Since 2003 I was doing all my design work on a 17″ PowerBook G4 with a 17″ Studio Display. Five years later, I upgraded my design studio for a desktop and larger display. I decided to transfer my files from the PowerBook and sell my older studio on craigslist. The ad short and sweet and the sticker price was under $1000. I received a few responses from people who disappeared after an initial round of communication.
Then I received an e-mail from a guy in New York City. To be honest, his response didn’t raise any red flags since he seemed interested in the studio and, frankly, it’s a great deal. He inquired if I would accept payment via PayPal, I replied yes. I took the studio to a shipping store for an estimate and e-mailed the total costs of the studio and shipping. I didn’t hear a response until late last night:
**Timothy Oludare has sent you an auction payment with paypal (Routing Code: C827-L003-Q989-T5265) Confirmed**
I had never seen an e-mail like this from PayPal. Looking at the message on my iPhone, the formatting was causing tables to overlap one another. And the URLs for PayPal had .co.uk domains. I looked at the buyer information a second time, the name didn’t match the person in NY who wanted the design studio. Then I looked at the e-mail through my web browser which displayed the message in Times New Roman.
Some motherfucker was trying to scam me. Me. Oh hell no.
So I did what any potential victim of a scam would’ve done: I forwarded the e-mail to spoof@paypal.com. I received an auto-reply from PayPal which confirmed that I was the victim of fraud. I can only imagine – hope, even – that PayPal finds the culprits behind this scam and prosecutes them to the fullest extent of the law.
Learn how to spot a fake PayPal e-mail.
Incidentally, the design studio is still for sale.