripped off. I guess kijiji doesn't want any kind of bad media attention.

 

There are scammers working everything.. Kijiji, Craigslist, Autotrader, Ebay... It's really no one elses responsibility but your own to make sure you aren't silly enough to fall for one of them.... Kijiji is free as well, it should be used with caution.

Edited March 26, 2012 by BillM

[Rod Caster]

There are scammers working everything.. Kijiji, Craigslist, Autotrader, Ebay... It's really no one elses responsibility but your own to make sure you aren't silly enough to fall for one of them.... Kijiji is free as well, it should be used with caution.

 

Absolutely it's not their responsibility but all websites could easily monitor their users and publicly post it or correct it. Especially if it protects some of the users, ethically it could only be the rigth thing to do. They don't because they are not legally obliged and because it would cost money and maybe hurt business.

Some websites ( ) have open access to ISP information so that you can get a general idea of who is who and where.

 

Only a fraction of people are scammers on Kijiji, it would be relatively easy to single those people out. EBay has done a good job of this....and you CAN sell for free on EBay in many situations.

Oh, and OFC is free as well, with a very low scam rate... well some would say otherwise

Edited March 26, 2012 by Rod Caster

[BillM]

It wouldn't be easy at all to single those people out. It's not like you are dialing up from home like you did in the good old days Free email accounts, multiple proxy servers, ISP's in different continents, etc etc. Sounds easy, but trust me it's not.. It's very expensive and very time consuming..

 

People just need to look out for themselves a bit.

[Rod Caster]

It wouldn't be easy at all to single those people out. It's not like you are dialing up from home like you did in the good old days Free email accounts, multiple proxy servers, ISP's in different continents, etc etc. Sounds easy, but trust me it's not.. It's very expensive and very time consuming..

 

People just need to look out for themselves a bit.

 

Definitly user beware. I'm no compu-wiz, maybe it wouldnt be a free service if Kijiji had to do all that information gathering and processing.

[Jer]

Kijiji is nothing more than a free classified service. There is no possible way for them to monitor who might be looking at your ad and copying down your email address. There is no contact between buyer and seller through the Kijiji site itself.

[Rod Caster]

Kijiji is nothing more than a free classified service. There is no possible way for them to monitor who might be looking at your ad and copying down your email address. There is no contact between buyer and seller through the Kijiji site itself.

 

 

Lots of relevant info is associated to your IP, isn't it? When I load a page, my IP is recorded in their database. If someone reports a scam at the exact time I hit the reply button, then I'm sure they could compile information from the real stupid scammers who don't use high tech avoidance measures. I'm assuming most of these scammers are not very intelligent... or maybe they are and therefore we can't trust any computer geeks!!

 

Maybe I'm way off? haha. Bill?

[Jer]

Lots of relevant info is associated to your IP, isn't it? When I load a page, my IP is recorded in their database. If someone reports a scam at the exact time I hit the reply button, then I'm sure they could compile information from the real stupid scammers who don't use high tech avoidance measures. I'm assuming most of these scammers are not very intelligent... or maybe they are and therefore we can't trust any computer geeks!!

 

Maybe I'm way off? haha. Bill?

 

 

How do they differentiate between me, the honest buyer browsing the site and the scammer skimming ads for email addresses. There's no saying that they'll send their phishing email at the exact time that they come across the ad. Do you know how many people may be browsing Kijiji at any given time?

 

It's not like e-bay, where contact between buyer and seller stays within the site. Kijiji is no more than a digital classified section, they want nothing to do with the actual transaction, they just provide somewhere to post your ad.

Edited March 26, 2012 by Jer

[Rod Caster]

How do they differentiate between me, the honest buyer browsing the site and the scammer skimming ads for email addresses. There's no saying that they'll send their phishing email at the exact time that they come across the ad. Do you know how many people may be browsing Kijiji at any given time?

 

It's not like e-bay, where contact between buyer and seller stays within the site. Kijiji is no more than a digital classified section, they want nothing to do with the actual transaction, they just provide somewhere to post your ad.

 

every web page is identifed alphanumerically and IP's are unique. It can't be that hard to identify who is a scammer if someone hits the "report" button, which is on every initial email.

Either people don't use the report button often enough, or kijiji doesn't take the effort (don't want to spend the $), or scammers are one step ahead of kijiji's "scam filtering" system.

[Jet]

For those interested in learning more about said scams and seeing how some people flip the script on these scammers and send them junk, heavy junk, by convincing scammer to pay for delivery thinking they'll get a bunch of laptops check out www.thescambaiter.com.

 

Tons of great info on all sorts of online scams and the baits are absolutely entertaining.

[Fisherman]

For those interested in learning more about said scams and seeing how some people flip the script on these scammers and send them junk, heavy junk, by convincing scammer to pay for delivery thinking they'll get a bunch of laptops check out www.thescambaiter.com.

 

How about a load from my cats litter box, it's almost like nuclear fallout.