Beware of this craigslist/ebay scammer. The person posted NFL tickets for sale on craigslist and then says he can only do the transaction through ebay... but first he needs my name, address and ebay id. I gave him a fake ebay name and address to see where it would lead. Then, I receive an email that is supposed to look like it is from ebay saying that the ebay transaction is confirmed (which is impossible since I provided a fake ebay name). The email said the sellers PayPay account is currently not working so I will need to wire cash to the seller via Western Union. The email instructed me to wire the money to the name Martin Pratt 809 Romford Road London, UK. The original email communications listed the name Julia Barton in the email address but it was @googlemail.com (which means it is from a country where the gmail domain is not available) and now I am supposed to wire money to a man named MARTIN PRATT in a different country and then the tickets will be mailed to me. Yup, that sounds pretty legit.

Right now I am in the process of exchanging emails with the scammer because I gave him a fake Western Union MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number). I made sure to give him a 10 digit number so it looked legit... but guess what, he is unable to find the money with Western Union. Tomorrow, I will email him again to say that I transposed one of the MTCN numbers and he should call Western Union again.

Anybody can make up an email address to use for scams, but I assume it is difficult to create a name with a matching picture ID to use at Western Union... So if I can help people beware of Western Union transfers that involve MARTIN PRATT we may be able to make this guy go through the trouble of creating another fake identity... as I am sure he will not quit trying to scam people.