About 10 or so years ago, the wife and I were in the market for a large SUV (think Ford Expedition). I took to Craigslist and E-Bay as search tools and found a number of unscrupulous posters that had "too good to be true" vehicles for sale. Photos of the cars were clearly professionally taken at exotic locales. The usual premise was that the owner and car were nowhere near the post location and the car was listed at way below market value. The typical ploy was that the owner was desperate to sell it and would be willing to ship the car to "your" location for a nominal fee of just a few thousand dollars. If the card wasn't everything the seller made it out to be and you didn't wish to proceed with the sale, your money would be fully refunded, no questions asked. "How lucky can one get?" you ask.
I had found myself a new hobby. I relentlessly pursued these sellers, using newly formed e-mail addresses. As luck would have it, I always had friends or family in their area (usually military or local PD) who would be willing to bring them the deposit fee if not the asking price and to inspection the goods because , I REALLY wanted that car! I would hound them until eventually, the post for the car would be removed and the sellers account cancelled. I apparently missed my calling as a lucrative online comedian as one of my sons introduced me to the videos of James Veitch, a young man who engages e-mail scammers in a similar fashion. Google him. You man find his videos amusing.
In any case. I hope my "work" prevented at least a few people from being scammed.
