The press release we sent out yesterday involving the phony "BBB Purchase Protection Program" found on certain Craigslist postings has received a decent amount of attention in the past 24 hours.  I was able to track down what one of those guarantee forms looks like so I figured it would be a good visual example of how it is easy to get fooled by one of these scams.

As you can see, the scammer has gone through a lot of trouble to make this seem completely legitimate and has even included a BBB branded color and trademark.  I even have an example of an actual ad from Craigslist, but unfortunately it won't scan over properly so you'll have to take me on my word that the BBB seal and fake reliability report that is attached with clicking on the seal is very similar to the real thing.  Where the scammer gets tripped up is in the e-mail they send out because the address is bbb-support-center@bbb.com.  The ending is what gives it away as a fake even you if are tempted to think there is a BBB Purchase Protection Program.

I'm actually very happy to say that 2 of the Web sites that were linking from Craigslist have been shut down due to efforts by BBB, but I have seen a seller on a few different auction Web sites by the name of "overstocksales" that was opperating one of these fraudulant opperations.  My advice is to be cautious when you see this seller name and when you're on Craigslist or eBay or any classified-style Web site, really look at all the language because that can be the difference between getting what you want and losing some hard-earned cash.