Is it even worth bothering with Craigslist when looking for a job? Every day it gets more and more like scam central.

Offers that look too good to be true usually are.

To be fair, we almost got hooked into a scheme. Someone had emailed us for pricing and shipping info for a large number of our products. Since we, like most other companies, are in need of cash, we jumped on it. Several things about the order didn't make sense though. Like the buyer ordered 50 of a specialized part that we sell maybe 20 in a year or so.

Once he mentioned payment by Western Union and shipping to an address in Nigeria, we cut off all communication.

I do regret not getting a picture for www.419eater.com.

@dragonfire81:

It's always been scam central.

@dragonfire81: There are still good jobs out there on Craigslist, especially the "please cut my grass" or "please help me shovel my car" ads. With the death of local classifieds and the lack of connection of many of us with our local communities, it's the best way to get a person to help you do small jobs.

As an employer, I still use it...some cities have to pay. Those jobs are mostly legit. They may suck, but they're legit.

I'm pretty sure Basement Cat keeps an eye on all Nigerian scammers, not just the innocent college students who may fall victim to Nigerian scammers.

Could also be a new Chris Hansen Dateline Special: To Catch a Craigslist Tutorial

@RandomHookup:

Heh, 'shovel my car'.

Yep, that syntax screams Nigerian to me. But admittedly it's not the most flagrant tipoff, and only somebody that's a frequent browser of 419eater's forums or published baits would recognize it. It's mostly the repeated sentences that begin with "well." So I guess it could have been written by Zombie Reagan, but it's not likely.

Thanks to the panel discussion, whenever I hear Craigslist, I think of him sitting on stage and talking, while all of this scamming is going on behind him, like and olde time movie.

@pecan 3.14159265: Sheeeeeit. The Nigerian scammers all work for Basement Cat.

Seriously, given the well-earned German reputation for precision, you would think their correspondence would contain fewer errors.

@RecordStoreToughGuy: Yes, they are getting slightly better at it. It is a marginally more reasonable story than a dead guy with the same last name and a $50 million pound inheritance.

@dragonfire81:

I just got a (completely legitimate) job from a Craiglist ad, so they're definitely out there.

I also received at least 3 of these type of scam responses, so you do have to be careful.

@dragonfire81: Yeah. Craigslist is decent for jobs if you can sift through the garbage. I found a few jobs on there that were really good. My current was from Craigslist and is very good.

But they are scam central. The apartments and housing portion so far is the worst.

Nanny for a 15 year old? Perhaps, if she were coming to the US alone. Steward or guardian might be more appropriate.

But at least the scammers are giving a plausible reason for their bad English and grammar with this tutor scam.

I think this would be a fun one to play along with for a while. "I've always wanted to visit Germany! From which part do you hail? Perhaps we can arrange a different arrangement. For $700 a week, I'd be happy to come to YOU to do this training, and would provide more than 4 hours a week."

In college when looking for a roomates we would always get contacted by a Nigerian scammer. Knowing that it was a scam it was fun spending many drunken nights responding to them.

@winshape:

I had a similar incident, but it was more, um, interesting.

$5,000 order for part from my not-so-well-known computer shop. To ship to Jakarta (LOL).

Well, my business partner plays along and get some CC numbers out of him (4 in total).

We call the banks to get them cancelled/inform their owners that their cards are stolen, which was actually INCREDIBLY difficult. At least half of the banks didn't even understand the situation and didn't have a procedure for handling such a good-Samaritan "complaint". Even when I spoke directly with the fraud department.

It seems the scammer didn't like that he couldn't use the cards anymore because for the next few months we got random shipments of "junk" he'd bought with other stolen cards, ranging from cigarettes from Russia, weird posters from some place in the US, some biker stuff (can't remember what now), to a bird feeder from a place a few hours away.

We tried contacting all the places, the ones we could get ahold of (the place selling biker stuff had a perma-busy phone, so we just junked it) all told us just to keep the stuff since they wouldn't pay for reverse shipping. Can't remember what happened to anything else, but the bird feeder got given as a gift to someone...

Eventually we noted a specific mispelling in the address he used every time, so we explained the situation to the postman and he just bounced any further shipments with that mistake. :D

@winshape: It doesn't sound like you almost got hooked at all. It sounds like you got a request about a large order, gave it the attention it deserved and maybe got excited about it, but not so much that you didn't walk away as soon as it was clear what was happening.

My wife is a music teacher, and we get a half dozen of these every year. Unfortunately, we know other teacher who have fallen for this, and now every time we get one of these, we forward a warning to all her colleagues. It would be nice if warnings or notices were sent out by the provincial and national associations, though. Won't catch everyone, but it would help...

@ramfan1701: I also got my job from Craigslist, but I'm still deleting (a year later) scammy/spammy emails sent to the address I used.

My boyfriend's odds weren't as great when he was looking there but he's also in the tech field while my field is somewhat more obscure.

@Murph1908: Remember, that someone else is being scammed with a "be a nanny for a 15 yr old" ruse. Maybe better worded as: hang out with German teenage girl who knows no one else and can't speak much English.

I think I wrote a letter once to Penthouse Forum using this as my starting point.

"I am from Germany and my payments won't be honored at a bank in the U.S."

Err... yeah, because this is the year 1700 and international commerce and exchange rates haven't been invented yet.

Seriously, believing that one is being paid $175 an hour to tutor in English? And being required to handle all the other payments? Hard to believe people fall for this.

