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How I Almost Sent my iPod to Nigeria

By , on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007

Having been a computer guy for many years, I’ve had surprisingly little interaction with eBay. I’ve just never had much use for it, as I don’t generally sell things and prefer to buy things new. A seasoned eBay user is, I would imagine, accustomed to all the regular scams and such that are perpetrated on the unassuming Aunt Fae’s of the Internet – but I’m not. At least, not before yesterday.

So, in an effort to drum up some extra cash, I’m currently attempting to sell my iPod on eBay. After completing all of the listing details and such, my listing went up sometime in the late evening yesterday. Not really having much of a clue as to what I should sell for, I also didn’t know what to expect in terms of bids (a whole slew of them right out of the chute, none at all, etc.). When I received the following email this morning, I felt a mixture of joy and hesitation:

Hello,
I am willing to purchase this item from you and I’ll be paying you $450.00 for the item to include shipping & insurance charges to Abroad.Payment would be through PayPal as indicated in the auction as i would want you to indicate your interest in selling this item to me.I would want you to email me directly at different_email@foo.com with your PayPal email address or send me a PayPal payment request to the email address specified so that i can credit your account asap Thanks and hope to hear from you soon
Contact details removed

My first thought was “wow, sweet!” – but that lasted all of 10 seconds as I started to think the whole thing through. While the offer seemed a bit strange, it didn’t really strike me as illegitimate because he was offering to pay me right away. The only plausible rip-off scenario I could come up with was that he was going to have me send it somewhere that would incur a healthy shipping charge and I would make far less than I was hoping to from the sale (which, in retrospect, didn’t make much sense either, since he wouldn’t be getting the money I paid to UPS or whoever ended up actually transporting it).

I thought to myself “well, maybe this isn’t a scam…”. So I asked the guy for the city and country where he would be wanting it shipped, thinking that would either confirm or deny my initial suspicion. He was very vague (telling me that it would be sent to “his store”, but nothing more), so I explained my reservations a bit further:

The reason I’m asking is that $450 is, frankly, quite a bit more than I was expecting. I’m not opposed to doing what you ask, I just want to make sure I’m not going to end up losing money on the shipping + insurance.

So, if you could tell me the city and country you want it shipped, then we can talk about the details.

Then, the guy replies (very quickly) with what appeared to be a street address (but bore very little resemblance to a US street address) that ended with “Nigeria”. “Well”, I thought, “that answers that”. I quickly reply and tell him that I’m not interested and thanks a bunch.

His next message just says “why?”, to which I reply that the whole thing just sounds fishy and he should understand that, from my point of view, it smells like a scam. He then replies with the following:

ok,can you get it mail to my store in united kingdom?

That pretty much sealed the deal for me. My response:

Why would you pay $450 for a used ipod when you could buy a new one for half that in the UK?

Nope, sorry, not interested.

That was a couple hours ago and I haven’t heard back from him since.

It’s worth noting that, in almost all of his emails, he asked for my paypal address “asap” so that he could send me payment. Now, again, not being a battle-worn eBay champion, I’m not terribly familiar with most of the garden-variety paypal scams out there, but looking back and seeing just how anxious he was to send me the cheddar has made me all the more sure of my conclusion.

For all I know, this is a common eBay scam that the whole world (save me, of course) knows about and ignores. But I thought it worthwhile to describe what happened to me in case anybody else is approached with a similar offer.

Yay for not getting hoodwinked!

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    [...] Joel Santo Domingo wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSo, in an effort to drum up some extra cash, I’m currently attempting to sell my iPod on eBay. After completing all of the listing details and such, my listing went up sometime in the late evening yesterday. Not really having much of a … [...]

  • http://www.i-organize.info/i-organize/how-i-almost-sent-my-ipod-to-nigeria/ I Organize » Blog Archive » How I Almost Sent my iPod to Nigeria

    [...] Joel Santo Domingo wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]

  • http://www.evangelismcoach.org Pastor Chris

    You would have been paid with a stolen credit card via paypal.

    I fell for someone who actually won my auction, and paid me to ship it to russia. I checked his feedback — 30 days of buying history, no complaints.

    But two days after i shipped, paypal took the money away, right out of my bank account (not my paypal account, since i had already transferred it to my bank).

    Stolen credit card.

    Contacted buyer, said the product got lost in customs. Yeah right.

