As I write these words, I bow my head in shame. I was the guy who thought this sort of thing would never happen to him. But it did.

I’m generally an alert guy when online. I look at the “from” field on emails, and double-check URL’s before entering my password into them. But on this particular day, (May 20th, to be exact) I foolishly let my guard down.

First the backstory: As I am just days away from departing on the biggest trip of my life, I have been making preperations by discarding of and/or selling the items I have been replacing in my backpack (newer items are a higher quality laptop, more travel-oriented socks, etc). One of the items in the “to sell” list on my backpack account, is my old Everex Stepnote 13.1″ laptop.

Under normal circumstances, I would circulate the news of my selling this machine throughout my family and friends, and wait for someone to express some interest in purchasing it. I would give them a fair (yet, slightly less than what I would truly like) price, and we would both be happy, having each received what we wanted.

The problem with that plan this time, is that the computer in question has Ubuntu 8.04 installed (for the non-geeks, that’s an alternative linux operating system that is mostly used by programmers and…well…geeks), not the traditional Windows XP or Vista most would expect to come with the computer. This posed a definate problem as I do not have many programmer friends near me, and did not have a whole lot of time to wait for “the right person” to come along.

My solution? I decided to put the machine on Craigslist.

In under 5 minutes I had a well done, standard cragslist ad for the public to scrutinize. You can still find the original posting here (don’t know how long this link will stay up): http://honolulu.craigslist.org/mau/sys/687158593.html. As I looked, satisfied, at the computer screen, taking a final look before I clicked “Publish”, I had a vision of a happy programmer from Kahului (the town over from my home in Wailuku) meeting me at starbucks, a wod of cash in hand, taking my computer and nodding approvingly. I sat back and waited for the replys to flood my inbox.

No such thing happened. In fact, the replies had been SO sparce, I was overjoyed when I saw an email from “Sarah Dotson” in my inbox, asking if I still had the laptop, letting me know she wants to purchase it. I eagerly shoot her a reply, asking her if she is on island.

Her reply indicates that she is out of down, but would be able to pay me online via paypal if I can ship the laptop to her little brother in Nigeria via USPS Express Mail. I ponder it for a second (I haven’t had too much experience with Snail Mail before, and overall it confuses me) and decide that this would probably be easier than meeting with someone in person anyways, so I send her my paypal email address to send it to.

Sure enough, with in a few minutes I receive an email, it says I’ve received an instant payment from Sarah Dotson. Yay! Just like that my computer is sold! It has an address to which I am to send the computer, and then I am to reply with the tracking number so that paypal can release my money (as it protects its buyers). All seems fine.

After a very confusing hour or so at the post office, trying to understand just how this “USPS Express Mail” thing works, I have my package sent, a tracking number in hand.

I go home, and eagerly reply with the tracking number. Paypal sends me a confirmation, letting me know they received the tracking information and would be putting the money into my account as soon as it was confirmed.

Days went by…a week went by…I assumed Paypal simply had a long, draconian process, and that all would work itself out soon.

On May 28th, I get a phone call. It is a woman named Sandra from the USPS Express Mail department. She says she noticed I was sending my package to Nigeria, and that they had had some fraudulent reports from people sending their items to Nigeria. I thought for a moment, and then got a chill. I realized, all in moment, that I had been duped. I frantically checked the “from address” on the emails I had received. The from name had been “service” first name, and “@paypal.com” last name. Thus together creating “service @paypal.com”, the actual from address was pay.pa@usa.com.

NOOOOO! My brain begins to hurt. I NEVER fall for things like this, how could this happen?

The answer is simple misdirection. I learned it when I was studying magic. The magician points to his left hand, where the big red ball is resting, while his right retreives a bigger red ball to swap it with. Simple misdirection.

The story has a somewhat happy ending. Sandra from USPS Express Mail says she was holding on to the package until I confirmed my paypal payment, and says she can send the laptop back to me for no extra charge (but I will lose my expensive postal fee). I reported the emails I’d received by sending them to spoof@paypal.com, knowing this wouldn’t matter much.

As Tynan from Better Than Your Boyfriend says on this post, it is better to look at these sort of occurances as good experiences, allowing you to learn and gain knowledge from them. I gained humility, a bruise on my forhead from pounding my it against the table, and a great story to write on my digital backpacker blog, so that others may not fall victim to the same trap. I hope you enjoyed it.