BEWARE! PayPal-Nigeria Scam!

My wife and I have recently started this online store for second-hand laptops and collectible items. For the past few days, we have been receiving SMS and email messages inquiring about the items we are selling. Some already made orders and reservations but we are still waiting for actual payments. Most of our prospective customers are relatives, friends, and former co-workers. I have been helping my wife promote our online store through Craigslist, eBay, Multiply, and other auction sites.

Hence, I was not surprised when I received email inquires from two prospective customers outside the Philippines. They have three things in common: (1) they both want the items to be shipped to Nigeria, (2) they both want to pay through PayPal, and (3) they are both willing to pay immediately.

On the other hand, I was a bit puzzled because these two prospective customers were too eager to buy without asking questions about the specifications of the items we are selling online. They seemed to be very trustful. One prospective customer has purportedly sent me payments via PayPal but I was unable to confirm it from my PayPal account.

Here is the screenshot of the said email. As you can see, I supposedly have a pending payment amounting to US$ 710 (seven-hundred and ten US dollars) via PayPal:



I was being asked to send the tracking number of the item I was shipping before they can credit the money to my PayPal account. At first glance, the email seemed to be legitimate but if you look closely at the email address, the sender used a bogus PayPal email. Here is the screenshot:



I did some research on this and I was able to find an online forum that discusses this Nigerian PayPal scam: http://forums.gumtree.com/topic18831.html. If ever you are selling a legitimate item online, please BEWARE of this type of scam. Do not be fooled in sending your items without confirmation from PayPal. You can easily do this by logging into your account. Legitimate PayPal transactions are also confirmed by emails that use PayPal.com as the domain.