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How to Spot a Scam

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Donna Karan Fashion Designer or Nigerian Fraudster?

Thank you to the person who sent this experience to us.

Donna Karan wants to rent me a luxury apartment in Washington, DC!

(It's amazing. Not only did I think I was getting a great February 2010deal on a 2/bdrm 2/bath condo via Washington, DC Craigslist, I also learned that Donna Karan was a construction engineer on top of being a famous designer of cashmere pashminas! But before anyone writes me off for being naive, I knew something wasn't right was all along. The REAL scam would have been Donna Karan trying to claim she was actually 43 years old, and not her actual age of 60. But I digress.)

Thank you all for posting your stories to this site. Given my familiarity to several of the Nigerian fraud scams, I knew all along something didn't seem right with the email response that I received. Nevertheless, I came across this blog by simply googling the email address used by Donna. I'm really glad to see how many others were willing to share their stories so that others can learn from this. Here is my story:

It seems that Ms. Karan's hotmail address used the same email username "xbxofootlilfre" in February 2010 for a Dupont Circle condo in DC as well as earlier this year. Interestingly, Gmail did note the actual time difference of the hotmail address as being sent from the UK. (Note: Lagos, Nigeria is actually one hour ahead of GMT.)

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