Scams on Craiglist and Amazon

This is an article in the New York Times, about a Craiglist scam with a London rental apartment.

The "agent" requests money upfront via a bank wire. and later says the owner/landlord skipped town.
http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/burned-a-london-vacation-rental-scam/

Scamming is becoming very popular, one key that has saved me from a scam once, is to have multiple email addresses.

I was selling things on Amazon, and the potential "buyer" requested I send more detailed pictures of the item not using the Amazon facilities. I sent pictures using an email address NOT associated with mu Amazon seller account, lo and behold I got a spoof email saying the item was sold through amazon, please ship it. I knew the email was spoofed as it came to the wrong email address and my amazon account had no reference to the sale. When reporting it to Amazon, they did not seem concerned.

Craigslist scams

Here is the latest one I got:


Computer Repair - Free Estimates (Oakland County)
1 message
Craig Newmark Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 12:28 PM
Reply-To: craignewmarkk@live.com
To: Subscriber
Dear Craigslist Poster,

This is Craig Newmark. I'm the founder of Craigslist. We have been working with Apple Inc on new promotional giveaways. Basically we are giving away free iPads and other Apple products to randomly picked Craigslist posters. You have been picked as our winner for today. Your Craigslist post id came up in our random pick. You have won a free iPad!!! Please visit our promotional page here and follow the directions to get your free iPad. This is not a scam. After following the directions on our promotional page we will ship you an iPad within 3-4 business days.

Congratulations on winning an Apple iPad (currently valued at $829). If you have any concerns or questions you can contact me by replying to this email. Before contacting me I recommend that you visit our promo page here and sign up for your free iPad so we can reserver one for you.

Thank you for posting on Craigslist,

Craig Newmark
Founder, Craigslist Inc.



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Promo Consulting Inc, 2061 W Redlands Blvd, Redlands, CA 92373, United States
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Getting a good deal on a rental car

1. Use your own car insurance if you have an Auto Policy. (Valid in the US)
2. Find any valid corporate group you can be a part of eg. AAA, Costco, etc...
3. Find valid coupon codes
4. Sign up for email from companies
eg. Enterprise has Free double upgrades, 25% off, 9.99 weekends
5. With all of the deals watch out for other charges
a. Airport vs. local pickup will have fewer taxes
b. Newark, NJ vs New York City
c. Tourist taxes
i. Wayne County in Michigan (Detroit) has a stadium tax on Rental cars.
ii. the city of Bloomington has an additional Hotel Tax to help pay for the Mall of America
d. Unlimited mileage vs. 100 or 150 free miles + 0.20 for each additional mile.

I was booking a car on Enterprise's website, and hit a few of these issues.
The $9.99 weekend did not work for me as I was planning on using more than 100 miles per day, in the end I combined a Corporate discount with a promotional code to get a free double car class upgrade.