Postal Letter

Plz help!!!! what should i do i have been scammed through craigslist by a nigerian??!!?

Plz help!!!! what should i do i have been scammed through craigslist by a nigerian??!!? I was selling my pink acer laptop on craigslist for $300 and someone emailed me from hotmail saying that they were interested in buying it for her son thats in school overseas in nigeria so she offered an extra $120 for shipping and i thought that it was too good to be true.......but anyway to make the long story short she told me to set up a paypal account and that she was going to put the money in there and she was sending me a fake paypal email this whole time it looked real i even showed my dad to make sure it was legit and everything called a couple of adult friends and asked if paypal was legit and they said yeah so thats when she sent me a fake paypal which i thought was the real paypal and it had a transaction id and everything and my whole name was on there first and last with the $420 so i shipped it and got back home sent paypal the confirmation number and everything but the money never showed up in my account it still said $0.00 and then she sent me another fake paypal and it said send a copy of the receipt and the money will be in the account in 24 hours so then i waited and today i called paypal and they told me i been scammed and they told me to contact us postal service and tell them to stop my laptop from being shipped off and they said that it just left newyork at 12 noon today and they had to track it before it gets out of the country and i wont have no way of getting it back. The thing is that i hope i get it back!!!! but the sad thing is that i paid $55.10 to get it shipped and i lost out on that money and that this can happen to anyone because theres no way i could have known that they paypal she was sending me was fake i thought it was the real paypal because on the side it had a protection thing to make sure it was real and i feel bad and scared at the same time because im only 18 and this was my first time selling something over the internet...but i already made a police report, i contacted craigslist and told them but the main thing i wanna do is have something done about it because i never heard about this nigerian scam stuff and i dont know what else to do!!!!!!!!!!

Public Comments

1. If she really was Nigerian do you really think you're getting it back? These scams have been around since before the internet (It's the old ponsy scam)
2. Rule of thumb, make sure the website starts with https://www.paypal.com If it doesn't then your on a fake paypal site. To learn more about how to stay safe online check out this website: http://www.pchelperdesk.com
3. Unfortunately, there's really nothing you CAN do, other than consider it a lesson learned. If someone even mentions "Nigeria," DO NOT RESPOND!