Same scam, same phone number and now it's eight months since the last post regarding Craigslist and this phone number.  You would think that the authorities would trace the phone by now, even if it is being spoofed.  In any case, these individuials will FedEx an overnight phony cashiers check, allegedly issued from the Navy Federal Credit Union, with the amount of the phony check way over the amount that was agreed upon for the item of purchase.  They then say that their secretary made a mistake and for you to cash the check and take out an additional $50 of your time and hassle and wire-transfer the rest back to them.  They then tell you that they will have a shipper come by and pickup the goods shortly thereafter to ship off to Pennsylvania.

I also discovered that they use stolen shipping number from companies with valid FedEx shipping accounts to send the checks from.  The return address of this particular shipment was showing as Palo Alto, CA - but doing a trace on the tracking number found the letter originated out of Dallas, TX.

This was all so fishy that I had to laugh that people will get snookered into something like this.  The easiest thing to do is call the credit union or bank in which the check was drawn from and they will verify if the check is legitimate or not.

How this scam works:  you deposit the check into your account, you are then liable for any of the money that had been credited to your account - after the bank has discovered the fraud.  So if you then wire transfer back any residual money you took from your account,  minus any cost of goods they purchased (stole) from you, then you are liable for the money you sent them plus the loss of your goods.

I would love to get my hands on these creeps just because they have made a business of fraud and theft of well meaning people, and throw them into bootcamp with a bunch of angry Marines who beat them with socks filled with soap.

This scenario appears to involve a group of people across many states.