Another Craigslist classified scam

If you deal with Bernard Anderson on craigslist ... here's what happens:

He will email you and tell you his secretary messed up and put in extra money on the check he's getting. He'll ask you to wire the extra money to the person who is coming to pick up your item and will offer you extra money for your trouble. The money comes from Eden Prairie Halal Market (this is a grocery store in Eden Prairie, owned by Yussus Hassan. It shows up on manta.com's business profiles ... looks VERY legit -- but the UPS packet says it came overnighted from John Gokool in Homestead, FL which is an americanized nickname for Johann Gokool who is an injured navy sailor whose leg was amputated in the USS Cole bombing in Yemen).

This extra money goes via moneygram to Richard Lassiter in Greenville, NC. He will then tell you a couple hours after you wire the money that the guy ran off with the money, that he's contacted the authorities to search for him and will ask you to send more money to another shipper. When you don't, he will say "go ahead and return the money for what I bought and send it to Rose Fraser in Hermitage PA via Western Union. You can look all these names up on the internet and they're legit. Use intelius.com, zabasearch.com, pipl.com, 123people.com ... everything shows up. These scammers are THAT good!!

If you refuse to do that, and tell him you will only send the money back to Eden Prairie Halal Market where it came from and any further packets from UPS back to John Gokool (regardless of whether you've figured out he's either embezzling, money laundering, scamming, etc) he will try to guilt trip you. First he's out of the country on a Malaysia rescue team (funny since he's deaf), then he's in the UK for treatment ... he will also send you more money saying it's from his personal account, and not to contact Eden Prairie because he's a supervisor for the Halal Market network in the US and if it was found out he was using store funds to buy an object on the internet, he'd get into a lot of trouble. He will also try to scare you by saying you're taking the law into the own hands and getting into something that does not concern you. If you still refuse to help him out he will threaten to contact the FBI on you for internet fraud. He never sends anyone to pick up the item he's allegedly buying from you.

Don't cash the check from Eden Prairie Halal Market or any other check coming in a packet from "John Gokool" and wire anything out unless the check clears your bank AND Wells Fargo in 7-10 days. It's a bad check, no matter how legit it looks and some banks will put the money in your account as available before Wells Fargo tells them it's a dead account or the funds aren't there for whatever reason. It will bounce and you will be in hock with your bank for whatever you wired for him.

Take good care,
Erin.

I am in the middle of a transaction in which I am trying to get the government agencys involved but this person is using the name Ben Parker,but this Shirley Sintor is the so called agent,which seems to be the common denominator in all these scams

He just got to me too! "Are you still willing to sale this item?Let me know as soon as possible." He wants to buy my ring for a friend he met at a "conference"and asking to go thru alert pay, yet wants my name address and phone. I am so glad I googled his name and found this. I was thinking of sending him this site link but I'd hate to let him know that maybe he should change his name occasionally.