Beware of Craigslist Scammers!

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Last week my son told me he sold an old car to someone on Craigslist. As soon as he told me the guy was mailing him a check for TWICE THE AMOUNT of the car, I said "Oh No! It's a scam!" I remembered the same thing happening to my other son a couple years ago. The guy told him the check was for twice the amount and he wanted my son to mail the other half to another person. What happens is: The check is a fake. And if you send half of the money to someone, you are sending YOUR OWN MONEY. Don't EVER accept a check for twice the amount of money. After my son went to the bank and found out the check was actually a fake, he got a different offer from someone else. This guy said he could only pay through PayPal. My son did not have a PayPal account, but the guy told him he could open one in a few minutes. My son asked me if this would be safe. I thought it sounded safe, but just in case, I googled the words "Craigslist Paypal Scam." And I found a warning that some man put online. This man had tried to sell a boat on Craigslist and the scammer told him to open a PayPal account. The scammer said he put MORE than enough money in the account " by accident" And told the man that part was supposed to go to the person picking up the boat. So he asked him to send the money to the pick up guy. THESE SCAMMERS HAVE THE ABILITY TO SEND EMAILS THAT LOOK LIKE THEY ARE REALLY FROM PAYPAL! The fake PayPal email tells you that the person really deposited money into your PayPal account and that it is safe to send some back. My son thought that his case was different. He said this guy actually called him on the phone and he sounded really nice. My son wanted to trust him. So he opened a PayPal account like the scammer suggested. I asked my son to promise me that he will call it off if the guy pulls the next trick and says he put too much money in PayPal by accident. Sure enough, the next day, the guy said he accidentally put too much money in my sons PayPal account and he wanted my son to send some to the pick up person. The scammer even sent my son the fake email from PayPal that looked real. My son even got a text message on his phone that said it was from Paypal and it said it was ok for him to send funds through western union to the scammer! Meanwhile, there was never ANY money put into my son's paypal account! I am warning anyone who reads this that if you're going to sell anything on Craigslist, make sure you state that you ONLY accept cash in person. No exceptions!