Craigslist Used Car Scam

So i was on Craigslist the other day going through multiple pages of cars in the Pittsburgh area. I legit went through a few hundred cars, some promising others not so much, when suddenly I saw the perfect car. It was a 2006 Dodge Charger with a completely clean title, no accidents, nothing wrong with it what-so-ever, and the price was $3,300 with only 53,882 miles. Obviously it was too good to be true but just in-case I decided to email the seller and ask for more information. While waiting for a reply I found a few other promising cars like a 2003 Infinity G35 and a 2006 Toyota Avalon XL, which I emailed the sellers for more information as well. After a few hours I received an email back from the 2006 Dodge Charger seller. This is what the email said:

Hi,

I've received your email regarding the 2006 Dodge Charger RT with 53,882 miles on it, Sedan, Automatic, Gasoline, Engine: 5.7L V8 SFI. The car is still for sale and my asking price is $3300. It is a 2006 model loaded with everything.You have here the VIN # to see that everything is like I said : 2B3LA53H06H516910. The car is very well maintained and it has just been completely serviced. The engine runs very good and the automatic transmission shifts perfectly.The car is in perfect condition with clear title,no accidents, no liens or loans.I'm an oceanographer and I'm on sea at this moment, so I left the car in Perkins OK,  at the shipping company, it's already packed and waiting to be shipped anywhere.Shipping/delivery is included in this price as I almost closed the deal with another customer but he was unable to take the loan from the bank. I've already prepared shipping for him as he was out of state.

Here are some pictures with the car:
http://s1062.photobucket.com/albums/t500/fsdf0sdhf0sdhfs0df/
Let me know if you are still interested.

Regards,
Britanny Thomas

First of all why is there a car from Perkins, OK listed in Pittsburgh Craigslist? Second of all shipping a car is roughly $500 if not more which means the car's original selling price is roughly $2800 which is extremely low for a car with that low of millage and absolutely nothing wrong with it not to mention its a 2006 Dodge Charger. I decided to go on CarFax and use the VIN number they gave me and an actual car did pop up. Obviously you have to pay to use CarFax which I wasn't about to do with a car like this so I googled the VIN number to see if anything else popped up. Surprisingly there was a link that popped up  titled " 2006 Dodge Charger Scam By Jennifer Bradley ". I clicked this link to find the same exact email that i just posted above except that the name is different yet also a girl. A few hours later I receive emails back from the other 2 cars. Surprise Surprise, the email said this:

Hi,

I've received your email regarding the 2006 Toyota Avalon XL with 46,000 miles on it,Transmission:Automatic, 3.5L 6 Cylinder Gasoline Fuel . VIN: 4T1BK36BX6U095855 . The car is still for sale and my asking price is $3400. It is a  2006  model loaded with everything. The car is very well maintained and it has just been completely serviced. The engine runs very good and the automatic transmission shifts perfectly.The car is in perfect condition with clear title,no accidents, no liens or loans.

I'm an oceanographer and I'm on sea at this moment, so I left the car in Marina Del Rey, CA, at the shipping company, it's already packed and waiting to be shipped anywhere . Shipping/delivery is included in this price as I almost closed the deal with another customer but he was unable to take the loan from the bank. I've already prepared shipping for him as he was out of state.

Here are some pictures with the car : 

http://photobucket.com/2006_Toyota_Avalon

Let me know if you are still interested.

Regards,

Maria Jaimes

And then there was this one:

Hi,

 I've received your email regarding the Infiniti G35 with 51,445 miles on it. The car is still for sale and my asking price is $3,400. It is a 2003 model loaded with everything, VIN# JNKCV54E33M221783. The car is very well maintained and it has just been completely serviced. The engine( 3.5L V6)  runs very good and the automatic transmission shifts perfectly. The car is in perfect condition with clear title,no accidents, no liens or loans.
I'm an oceanographer and I'm on sea at this moment, so I left the car in Franklin, NC,  at the shipping company, it's already packed and waiting to be shipped anywhere.  Shipping/delivery is included in this price as I almost closed the deal with another customer but he was unable to take the loan from the bank. I've already prepared shipping for him as he was out of state.

Here are some pictures with the car:
http://s1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg575/03InfinitiG35/

Let me know if you are still interested.
Regards,
Sarah Harrison

After the third email I was so mad. The scamer tried to make this flawless and provided a background story, all necessary car information, pictures, and even a legit VIN number. The thing that gets me is that every scamer, including "Jennifer Bradley" from the link above, are all girls. I talked to my boyfriend's dad who is a CFO to a big company about this scam and told him everything and he gave me some really interesting information. He told me this is called a Nigerian scam

How he described it is "Theres probably some scamer just sitting on their laptops at a cafe posting millions of scams like the one you received and all it takes is one sucker to believe the scam and sent the person money and suddenly they're $3,000-$4,000 richer." I then asked him why he thinks the scamer used all girl names and he said "Well a girl would seem more honest than a guy would" after he said this it also clicked that the story of being an Oceanographer also has that innocent/ honest aspect to it. The last thing my boyfriend's dad mentioned is that if the oceanographer was supposedly over seas at that time how would they send emails from their computer and how would they have the time to be able to reply to my emails anytime? He even brought up the point that if I were to ask for a phone number to personally speak to the seller they would probably say they are unable to since they are at sea, which is another good point. 

The main point to this post basically is to watch out for scams like this. If something seems too good to be true, probably is.I hope you have a scam free Not So Average Day.