    Started contacting other sellers to buyer on the feedback chain and found that all had a common story — paypal taking the funds away, buyer claiming not to have received the item. Ebay kicked buyer off, but only after he had purchased thousands of dollars in electronic equipment.

    Ebay and paypal were too late to the table.

  • Deanna Schroeder

    As a seasoned ebayer I found that never getting into a conversation with a seller or buyer other than through eBay helps to cut out scams. The scammer would have recognized that you were new because you didn’t have a number following your name which indicates how many transactions you have made.

    Please report this scam attempt to eBay and they will deal with “him” Won’t necessarily make him quit but they will put an alert out to other ebayers.

    I love eBay and I find brand new articles at a fraction of the cost of a local store. Don’t give up on a great part of the culture.

  • Blake

    This is very similar to a craigslist scam where these “Nigerian” scammers offer you way more than the selling price to “immediately take the listing down and send them the item.” In exchange they will overnight you a USPS money order. The catch is the money order is not real. If you cash it and wait for it to clear, your bank will let you know that it’s worthless.

  • http://www.thenext45years.com Alex Blackwell

    Wow – I think this is the reason I’ve never done any thing with eBay.

  • Mark Steele

    This reminds me of the Powerbook scam:
    http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index.html

  • Gretchen

    This almost happened to me. Last time I sold an ipod on ebay the winning bid was made by someone with a Nigerian address. I had stated clearly in the auction that I would only ship to the U.S. for this very reason and so I emailed to say that I needed a U.S. address. Ten minutes later ebay emailed me that they had canceled the auction and I wouldn’t be charged. Sigh of relief for me. The next morning I found not one, but two emails in my inbox, one from ebay saying that the auction had been reinstated, and another one saying I had been paid by PayPal, but that the funds were being held until I provided a tracking number. Both were spoofed, but looked pretty authentic.

  • Tracy

    Okay folks, here’s a tip. The word “Nigeria” is just slang for “scam.” I am living in Cameroon (I’m an American) and I’d say pretty much the same about the word “Cameroon.” It’s not even worth giving it a second thought. It is all a scam and a shockingly large number of people fall for every single one that it is quite profitable for young men here to engage in. The one that really cracks me up is when they offer pure-bred dogs to people. Believe me, there are NO purebred dogs in Africa. None, nada.

    I’m happy that you sniffed this out before you lost your money.

  • Jim

    i sold my ipod to a Nigerian guy before and i got my money perfect the shipping was a little expensive but i covered it got my money and im happy, Not all Nigerians are scammers, research says just 25% of them are.

  • http://thinkryuko.blogspot.com Ryuko

    Good catch. It sucks that these guys are making such a bad name for their nation — and scaring a lot of Americans from buying/selling abroad period. But none of us represent a major corporation (or do we… :p) so better safe than sorry.

  • http://prasanth.opdyne.com Prasanth

    Is there anything wrong if I give my PayPal id to someone who hires a service even before I do it? I am relatively new to this online money transaction thingy, so can anyone help?

    And, great article btw. people like me can know what to avoid.

  • grover

    Whose research, “Jim?” The research done by you and your Nigerian scammer colleagues?

    Seriously though, if the number is only 25%, why aren’t the other 75% (a substantial majority) doing something to stop the rampant scamming that is giving them and their country a bad name?

  • grover

    Whose research, “Jim”? The research done by your and your Nigerian scammer colleagues?

    Seriously though, if it’s truly only 25%, then why aren’t the other 75% (a substantial majority) doing anything to prevent their scamming countrymen from giving them and their country a bad name?

  • http://www.freeipodtouchonline.co.uk free ipod

    complete given details above prouduct
    how is purchased an aipod

  • Quotes

    This quite funny, I liked reading it! thanks for sharing this experience.

    Chris.

  • RobynGraves

    Same thing early happened to me with Craigslist. I got 2 offers from 2 different people. One asking me to ship to Nigeria, the other to “West Africa”! In both messages the person was asking me to ship the Ipod to their 'son' or 'brother in law' in a different country. Good thing I still have my mother around to save me from my own naivety.

  • adam

    haha, i just listed my used ipod on facebook last night and already this morning i have 3 offers for waaay more than i'm selling it for, all of them wanting me to ship it to west africa to their son/wife/best friend.

  • http://www.avoid-fraud.com/ fraud scam

    eBay is the heaven for scammers. I learned this the hard way.

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