I have gotten several responses asking if the cameras are still available. I replied to each saying they were, and asked for a telephone number to call to discuss the transaction. None of the replies have given me their phone number. None of them asked at all about the camera equipment. That threw up a huge red flag for me. Why would someone be willing to pay full price without even asking a single question about the equipment.

I think all are scams and am not going to participate in any transaction — preferring to sell locally to avoid these scams, but I wanted to pass along the info for information and input.

First Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Thanks for the message,I am from Canada but i am posting the item to my son living in this address below:

Son’s Name
Address
Nigeria
+234 (Phone number)

The shipping cost via USPS Global Express Mail (EMS), is 150 $, kindly log to your paypal account and send me the paypal money request now. Once i receive the request i will log in to my paypal account to made the payment asap.

MY THOUGHTS:

• At least the country code is in Nigeria. But why would he send his sons phone number instead of his own?
• Sender is an gmail user – nothing to give an idea of where the user might be emailing from
• The english is wrong. Now that might be a reflection of the Canadian School systems, but I don’t think so.
• I did a little research and apparently the scam is to send a phishing email back that spoofs paypal saying that you have received payment so you go ahead and send the item.
• I did forward the item to spoof@paypal.com for review

Second Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Am serious about buying the item from you i will want you to remove the advert from net I will like to buy this for my son schooling in abroad i will pay you $1,600 for your item ,please don’t offer it to any buyer again…i will be paying you $150 for shipping through USPS GLOBAL EXPRESS MAIL (EMS) and i will be making the payment through my Paypal account ,get me your name and paypal email address also your telephone number,looking forward to hearing from you soon.

MY THOUGHTS:

• Son is at school abroad? Seems a lot like the last email, whose son is in Nigeria
• Sender is an gmail user – nothing to give an idea of where the user might be emailing from
• The english is wrong. Now that might be a reflection of the US School systems, but I haven’t gotten a response back when I asked for a phone number to discuss
• This seems like the Phishing expedition of the previous email…
• I did forward the item to spoof@paypal.com for review

Here is the response to the second email when I asked for her telephone number:

Thanks for the mail, i would have love to call you but due to my traveling my phone is not in use for now, and since this transaction is going to involve paypal,so kindly give me your paypal email address so that i can pay you up

Third Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

2 separate email replies to my Craigslist ads from the same user (hotmail account) within the same minute asking if my cameras were still available.

MY THOUGHTS:

• Why not combine the email asking if both cameras are still available instead of replying to two different emails?
• Sender is a hotmail user – That rounds out the top 3 free email accounts (Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail)

Here is the response that I got to the emails requesting a telephone number. Exactly the same response to both emails – word for word.

I will like to buy it for my brother and will need your assistance in shipping it to him because i am not in the country right now but i hope it’s in a good condition.I will pay you through PayPal and will be adding an extra of $150 which i am sure will cover the shipping expenses.If you have an account with Paypal, just send me a money request of the total amount to my paypal email,{emailaddress}@gmail.com so i can make your payment.If you don’t have one,you can go to www.paypal.com and easily sign up for a personal account since it’s free,need your reply soon.Thanks.

It is interesting that the first email is a hotmail account but the Paypal account is a gmail account – not completely unreasonable, but interesting…

Fourth Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Another thread that was sent to me. The interesting thing is that the exact same email was sent by different names and email addresses, but they contained the same content word for word. This scammer even results to trying to play the missionary card for his Pastor’s son. Where is the respect?

hey friend,
please am a lawyer of a state and due to my work i travel from one country to another for a case so am stoke here in china and my phone don’t have access to work here that is why i can not call you and I’m highly interested in the immediate purchase of this item for my Pastor’s son who went to west Africa for his Missionary courses as birthday gift.I will be glad if you can let me know the total cost of shipping added to the price of the item and do get back to me with your final amount including your PayPal email address so to transfer the payment via PayPal asap. Looking forward to hearing from you soon. NOTE IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE FAKE ITEM POSTER OR SCAMPER NEVER GET BACK TO ME …………. bye

I forwarded this email to abuse@craigslist.com.

Fifth Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Nice hearing from you,My name is Miss Kate Bash from Califonia,am a business lady,am very happy to came accross your craigslist item.,and i like the condition of the item,so if is still available,i will like to buy it from you,am shipping this international to my fiance, and please do know that you will help me to do that, am ready to pay you the total amount of $1,800,for the item including the shipping fees ,via USPS EXPRESS MAIL INTERNATIONAL(EMS) and i will pay you via paypal,and if paypal is accepted,so kindly get back to me with your paypal e-mail address for the payment.so when i made the payment i will give you the full address.
Thanks and hope to hear from you.

I forwarded this email to abuse@craigslist.com.

Sixth Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Hello Seller,
Thanks for the swift reply,I offer you $1,750.00 and i want you to end the auction as
soon as possible.Could you please send me your paypal request so that i can make payment for you asap.Also let me know the shipping cost through USPS Internationally Express Mail because am purchasing this for my son.Immediately i received your Pay-Pal request,i will go ahead with the payment without any delay.Awaiting your quick response with this transaction as am serious about..
Regards.

