Originally Posted by robertplant

A lady was advertising her car for sale on Craigs List (Detroit, Michigan) for a ridiculously low price. It was a 2006 Honda Odyssey, fully loaded for $2900. I thought it was a misprint and expected her to reply as such (I was thinking it was really $12900, which was still a good deal). She responds stating that she IS selling the car for 2900, which she received in a divorce settlement and has no use for. I ran the VIN through Carfax and find she is in Florida. I had a few days off of work and thought I would fly down there and buy the car, spend a few days, then drive it back. I tell her so in an email (at this point we are only communicating via email). She responds that she would prefer to transact this through ebay secure pay.
I kept sending her emails to call me, and she responds that she has no phone. She sends me what appears to be an ebay page to submit payment. I insisted I woud fly down the very next day and still pay her the 2900 (she was offering to ship the car, which would cost 500). I knew it was a scam. I called ebay, as she was posing as an ebay seller. You think they cared? I was constantly transferred to a voicemail system. Here I had someone in the middle of perpetrating a fraud and they did not care. I told this to the operator that answered at ebay. Finally called the police inthe city where the car was registered and gave them the VIN. They told me the car was not registered to this 'Lorena Johnson' but to someone else. They thanked me and said they were going to inform the old owner.
Incidentally, after I first made contact with this 'Lorena Johnson' the car was removed from CraigsList (he/she must of thought they found a victim). I googled the VIN and found the same listing on Craigs List in Miami, from two weeks previous.