George used Craigslist for selling items and usually the deals happened without problem.

However, one time he sold an item for $400 but the buyer sent him a cheque for $1,500.

The seller claimed he was out of the country and could George refund the difference through Western Union.

George says: I knew it was a scam so I dragged it out.  I kept making excuses. He then asked me about sending the money to a cousin/his moving people (kept coming up with new people).

I kept dragging it out, asking all sorts of questions, acting like I was concerned he wouldn’t get the money.

Of course, he was very impatient, kept emailing me “when can you send it?”, “did you send it yet?” and all the time he starts escalating the tone, threatening to turn me in for keeping his money which I kept promising him I was going to send.

I knew that if I paid the check into my bank, it would have taken a few days to even a couple of weeks to have the check show up as no good, by then I’d be out the difference.

Finally after so many desperate threats and emails I told him I knew it was a scam all along and I even turned him in to some FBI fraud thing and that he needs to stop now.

He didn’t contact me again.

Well done George.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.