Honesty on the Net - beware of scammers!

Does anyone know if there are any honest Nigerians? They come on so nice and sweet, giving a gift to friends or family and bam they try to scam you out of your merchandise without giving a real payment. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe they were being honest and would make a purchase with real money. I'm convinced that they are all out to steal as much as they can get away with from merchants trying to make a living. I came close once to getting burned with a check sent to me, but the bank couldn't clear the check. When they were found out, suddenly their email address disappeared. I've had many attempts from Nigerians to buy Portable DVD players. They try to pay with fake escrow services, USPS, Paypal, TNT Express. None of these companies do this, the emails were all fakes. When they see that I won't be scammed the emails stop coming. If a someone contacts you to buy a product and their writing appears not to be good english, get a shipping address right away. If the zipcode is 23401 Lagos, Nigeria. Don't waste your time replying to them. Believe me it will be a waste. I wish I had those countless hours back. Anyone have anything to add?

Well I would say yes most of them are scammers unfortunately. I have never met or dealt with anyone from Nigeria who doesn't want something for nothing. My advice is STAY WELL CLEAR full stop regardless of how nice or genuine they seem to be.

I totally agree with you. All this bull with Nigeria is getting old. I just started a topic about Nigerians that tried to get my sister... using fake paypal emails. Thankfully she started checking into their story a bit, checked the supposed US addresses that they were using and quickly figured out they were full of it... One guy used a fake town in Oregon with a zip code for tennessee and a phone number from Ohio... if that isn't an obvious lie, I don't know what is.

At least you realized what was going on before you lost anything.

I had a very good Nigerian friend at one time, although he didn't want something for nothing so I would say avoid in the world of auctions.

toffee.

I believe there are hard working honest Nigerians out there... just not many of them seem to frequent ebay. :P

I agree. Stay away and do not sell to them. I have had them send me fake emails, fake money orders, fake checks and even an email saying they were a lawyer and I was holding their clients money (that they never really sent) and was to send them their money back or ship the items. Once I told him that I was going to contact my lawyer, I never heard from him again! So be very cautious!!

i'm ALWAYS getting e-mails from people in nigeria saying that i've inherited like $100,000,000 or something like that. It gets really annoying after awhile.

I just got an obvious one from a nigerian from craigslist. He says he'll send me a money order. Can i just tell him to send me the money for the hell of it and not send him the product, or is that risky since he will have my home address?

Um nigeria is far, I doubt he will come looking for you this far. And by the way people, it is the INTERNET, so basically anyone can say ther are from anywhere they want. Have you stopped to think it may be some crazy american with an identity problem? Just saying dont point the finger to 'nigerians' cause ya really don't know who is behind it.

Isn't Nigera one of those poor, rathole of a country, or am i thinking a decade ago. They should atleast say their from South Africa. There's more commerce and trade in that country

agree with jadzia1182, and it applys to some other countries too..