Getting offered more than you're asking

[hvnlydevil]

I sort of thought this was basic knowledge, but after talking to my sil this weekend, I realize not everybody knows. She signed up for a mystery shopping site and was mailed a money order, closely resembling a postal money order, to cash and then send money back minus $120.
ANYTIME you are asked to do this, it is a scam. I heard the same thing is going on on craigslist now too where you are offered more than your asking price. They need your email to access your paypal. Not sure how it works, but I'm sure you are sent a virus or something.
While getting a check out of the blue for $6000 might be tempting, please do not fall for it.

[alamedann]

These scams just keep getting sneakier and sneakier.  Thanks for the warning!

[mark81265]

Thanks for the heads up!

[gaylasue]

Great advice!  If something is too good to be true especially coming out of the blue, it will probably bite you!

[southernhorizons]

I sort of thought this was basic knowledge, but after talking to my sil this weekend, I realize not everybody knows. She signed up for a mystery shopping site and was mailed a money order, closely resembling a postal money order, to cash and then send money back minus $120.
ANYTIME you are asked to do this, it is a scam. I heard the same thing is going on on craigslist now too where you are offered more than your asking price. They need your email to access your paypal. Not sure how it works, but I'm sure you are sent a virus or something.
While getting a check out of the blue for $6000 might be tempting, please do not fall for it.

Actually the way this works is not that they send you a virus. The check or money order is actually a fake, but it doesn't show up right away when you cash it. So you send them $120, thinking you have a lot more than that from the check you cashed, but really the whole amount of the check gets deducted from your account when it bounces. So you actually have lost $120, and they gained. It is a similar set up through Paypal. When the payment gets cahrged back, since it was fake to begin with, you lose all that money they supposedly sent you, plus whatever you sent them back.
This is a really disgusting scam. These people who come up with this stuff obviously don't have a conscience. I don't know how they sleep at night.