I was bored one night and responded to a craigslist ad looking for someone to sell computers through their ebay account. It said that if you sell a computer you will get 30% commission. It does not make any sense at all because how would someone ship a complete stranger a computer and trust them to pay back the money it's worth?? I know that it has got to be a scam, but I was still curious.

A few days later, I got this response.

Hello,


Thank you for your response to the selling job on EBAY. Please visit my website, www.geocities.com/removed, to make your EBAY listing. Once this is done, email me your physical address so that I can ship an alienware mALX laptop to you. You will have the laptop in your possession before you mail it to the buyer. However, you must make the EBAY listing first before I can ship. If everything looks good, then I will ship it to you. Once each laptop gets shipped to the buyer, you must pay me for the laptops. My policy is that you will earn or make 30 percent in commission for each laptop sold. The rest ($1,400) gets sent to me through Paypal. Please call me after you have received this email: (352) xxx-xxxx. I am available 24 hours on most days. If you do not call, I will not ship. If you do not email me an item number, I will not reply. I know I can be trusted because I have 20 other laptops that I seriously need to sell. The earning potential for this job is well over $10,000 daily.

Thanks.

When you go to his website you get:The EBAY Sales Position

Introduction:

Hello,

My name is Dr. Daniel Hopkins, Ph.D and I went
to Harvard. I want to introduce to you some alienware
mALX laptops that I had recently bought from alienware
at wholesale.

I am new to selling online. I have never sold online
before. I have decided that I no longer need all 20
of these alienware mALX laptops. I am interested in
selling these alienware mALX laptops now, and I am
interested in finding someone who has many years of
EBAY selling experience to list auctions.

What I have:

The price on each alienware mALX is $2,000. For each
laptop you sell on EBAY, you can make $600, or 30%.
I need to sell all 20 alienware mALX laptops by Dec 31.

Please make an EBAY listing similar to the one shown.
This job is available only if you have a feedback of 20+
or greater with 90% or greater. Copy and paste the
information about my alienware mALX laptops into your
EBAY listing. Once sold, call me and I will ship each one
to your customer before you send payment to me.

I want to earn your trust. Trust me these will sell quickly.

Daniel Hopkins, Ph.D
(352) xxx-xxxx
and a sample ad for the computer.

What in the world is this person trying to do?? I mean, I can not imagine this could be anything BUT a scam. Why wouldn't this person just sell the laptops himself?

This does not make any sense. I am missing something here, probably obvious.


edited to remove phone number, website, etc

that number is a TMobile cell phone. hmmm weird.

this person will be the winning bidder (the same person asking you to sell them) you then will ship him/her back the laptop. and real money which will come back and bite you in the arse.

hmmm....but if they pay through paypal not a cashiers check, how can the money you get be taken back? I understand if it were a check which could come back. But if it's paid to your paypal account then how can they take it back?

Lotsa ways... go to www.paypalsucks.com (I think that's the site). Remember, Paypal IS NOT a BANK or other financial institution and isn't regulated by anyone. Besides can you realy trust something owned by ebay????

John

Many peoples accounts are stolen and used to pay for transactions they never participated in, one of the things this person could do is hack his own account and pay for it have it shipped out. once it is shipped out you are out of the cost of the laptop and the money plus you have a angry scammer mad at you with your home address threatning to send the police to your home to arrest you if you dont pay him for the lost of his laptop which he has by the way leaving you screwed 6 ways till sunday.

its just another version of the nigerian scam.


you list a item..that you never receive. the scammer hopes you get paid first and send the money first...and tada..you never get a computer to ship...boom the scammer is gone with the money. and you get blammed for selling a item you never had. and your ebay account gets closed...


dont even thing about doing this...

Someone fell for it.......

http://cgi.ebay.com/ALIENWARE-AURORA-mALX-...1QQcmdZViewItem

shabbyart (0) would never get me to send them $2,000 for a laptop.

Meet Dr Dan Hopkins

Thanks VA loan guy! That is a great link!