I'm sitting here thinking about numbers, bills, my declining bank balance and how I *almost* got scammed if it weren't for my quick thinking. I decided to put the dress I wore to my brother's wedding for sale because I spent a lot of money on it and only wore it once. Then I remembered I had a dress I bought but never wore and another outfit from Zara I also never got to wear along with an expensive rotating curling iron I never used and still had in my closet with it's original packaged box. Since I am low on funds, I decided to go on Facebook Marketplace to try and sell some of those things. Some guy messaged me about the new dress I had listed and offered to buy it full price. I said sure, no problem. He told me he wasn't near me since I listed the dress to be pick-up only but that his sister would be by to pick up the dress. Okay, nothing weird... yet.

Then, the bullshit meter started.
I told him I had Zelle, Cashapp and PayPal. He said he'd pay me through Zelle but then proceeded to fed me some crap story (which I hadn't caught up to at first) about my Zelle account not being a business account and he was going to deposit 500 dollars so my account could be upgraded to a business account and could he trust me to send him 400 dollars back after he deposits the 500 and I'd just keep the 100 I was asking for the dress. I said sure, no problem but was already having a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was off. I've used Zelle many times to send money to my family and they have used it to send me money as well. Any time I get any amount through Zelle, I immediately get a text message telling me that I have money deposited into my account because I bank with Chase. This guy supposedly sent me 500 dollars but I never got a text message. Instead I got an email saying he "sent me 500 dollars" and by that point, I knew something was definitely off. I got sent two emails claiming to be from "Zelle" but then I looked at the email address that was attached and noticed right away that it came from a Gmail account and it was not an official Zelle e-mail, not to mention the fact that the person getting the money was some woman's name and not the original guy I was talking to so the names did not match. There were other details that were off about the e-mail that I noticed later when I was looking it over that gave major red flags. One of the e-mails said that I was to take a screenshot of the payment of the 500 dollars I was sent as proof to the guy but the person scamming obviously never had any intention of anything and the potential victim would be out of that money. I messaged the scammer to stop, that I knew he was a scammer, I blocked him and called my bank right away and did not log on to my account just in case. I was shaking a bit from the nerves and hoping they'd answer me right away. They told me I was perfectly safe as long as I didn't give away any bank account number or routing number to the person-- which I never would have done anyway. The rep checked my account and said no one had deposited 500 dollars to my account and that I should be perfectly safe. I was so turned off and disgusted about that experience, that I took off 4 out of the 5 listings I had on Marketplace. I was just trying to sell some perfectly good stuff to make some extra cash and the same day I do, some psycho tries to scam me. I did a bit of googling on that scam and it's been going around for a while. I read a story about a lady who did send money, later realizing she'd been scammed and that she wasn't getting her money back because Zelle is a person to person transaction and if you're willingly sending money, it's your responsibility to be careful about who you trust to send cash to. I still have my rotating curling iron on Marketplace and I've had a few clicks on it but no buyers. It's a brand new curling iron and I at least want what I paid for it. The color I bought it in is always sold out and when I bought it, I was lucky to snag that color because it's always selling out. Haven't had any messages about it so I might never sell in on that platform unless I post it on Poshmark. I'm still debating it.
It's crazy to me that you can't do things like apply to jobs or sell something online these days without fear of getting taken advantage of because the world moves digitally now. It's a different place from when I was 18 years old and you have to be careful not to be taken for a fool when there's so much evil to contend with. I keep thinking to myself that maybe I'll have better news the next time I write in this diary, but that hasn't happened yet. I get to wake up in the morning and go to church feeling sad, depressed and hopeless.

Ain't that a hoot? *sigh*

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