Warning! Beware of Scams!

• Address in Nigeria - home of "Nigerian Fraud" also known as "419 Fraud". Some scammers now use third parties nearer to you to avoid this obvious clue.
• Buyer doesn't seem to know much about your item. (May even refer to it as "your item" or "your product".)
• Buyer claims to be an agent, thus "explaining" the lack of knowledge.
• Buyer may offer to buy more copies than you have offered.
• Buyer offers an extremely high price or wants to pay a very high shipping fee or other money in addition to the price of the item, which you are to send to them or to a third party. Also, it's usually very easy to get them to agree to even more than they offer. The basic idea here is that the buyer provides you with a form of payment that looks authentic but eventually bounces such as a fake cashier's check. You then provide them with a fraction of that amount in a legitimate form of payment. (It can take 2 weeks for your bank to verify a cashier's check even though they put the money in your account immediately.) A few days later you get a notice from your bank that the check is a forgery. The scammer disappears with your money and your item. Sometimes, the scammer even creates a website for his fake bank.
• Buyer claims to be a government official or priest. (Or anyone who might sound extra trustworthy to you.)
• Your financial information is requested. Draining bank accounts is another favored Nigeria scam.
• The deal sounds too good.
• The deal seems unusually complicated or becomes more complicated over time.
• Strange terms such as "Advance Fee", "Transfer Tax", "Performance Bond" appear.
• Buyer uses a "freemail" address such as ...@yahoo.com. Not everyone who uses such an address is a scammer but most scammers use these kind of addresses.
• You are sent a (fake) Paypal payment email that links to a fake Paypal look-alike site. Logging into this fake site will give the scammer your Paypal password.
• Off-topic posts. ie: advertisements of mobile phones, computers, lotteries etc. in the HP Calculator Ads

Be careful.

• Consider using an escrow company, however, clever scammers sometimes suggest a escrow company that is really just a web site that they created. Use a real company like: www.escrow.com and don't be fooled by a site at a different URL which has simply copied the web pages from www.escrow.com.
• Use a search engine like google to search for generic portions of their pitch. Many scams are posted on websites.
• Contact them by phone. Most scammers prefer email because it gives them time to think up excuses/answers.

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