The 150 million citizens of Nigeria once again thank you for using their demonym to describe all fraud.

Criminals come from every country. How would you like the world to judge you by the acts of Republicans?

@GreatCaesarsGhost: ugh. -1.

@DarkKnightShyamalan: she is probably right about the payments not being honored, but for a different reason: rubber checks.

@GreatCaesarsGhost:

Fuck nigerians. Scamming people is practically their national industry. They can all eat shit and die.

I have a feeling that for most Europeans learning English, they would have enough of an understanding of Indo-European language context to know that not every sentence should begin with an interjection like "Well". It comes off sounding very strange.

@GreatCaesarsGhost: If you play the game, you get the name. Come on, those poor hard-working Nigerians (or whoever) have to make a living too.

@GreatCaesarsGhost:
-1.

@GreatCaesarsGhost: Not all fraud, just the fraud that obviously originates in Nigeria or Ghana.

@winshape: They got you to nibble but they didn't hook you.

My girlfriend's work got a similar scam. $5000 for a block of dance lessons which only cost like $3500 or something. They were going to send a foreign check and wanted the difference sent back after it was cashed. I warned them off of it of course.

@TinkishDelight:

Yeah, that's why if anything seemed remotely questionable, I put in my 'junk' email addy for the contact info. It really helps me cut down on the spam I get in the address I have for 'professional' contacts.

I was also encountered with a similar scam when I was offering tutoring services through Craigslist. The easiest thing dealing with Craigslist is to say "cash payment only at time of service/exchange of goods", don't deal with anyone who even hesitates. I still highly recommend tutoring as a way to make some quick money, the pay is about $35-60/hour depending on the subject, SAT tutoring commands $60+/hour. It was also a highly enjoyable experience, being a mentor and making the subject fun/interesting, etc.

The thing about any of these scams is that you are in a world of trouble even if all you do is deposit the check and haven't yet been scammed out of your own money.

I'm wondering why, after about 10 years of scamming, the nigerians haven't learned to type better and form better letters.

The@pecan 3.14159265: The ones who strike it rich don't share their grammar skills :)

@GreatCaesarsGhost: The US State Department once asked the Nigerian government to help it track down, prosecute, and in some cases even extradite scammers. The Nigerian government responded that they would not help, because people who fall victim to these frauds were partially at fault for being greedy.

While I don't disagree with them, I think it's a flimsy excuse to not help stop them. So in my mind, clearly the Nigerian government at least partially encourages this behavior, thus branding their country - at their own choice - a country of scammers.

If Nigeria wants to change their image as a country of scammers, then they can join the rest of the world and crack down on them.

@RandomHookup: I doubt it. T%he "nanny" is most likely in with the scammers-otherwise having the tutor advance the fee to the nanny would not benefit the scammers.

@humphrmi:

Whatever. Nigeria government didn't do it because it wouldn't benefit them in any way whatsoever. They spend money capturing criminals just to help a bunch of rich (and stupid) people in another country? They make nothing out of it, but possibly make something if they allow the scammers to scam money (bribes, taxes, buying goods, whatever). Chances are if they did go after and catch them, they'd have no money to confiscate. Losing situation for a nation already disgustingly poor.
That being said, I don't think it's inappropriate to call this a Nigerian scam since it has been established that most of them really do come from Nigeria...

@dragonfire81: i just moved and hired my movers from craigslist. small family business, very professionally done move and i got some of their business cards when they were done because i'd gladly recommend them to others.

I got a Nigerian scam email warning me not to fall for Nigerian scams. "Contact Mr. So-and-So (in Nigeria) and he will help you get your money back."

Reply "I'll 'tutor' your 15 year old daughter, no charge. She can even stay with me so you don't have to write down all these dumb details like what my name is and where I live. Please color her hair red before she comes, no reason".

@pecan 3.14159265:

It's part of the rules of the game. You have to give your victims a chance. Plus, you feel less guilty about it since you figure you're only scamming the really stupid people.

To be fair, real tutoring jobs can be found on craigslist - just not always the American versions. As an American expat in South Korea, the SK craigslist is filled with people either willing to be a tutor or people that want to be tutored. So the tutoring thing isn't the scam - it's ANY PERSON who wants to deal with paper checks, returning money...

Seriously? I can't even remember the last time I wrote a paper check.

@Jevia: Not hard at all... Greed sets in - they are counting on it.

@Winteridge2: Yeah, hand-written checks that say "I HAZ MUNNY!" tend to require at least a three-day waiting period. You know, on account of all the new banking regulations.

@mistifi: I don't disagree with you, but I have a friend from Germany with whom I email on a regular basis. We email back and forth in both languages, helping each other to learn. She has picked up some odd English habits, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if she used "well" at the beginning of several sentences. However, I would tell her that it was odd.

@GreatCaesarsGhost: Call centers in India, hackers from Eastern Europe, brand knock-offs from China, fraud from Nigeria. It is quite definitely an institution there, resulting in the high incidence we see today. Also I'm pretty sure there is a cultural connection.

@GreatCaesarsGhost: Judge us by the actions of Republicans? Hell yes! Freeing slaves, supporting the free market, controlling Congress during some of the most prosperous periods ever seen in the US, that would be a wonderful thing to be judged by!

don't people know by now that Nigeria = scams? They should just be nuked off the planet.. and the world would be a better place.