Playing with an E-Mail Scammer

So I was curious how these scams work. You always see them in your junk folder in your emails, but have you ever wondered how they really work. We have heard of old couples that lost thousands to a scammer, but can an educated person be scammed?

I was looking at some of my twenty junk emails the other day; just looking; always alert not to open anything that goes to this folder. When I noticed something that mentioned an ad I had on Craigslist. Curiosity got the better of me so I opened it; to my great surprise (just kidding) it was a job offer (scam?). For only four to five hours a week I could make fifteen hundred to three thousand dollars a month - nice. Okay you got my attention, how? Sending an interested response to the e-mailer (employer), let's see what happens. To my surprise it actually sounded like a legitimate offer. To save money for this distribution company they want to mail in bulk to one individual in a State, then have that individual open and re-mail the items locally. They will front me the money (sounds good) and I would use this money to re-mail the items. I like this no money out of my own pocket idea, so why not try it. I would be sent money always up front including my salary and I would be hired as an independent contractor responsible to pay my taxes out of my profits. Okay I'm interested here is my information.

To my amazement I receive a knock at the door the next day- what-huh? It's UPS. There's a check for $2,462.82 payable to me - Interesting amount. I'm instructed to deposit the check and find out how much it costs to mail twenty laptop computers locally. Once check clears email her. Did I mention she was a she? Oh also she's deaf so if I want to call her it will be through a relay system???? Me being an intelligent individual (hey it's my story) I take the very real looking check to the bank its payable from, they will know for sure. After looking at it for almost five minutes and having a manager look at it, it's determined it's FAKE, WHAT? What-to-do; I decide to play along and inform my "employer" that the check is deposited and the cost of the computers to be mailed. I received a very interested e-mail telling me to let her know as soon as possible so we can get this important shipment out.

Two days later (I wanted to make it seem like it took a day for the check to clear) I send an email at 9am that the funds appear to be available. Three concurrent emails are sent to me instructing me what to do. I'm instructed on my first assignment (very important), "please there is an urgent payment of a freight forwarder in Canada that needs to be made immediately, so please the freight forwarder will be waiting for the payment today and you are to pay the freight forwarder the amount of $1,000 from the funds you have available." The freight forwarder will forward some huge packages on our behalf, 20 laptops will be shipped to me by the freight forwarder after I send the payment. I will then open the large packages and resend each laptop to their final destination. I'm instructed to please use Money Gram or Western Union as means of sending funds. Once I show no problem with this, informing her I will be stopping by the bank in a little while and then go to Wal-Mart to send the money. After waiting an hour (had to eat and shower I come back and email her telling her I am going now; at this point I'm informed to double it to two-thousand and take a hundred for my expenses (how nice). I make it sound like no problem and tell her I will let her know as soon as this is done. She's sending me email after email telling me what info she needs, how to do this and this would be one of many more deals as I should be getting another check tomorrow.

This is when I decide to drop the bomb as I reply to her last email with a link to the FBI scam reporting page. She/him-who-ever is puzzled and asked what is the meaning of this? I send an e-mail informing her that Fifth-Third Bank has the check and will like copies of your information. To make a long story short- She sends one last e-mail "so you are playing me all along..."