How bad should I get these lowlifes?

Ferrarichat decides these guys fate. I listed my digital camera setup on Craigslist, and I get a response from an interesting woman.

Meet Phalesia, this is the woman interested in my camera. Long story short, I get a 'paypal' notice after she asked for my info. It confirmed she in fact paid me an extra $100 dollars too. Enticing right?

but my balance still remains $0.00

And I got a 'SHIPPING UPDATE' email right after that one, stating the obvious.

Do I leave it alone, or do I string this one out not in their favor?
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Well, for starters, you put her name, address, and email addy on the internet...

I have never received payments through paypal, is there any recourse there (fraud department, etc)? Small claims court, especially out of town, just wouldn't be worth your while on a financial basis.

 

How much time do you have on your hands?

You could P-P-Powerbook her:

http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/

 

+1 on the p p p powerbook! You need to find out how Paypal works on fraud payments. Once you have that down you need to string her along a bit to get so that she gets the c-c-c-canon camera about the time pp figures out she is full of it.

 

One of the few drawn-out internet sagas I actually read. Damn funny!

 

You do know that if she's got her PayPal account linked directly to her checking account it takes a couple of days for the funds to actually hit your account? I'd say make her aware of the issue and wait a few days. If then you don't get your account credited I say move forward via PayPal to bust this lady. But, so far if it's only been a day or so it's too early to tell.

Also, not cool to post her name and address on the internet so soon. Did you Google the address to see if it was hers?

 

Another thought would be to tell her you are having trouble with PP and can only except a check and see what she says.

 

Totally agree, this looks like a typical scam

 

Charles, thanks for that response. You're right, and I sent them a responding email back stating just that. I looked up the property information, different name (very hard to pronounce). And seems to be in (or near) a Warehouse district.

 

And then go missing like the prankster....

 

Oooh. Please, do tell more!

 

It says in the end, that the scammer sent him a virus, and had one of his websites shut down, and the people from that website tried to contact the seller, and he replied once, and never again. That's about it, it's really a short read. Took me about 20 minutes. It's quite hilarious too.

 

Great story on the Powerbook thing. Very creative.

RMX