Yeah, I'm a jerkbag. But I'm a jerkbag who picks on other, more severe jerkbags. Check this link out first:
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/Those pictures still crack me up! Anyways, I have been searching Craigslist regularly for a good used car, and I came across a 2002 Honda Civic for only $2600! I figured it had to be my lucky day, or a big fat scam.
Guess which one it was? No, not my lucky day. Good guess, though.
"Jen's" initial response was a sob story about a dead husband who served in Iraq, and just wanting to get rid of the car. Pretty convenient, right? Anyways, that first email faintly mentioned the old, "I'll pay for the shipping" line, but I wanted to be sure this was a true, blue scammer. Sure enough, to my enthusiastic reply came a request for my FULL NAME AND ADDRESS, and the promise that eBay would be the "neutral" third party in this.
She even made up a nifty name for the program, the Mutual Vehicle Purchase Protection Program. Basically, she wants me to send my 2600 smackers to this "neutral" account, where the money will stay until I have gone all the way out to the storage in Montana to inspect the vehicle. In her words, "once you've seen the car and decide you want to buy it, you tell them to go ahead with the transaction and I will ship the car to you."
Confused yet? Honestly, I don't know how anyone falls for this crap. I have, however, been successfully wasting this person's time leading them to believe I'm going to follow these ridiculous instructions. A brilliant bout of email acting on my part, if I do say so myself.
The pressing matter is that I'd like to do something "teach-you-a-lesson-y" to this person, much like in the above prank, but I'm only getting emails that ask for my personal information. She refuses to answer any more questions. Does anyone have suggestions as to how I might make things worse for the scammer?
