Updated December 17, Reviewed by Lybi Ma. I published the first single-authored book on gullibility in an edited book by social psychologists has since been published. To show that gullibility is a tendency that never fully goes away, and also to educate readers to be careful when selling items online, I am discussing my latest experience involving the sub-topic of phishingβone that I did not know about and may not even have existed in The good news, however, is that perhaps as a result of having studied gullibility, I was able to extract myself from the situation before to my knowledge I was done in by it.
Ironically, as a result of having analyzed my Madoff experience in various publications, I am now considered an authority on Ponzi schemes. I was asked to make the arrangements with the moving company after I showed the buyer proof that I had cashed the check. At this point, I began to have second thoughts, both because this was more work than I had bargained for and also because it seemed like it might be a fraudulent scheme designed to get me to reveal sufficient personal information to enable the so-called purchaser to empty my bank account.
I asked my adult son whom my wife and I successfully raised to be non-gullible what he thought, and he sent me information from a Google search that provided examples of phishing communications that sounded eerily similar. I then reposted my Craigslist ad and wrote the fake buyer that I changed my mind. Two interesting things then happened. I emailed the supposed buyer and asked for his name and address so I could mail the check back to him.
He never replied. I also contacted the bookkeeper who supposedly signed the check from the Illinois business. She replied that it was a phony check, as their account since closed had been hacked, and instructed me to shred the check.
A second interesting thing happened after I reposted the chairs on Craigslist, I immediately got a positive response, this time from a supposed woman, who said that because she and her husband were moving they would add some money to the price apparently a near-universal giveaway if I would hold off until they could give me shipping information and funds.
