Discovering a new Craigslist scam feels like discovering a new species of dinosaur, or a new planet: I need to run and share my findings with the world. Last time I was trying to sell things on Craigslist, the scam of the day was for the seller to pay you even more than you wanted (!!) by cashier's check if you would simply mail the item to them. Naturally, the cashier's check is no good, but now you've already shipped your item and, oh, by the way, the bank expects YOU to make up for the bad cashier's check. SO DEVIOUS.

Now that we're all onto that scam, its time for a new one: the fake link password grab. Here's how it works:

1) Email the target saying that you are interested in their item. Literally. The scammer is sending so many of these out they can't even be bothered to personalize, so they just say, "hi, I am interested in your item." I have also seen ones that actually say "hi, I am interested in <enter name of item here>." I am not kidding.

2) After declaring interest in <item>, the scammer will ask "You are selling this item?" followed by, ostensibly, a link back to your page.

3) Because the Craigslist website wasn't so much designed as it was typed out onto the Internet, it is very easy to create a convincing fake Craigslist account log-in page. Which is where the link actually directs you.

4) You, being enough of an advanced internet user that you actually have your own Craigslist account, but enough of a noob to fall for this scam, enter your username and password, which, presumably, gets recorded by the scammer.

5) The scammer logs into your Craigslist account and steals whatever information is there. I honestly don't know what information they could obtain through this method, because I do not have a Craigslist account. And, because you are also enough of a noob to use the same username and password elsewhere on the internet, the scammer will go and try some other sites (Yahoo!, Google, PayPal, etc.) with the same username and password.

As for my part, I hope the scammers enjoy trying to log in with the username "go" and the password "fuckyourself."