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Paypal doesnt let Nigeria have accounts with them.

They will just send you a fake email that looks like its from Paypal.

People, who arent on the ball, will go ahead and ship.

Then later view their Paypal account,only to find they were never paid.

Just discontinue business with him.

These are criminals..dont play games with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_scam#Consequ...

There's a big banner across the top of Craigslist.

Only deal with people in your own city

When you dont, on Craigslist..the vulture are sitting there in wait.

In droves.......

100% scam, you are correct.

There is no buyer and NO money coming via paypal. So, no you can't spend the money as NO money will actually show up in your paypal account. However, if you still want to "counter-scam" the scammer then google the word "scambaiting" and check out the sites you find.

Notice how the scammer doesn't call what you are selling by name? He uses the generic word "item", that is because he sends the same stock copy/paste email to anyone selling everything that he can find and he has no idea what you are selling and doesn't care.

There is only a scammer trying to steal your possession, your electronic item, name brand clothing or jewelry.

The scammer isn't interested in your identity or bank account only in convincing you to ship your possession to him without him sending you a penny.

The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be "Paypal" saying "kindly send the tracking number and we will release the funds".

Paypal does NOT send such emails, ever. Paypal does NOT have escrow or money holding services like that scammer describes. Paypal does NOT demand you send a tracking number before money is sent. EVER. No exceptions.

Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of being the perfect buyer, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

If you google "cragislist buyer scam", "fake paypal email scam", "ebay escrow fraud" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near victims of this type of scam.

Check out the one and only official paypal website, read up on what paypal does and how it really works.

There is NO money. They either send you a spoofed Paypal email or pay you from a hacked account, in which case PayPal will debit the money from your account once the real account holder reports the theft

certain its a rip-off the substantial rule of Craigslist is to deal w/ human beings on your own city once you dont keep on with the guidelines-- the scammers lie in wait also, dont play video games with Nigerian scammers ..they are criminals that take in billions in accordance to annum. they are many times incredibly risky ninety 9% of the time, in case you be conscious Africa . Its a rip-off

He won't pay you obviously. It will either be a fake money order (takes the bank days to confirm it even if you cash it on day 1 then you will be liable for the money), or a fake email that looks like an ebay deposit. No way you are getting the money either way, thats why they want you to send it quick before you figure out its fake.