Crime & Punishment

If you've ever posted an ad on craigslist.org, chances are you have received an email like the one below:  

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I will have to inform you that i am okay with the price of the [item name] ($375)condition terms are also okay with me,For the Shippment from your location,i have my SHIPPER as soon as we seal this Transaction from your end.

I have a CLIENT of my that is owning me some Fund in United Kingdom that will issue you the cheque of ($2000) soon as you receive the cheque and when cleared you will deduct the cost of the [item name] and the remaining balance will be send to the Shipper through western union money transfer for the pick up from your location.

If this is okay by you, do e-mail me the following detail

FULL NAME ON CHEQUE:
CONTACTED ADDRESS:
MOBILE&LANDLINE PHONE NUMBER:AND ZIP CODE
I will compensate you $50 to remove the advert from the site and will wait until the cheque clear before the pick up commence.hope to read from you today. 

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Complete with all the telltale signs of a scam designed to part you from your money. The typos, grammatical errors, and the feeling that it's a deal that's just too good to be true. You may have spotted these warning signs immediately. Others won't be so lucky.

Enter 38  year old Matthew Shinnick. Matthew was unfortunate enough to be on the wrong side of one such scam. The San Francisco resident listed a pair of mountain bikes on craigslist for which he received an offer of $600 from a buyer claiming to be in Canada. 

 After exchanging emails over the course of a couple of weeks, Shinnick said he received a check for $2,000 shortly after Christmas and was informed that the extra cash was to cover shipping costs "and for my trouble."

The sheer size of the check, supposedly drawn on the buyers Bank of America business account, raised a red flag for Shinnick. Not wanting to deposit it in his own account for fear it would bounce, he decided to play it safe and stop by a Bank of America branch to verify the checks validity.

He gave the check to a teller and asked if there were enough funds in the account to cover it. 

"She said it was a valid account and that there were funds to cover it," Shinnick recalled. "I said, 'Great,' and asked to cash the check." 

As it turned out, the business account was real, but the check was a fake. The teller handed the check to the branch manager who alerted the police and Mr. Shinnick was placed under arrest.

Fast forward to July of the following year, a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled that Shinnick was innocent by "findings of fact" -- a decision that essentially erases all record of the case. By this time, he had already spent an estimated $14,000 fighting to clear his name. Money he has no legal recourse to recoup. 

Full story here:

http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-08-30/business/17308300_1_craigslist-bofa-bogus-check/2