CraigsList Scams

So we're selling our futon. Yes, Fortune's futon and yes, the same futon that our first (shortly owned) cat Sasha pulled a shit-piss double whammy on. It's been throroughly cleaned.

So we posted an ad on Craigslist and, almost immediately, received a reponse from Kelly Beck. (We would later learn that, as we suspected, no one name Kelly writes English like Borat.) Kelly was eager, though, and offered to pay us $100 right then and there and have her movers come pick it up.

Shortly after, we received another email from Kelly. It appeared that her secretary had mistakenly sent us a check for $3500 (the cost of the whole moving operation, of course) not the $100 for the couch. Poor Kelly. It was a special check and it couldn't be voided. It was simple, though, we could just cash the check when it got to us and wire the money back to Kelly.

We resisted, because that sounded weird and we had other offers. But then she offered us $200. We didn't say anything for awhile, but thought about doing it. When the check came, it wasn't from Kelly, which sounded Ok because her secretary had sent it. Problem was, it was from PTL Test Equipment and no one named Kelly Beck works there as far as we could tell. While the check's return address was a P.O. Box in Pennsylvania, the company's offices were in Jupiter Florida. We called the company's bank. The account on the check had been closed for months. So we called the company. Their sales manager Dave was now their chief anti-fraud consultant. 'Is this about the checks?' He knew right away.

Their business checks had been stolen and now Kelly -- who's apparently some guy with a cell phone from San Antonio who takes trips to the Bahamas (or so the FBI told Dave) -- was sending bogus checks to Craigslist saps. We were supposed to cash the check and send Kelly the money before the check cleared. When it never did, somebody would be stuck with a $3500 bounced check to pay for.

That's where it stands now, and Kelly has emailed Zoe a few more times asking if the check arrived alright. I still have it in my backpack. Fuck Kelly. Who's real identity is probably the owner of Benchwarmers.