BEWARE: SCAM ARTISTS ON CRAIGSLIST!!!

My turn has finally come... I tend to think I am a proactive person and try to prevent problems from happening before they arise, this has worked for me until now. In January I put my apartment for rent on Craigslist. As many of you know, I received hundreds of responses. I told those who responded that they need to contact my roommate since she was doing the roommate screening and work out the technicalities with her. After about a week on Craigslist, my roommate found someone she was satisfied with and I moved on. About three weeks ago, I received an email from someone in Africa stating that she sent me $3,400 for my apartment and why hadn't I contacted her. I told her no one ever told her to send the money and the apartment was already rented out. A week later a cashier's check from Chase Manhattan Bank in the amount of $3,400 arrived in the mail. I immediately emailed her and told her I was going to return the check right back to her. She asked me if I could cash it and wire the money via Western Union to her agent in Miami. I was not really comfortable depositing the check in my name because I was unsure of the sender. I went to a local Chase bank, since it was Chase who issued the check and asked them to cash it. Of course they gave me crap about it and told me the only way to cash this was to deposit it into my account (I already had gone to one of those bootleg check cashing places). At this point this was becoming very time consuming and I notified her that I was going to take a $100 PITA (pain in the ass) fee for my troubles. I deposited the money and waited for the check to clear and when it did I went to Western Union and wired the money to her agent. I wired the money and sent her the confirmation and was happy that this was all over, or so I thought. I then received a slew of emails telling me to go back to Western Union and withdraw the transfer and wire it to Nigeria and she would pay me $700 for my trouble. This raised red flags in my head. First, Nigeria in my mind equals some sort of terror cell. Second, why would someone so easily relinquish $700 to a stranger. My brother told me this was definitely a scam and told me to read this on Craigslist about avoiding scams. After reading the scam page I was in shock. I could not believe that I could not see through this piece of shit. Basically what these assholes do is respond to ads of craigslist and then send more money than necessary (my apt was only $1100, she sent me $3400) with a FAKE cashiers check. They then instruct the person to cash it and wire the rest to a travel agent. The bank will cash the check and will only pick up that its a fake check weeks after its cashed and the money is gone, they will then slam you with fees and possible criminal charges. (Using a fake check is a felony!)

I quickly called Western Union and they put a stop on the money transfer and I was able to get the cash back. I emailed her and told her that I know that she is a scam and that I will go to the FBI and police. I haven't heard a word back from her. I went to the police station today and told the officer what happened (I want to cover my ass, ex post facto) and the officer looked at me and ever so frankly said "police are reactive not proactive. You are in the middle of being scammed and until the scam is over we cant do anything about it." I was like wouldn't we have a safer world if law enforcement was PROACTIVE and not REACTIVE??!?!?!

I will call the FBI in the morning. I am not so much pissed as much as I am shocked at myself for not trusting my gut and ripping up the check when I got it. I usually have a good eye for assholes and shysters and I usually avoid them at all costs. I will post the developments as they happen.