If you try to sell something on Craigslist, and the buyer does not want to meet you in person, that should be treated as a huge red flag. If that seller mentions PayPal, escrow, “GUARANTEED SAFETY”, or anything like that, then you’ve got another huge red flag.

If you feel the need to investigate further, just to be sure, check the full header of the email sent by the buyer, and look for the originating IP address.

It’ll be a number that looks something like this: 41.219.252.160

Then, go to any IP locator website - IP2Location is the one I usually use - and copy & paste that number into the website form. The website will tell you, more or less, where that email came from. If you do that for the example I’ve provided above, you’ll find that the sender of the email with that particular IP address was from Nigeria.

Once any African country - ESPECIALLY NIGERIA - pops up in your dealings with a potential buyer, seller - or some party to any transaction involving requests for money, merchandise, personal data, or anything else of value - you can safely and self-assuredly tell that other party to go screw themselves.

If you don’t, you are most certainly about to be scammed.