I forwarded this email to abuse@craigslist.com.

Seventh Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

I am glad you replied to my mail and am sorry for the late reply.
Like i said earlier,i am really interested in purchasing this item for my cousin and i will also
want you to delete this item from post because i am serious about
purchasing and i would not want anybody to bother you any more on this item.Though it
has to be shipped to her internationally. i will pay you $1550
including the shipping and handling.If you are interested,get back to
me with the following:
(1)your full name
(2)Home address
(3)Pay pal email id.
so that i can make the payment as soon as possible.

I forwarded this email to abuse@craigslist.com.

Eighth Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Am serious about buying the item from you i will want you to remove the advert from net I will like to buy this for my son schooling in abroad i will pay you $1,600 for your item,please don’t offer it to any buyer again…i will be paying you $150 for shipping through USPS GLOBAL EXPRESS MAIL (EMS) and i will be making the payment through my Paypal account,get me your name and paypal email address also your telephone number,looking forward to hearing from you soon

I forwarded this email to abuse@craigslist.com.

Ninth Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Thanks for your prompt mail. I’m interested in buying your item but firstly,i will love to know the condition of the item. There is a little problem,i will not be able to look at the item or pick it up from your place because i am currently out of the state,so you will be shipping the item to my Son in Oversea because i want to buy the item for him and i will prefer the shipment to go through USPS Global Express Mail International,i will offer you $200 to cover the shipping charges. And about the payment, i will prefer PayPal because it is secure and easy to send money online and these is because i don’t want to get ripped off. So get back to me with your PayPal email address for the payment. I will be very happy if you could get back to me now.

Thanks for your understanding and hope to read back from you soon.
Regards
Kristi

I forwarded this email to abuse@craigslist.com.

Tenth Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Am serious about buying the item from you i will want you to remove the advert from net I will like to buy this for my son schooling in abroad i will pay you $1,600 for your item,please don’t offer it to any buyer again…i will be paying you $150 for shipping through USPS GLOBAL EXPRESS MAIL (EMS) and i will be making the payment through my Paypal account,get me your name and paypal email address also your telephone number,looking forward to hearing from you soon

I forwarded this email to abuse@craigslist.com.

Eleventh Craigslist and Paypal Scam Email Thread

Hello Seller,
Thanks for the swift reply,I offer you $1,800.00 and i want you to end the auction as
soon as possible.Could you please send me your paypal request so that i can make payment for you asap.Also let me know the shipping cost through USPS Internationally
Express Mail because am purchasing this for my son.Immediately i received your Pay-Pal request,i will go ahead with the payment without any delay.Awaiting your quick response with this transaction as am serious about.
Regards.

I forwarded this email to abuse@craigslist.com.

Response from Craigslist

Thanks for passing this along, it’s definitely related to the scams we’ve seen in recent months. We generally encourage folks to ignore these inquiries altogether, focus on local transactions and interactions, and avoid wiring funds or handing out personal financial details.

If you are in contact with one of these “buyers” already, our best advice is to break off all current communication and ignore any follow-up inquiries. If you have received a fake cashier’s check or money order, it’s usually best to destroy it. And we haven’t received any reports of significant trouble from people who unwittingly gave out their name, address and phone number, so there’s probably no cause for concern if that has happened.

We’re working on ways to prevent these guys from getting through to folks who use craigslist, but it’s not easy — they’re very persistent. If you’re interested in finding out more about how these scams work, Wikipedia has some pretty good descriptions of the various types:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud

And more information is available on craigslist’s “scams & fraud” page:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

Summary

Why can’t people just be honest? This stinks, that I suspect every response that I get is from a scammer.

What do you think – would you deal with them?

I still have a Nikon F5 body – my workhorse – that I keep “just in case”.  However, it has been a couple of years since I used it.  I also have my favorite lens from my Hassleblad system that I still own, but I sold my Hasslblad, lenses, backs, etc. about a year and a half ago.

Saturday, I had a conversation with a guy still shooting film.  He wanted to upgrade his equipment.  I threw out that I still owned a Nikon F5 and his eyes grew really wide.

“Let me know if you ever want to sell that camera”, he said, and gave me his contact info.

Well today was a big day.  I made the call.

“I might be interested in parting with my Nikon F5″, I said.

He has a school refund coming from his scholarship in a couple of weeks.  In a couple of weeks, I may be totally digital – weird.

I am pricing the Nikon F5 body by going to KEH.com to see what a used Nikon F5 body in EX+ condition will go for.  Seems to be a good baseline for used pricing.

As long as I am at it, anybody have interest in my Hasselblad lens?

I missed the jump ball.

So I go over to my bag, pull out my spare (I have 4) and stick it in and walk to the baseline to setup for the next offensive series.

I get a couple of shots and wham – the battery indicator shows that my battery is out of juice.  I turned my Nikon off and turned it back on and my battery showed full power again.  I shot another 4-5 images and it happened again – my battery showed that it was dead.

Short story – all four batteries had the same issue.  I usually shoot a couple of hundred images during a high school basketball game.  Last night, I shot about 40 before I gave up and just watched the game.

