Oct 27, 2014
I have been trying to sell my mother-in-law's hospital bed for months and posted it on Craigslist. Yesterday I received a text message from a prospective buyer, who claimed she was handicapped and couldn't personally pick up the bed so she was hiring a delivery service. We exchanged information and ultimately I received an email from what appeared to be PayPal claiming money had been deposited in my account. I checked my PayPal account and saw no evidence of a payment. I subsequently received an email supposedly from someone at PayPal that the transaction was on hold until I went to Western Union and sent $250 to the delivery service, funds which the seller had allegedly deposited in my account. At this point I began to realize that something wasn't right. I checked my PayPal account again, saw no signs of activity, and emailed the buyer, asking if she was running some sort of scam. The buyer responded and acted indignant. She told me she had sent the money and that I should check my emails or spam folder because I should have received an email from PayPal that the transaction was on hold until I paid the delivery service. I decided to do a quick search online and within one minute I found someone complaining that they had been scammed by someone supposedly wanting to buy a wheelchair from them that had been posted on Craigslist. Unlike me, that seller had sent the money via Western Union to the alleged delivery service. However, there was no buyer, no money deposited in their PayPal account, and no delivery service. I cut and pasted the information I found online and sent it to the buyer, asking. "Does this sound familiar?" I have not heard from her again.