New variants on the advance fee fraud hitting Craig's List

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a scam where you have something to sell, and someone from overseas (usually Africa) buys it but pays too much and asks you to refund the difference. In the end, the check they sent you turns out to be bad and you're out the refund money. This very commonly happens to people with rental property, who get emails from someone from overseas planning to visit the area and who puts down too large a deposit and ask the landlord to forward the difference to their travel agent.

The more recent variant involves someone who advertises a nice place to rent on Craig's List and then absconds with the deposit. Read more about it at An Unread Blog.

In general, take the Craig's List warnings about dealing with strangers very seriously.

Related scams: You're looking for a roommate, and the interested party sends too big a deposit. The blog Active Rain has a good analysis involving a college student looking for a roommate, and a scammer willing to take the student's college fund.

Wikipedia has a good compendium of advance fee frauds.