Stamp "Sucker" On My Forehead

I hate admitting things that make me seem weak, but I guess these are the things that make me human.

Before my sister left for her honeymoon, she asked me to post her wedding dress on CraigsList and sell it for her. When it comes to my sister, I have an extremely hard time telling her no and so I told her I would do it. How hard could it be, right???

So, last week, I posted the dress and within a day, I had an offer. The lady told me she lived in TX and that the dress was for her daughter who was working missions in Nigeria and was getting married in Nigeria. So, the dress needed to be shipped overseas. NIGERIA! What? This immediately sent up red flags to me and I was totally on guard. After a few email correspondences, the lady said she was going to pay me through Paypal and so I relaxed some and thought...well, this may not be a scam after all.

Friday morning, she emailed saying she had sent the payment through Paypal and could I send the dress as soon as I got the confirmation from them. No problem...right? Paypal is totally trustworthy. By Saturday morning, I had the confirmation email from Paypal...HOWEVER...they wouldn't be able to release the funds to me until I could provide them with the tracking number. I shipped the package on Saturday right before the post office closed. Then, my instincts started telling me I had just screwed up.

By Saturday evening, I was totally sick to my stomach and just knew that I had been scammed. To confirm my feelings, I started doing some research on Paypal and found that if Paypal is holding funds, I should have still been able to see them in a pending status...which of course, there were no funds to be seen. I emailed Paypal security and forwarded them the very official looking email that I thought was from them. They confirmed that the payment confirmation email that I had received was, in fact, NOT from them and was a fraud.

I went immediately into panic mode...but after calming myself down, I have called the post office and found out that it isn't hard to recall a package. So, I will be going to the post office to get the shipment stopped and get the dress back in my possession.

In the meantime, though, I am still getting emails from the scammers. I got one this morning, again from the fake Paypal, stating that they were able to confirm the shipment, but that there has been a system error and I won't be able to get my funds for another 72 hours. This is their attempt to stall me so I don't realize that I've been scammed.

I'm happy that this one will have a happy ending, but I hate that has possibly happened to others who didn't catch on to the scam quiet as quickly. So, I hope this is a warning to everyone!!! Read up on how Paypal actually works...and if you are the least bit concerned and thinking that something is not legitimate, it probably isn't. I'll definitely listen to my instincts more next time!