This started to happen a couple of months ago, but never like last night.  The first time it happened, I thought my battery had died (@#%@#@ – there goes another $45), so I bought 2 more because I was getting ready to travel and didn’t want to have battery problems while shooting on the road.

It progressively got worse and worse until last night.

Today, I called Nikon.  Apparently, this is a known issue and they had  a firmware upgrade for the Nikon D200 camera that takes both the A and B Channels from 2.0 to 2.01.

I upgraded tonight and we will see what happens tomorrow when I shoot another High School basketball game.

I am happy that it was firmware so I don’t have to send my camera to Nikon to get fixed, but I wonder how come everything worked for over a year and then finally started to have the problem.  That doesn’t make sense in my mind.  But I am happy to have it “fixed.”

I will post again if the new firmware did not fix the problem.

For those with Nikon D200 cameras, login to nikon.com and get the firmware update.  You will be happy you did!

There is something about owning the latest camera, flash, studio flashes and reflectors, battery packs, faster memory cards, flash brackets, and faster lenses that will make you a better photographer.

The truth is that newer, fancier, faster, sleeker, and sexy photography equipment will make you a better photographer. The technology today is getting better and better. Lenses focus faster, cameras can do more with less light, memory cards hold more and more pictures – faster, flashes are getting smarter and can light a subject wirelessly and still communicate with the camera to provide just enough light.

However, newer, fancier, faster, sleeker, and sexy photography equipment costs money – lots of it! The latest professional camera bodies from Nikon and Canon cost over $5,000 just for the body. You can spend $2,000 for a lens and still need a wide angle and a telephoto lens for your bag – and a new bag to hold it all in.

I told my wife that I wanted a new camera and she just gave me the look. All you husbands know exactly what I am talking about. She told me that I already had fancy equipment and I didn’t need another expensive camera. She is right – the equipment in my camera bag cost more than the last car that I bought – and depreciates just as fast.

I tried to tell her that the latest camera equipment didn’t have as many problems with noise – especially at high ISO’s. I tried to tell her that I could take better pictures of our kids playing basketball in those horribly lit high school gyms. I don’t think that I am going to talk her into it – at least until she gets the home improvements that we have been planning for.

OK – Do I need new equipment or do I want new equipment? I shoot a lot of high school basketball of my son playing. Faster lenses would enable me to shoot in those cold dark high school gyms and get a shutter speed higher than 1/60 at ISO 1600 or higher. In a fast a furious game with lots of action, 1/60 is not fast enough to get shots that are not blurry. In addition, the new Nikon bodies (D300, D700, D3) would reduce the amount of noise in those basketball shots at high ISOs. So new equipment would help me to take better basketball pictures.

In addition, I shoot a lot of stock photography. The new D700 or D3 would enable me to upload larger files enabling me to have XXL files available for download – thus increasing my photography income. So I could actually make a case that I need new equipment. But not everything that I want. I will write about stock photography in a future post.

So here it is – My new years resolution – I am going to make enough money this year (with my photography) to upgrade my equipment. I challenge each of you that read this to do the same – earn enough income with your photography to pay for the new sleek and sexy equipment

Who’s with me?
Happy new year!
Dave

You pull it out of the box, put in the batteries and memory card and start to point it at everyone around you who immediately start to duck for cover.  They hold their hands in front of their faces, make threatening and/or obscene gestures towards you all in an attempt to get out of having their picture taken.

It doesn’t matter if it is a simple point and shoot camera or an expensive professional digital SLR.   You probably don’t know how to use all the features and functions available.  The owners manual and quick start guides get thrown away with the packaging and all of a sudden you are on your own.

Then comes the questions for the beginner.

1. I thought I could set this camera on a timer so I can be in the picture.  How do you do that again?
2. What quality setting should I set the camera on to blow up a picture to 8×10?
3. How do I get the images off the memory card?
4. What do I set the camera on to take an action photo?
5. What is white balance again?

Or even the questions that a professional photographer might have, like:

1. How do I set the camera to trip the flash at the end of a long exposure?
2. How do I set a remote flash to be the master, but continue using TTL exposures?

Do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes going through the owners manual before putting on the shelf.  Even if it is just familiarizing yourself with what is in the manual, it would be 30 minutes of time well spent.

Another option to learn how to use your digital camera would be to take a class.  Many photography stores offer a basic photography class that teaches elementary exposure, covers the basics of your camera, and talks about how to get images off of the memory card in a format that they can print for you.  They will even sell you many accessories and the intermediate and advanced classes .

Most camera vendors also offer videos that talk about the features of their cameras.  Nikon has a line of “Nikon School” DVD’s that have a movie about how to use their cameras.

Finally, Magic Lantern offers many 3rd party books on specific cameras if your owners manual didn’t provide you the information that you need to learn how to use your camera.

The cameras today are amazing.  What you can get for $100 would rival what you might pay thousands for a few decades ago.  Many of the newer cameras even have the ability to do some elementary image touch up right in the camera.

However, the most expensive professional cameras can be relegated to a simple point and shoot if you don’t know how to use it – although you will impress those around you by pulling out that expensive piece of equipment.