ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – A woman who was selling some expensive jewelry lost out on thousands of dollars.
According to a report from the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office, the woman was selling her wedding and engagement rings on Craigslist.
She said she shipped off the rings, but didn't get paid for them.
"Within 24 hours, I got a couple of responses," Natasha Saar said. "The first one seemed like they were frauds, trying to offer me more than $500 asking price, but this one asked a lot of what I thought were legitimate questions: Were/are you the original owner? How long have you had them? That sort of thing, and we had been in contact for a couple of days."
Saar, 28, was trying to sell her engagement and wedding rings, so she logged onto Craigslist to see if anyone was interested. Within days, she was contacted by Dakota Martin, who agreed to pay $3,000.
According to the report she filed with the Sheriff’s Office, Martin told her to use PayPal. On Monday, she received an email that she thought was from PayPal, saying it would release the money from the transaction as soon as the buyer received the rings in the mail.
When Natasha sent the rings off, she said she received a second email stating the money would be released into her account the next day, but that never happened.
"A couple of days later, I still didn't see anything, and then I called PayPal again and they told me they had no record of any transaction even though I had gotten two emails from what I thought was PayPal. PayPal broke the news that this was a common scam and they don't send out emails like that," Saar said. "I would hate to see someone else go through this. I was devastated yesterday when they told me over the phone, and when I talked to their fraud department, they basically told me there was nothing I can do besides file a police report and hope for the best."
To avoid scams like this, PayPal recommends verifying through your PayPal account. If you receive an email that says you've received a PayPal payment, take a moment to log in to your PayPal account before you ship any merchandise. Make sure that money has actually been transferred and that it isn't just a scam.
Also, remember not to follow email links. The safest way to access your account is always to open a browser window, navigate to PayPal.com, and enter your login information.
For more about recognizing common scams, click here.