There is a website (I don't have it anymore) where you can put in your name and it will tell you if there is unclaimed property in ANY state that may belong to you. I did this over a year ago, after finding out that the state of Iowa (I live in Washington) had unclaimed property, shares of stock that we didn't know about, for my sister and me from our father's estate (a cousin in Iowa notified me - they went to a county fair and plugged in her maiden name - the same as mine - and up came my name. The state of Iowa conveniently had a kiosk there for that purpose). Well, I decided to see if there was any other unclaimed property anywhere else and, sure enough, there was some in Tennessee (a refund from an overpaid hospital bill in Washington somehow got sent to Tennessee from Washington. Tennesse was where the insurer was located.) So, check it out. I would never have thought that there was any unclaimed property out there for me as I am pretty careful about making sure where my money goes and whether I am paid what I'm owed. But it happens.

Don't reply to this. You can forward it to spoof@ebay.com. I got one of these and replied that I did not know what they were referring to. Shortly thereafter, ebay contacted me to let me know my account had somehow been breached, and I had to go through a rigamarole of changing passwords and some other process which I cannot remember. Anyway, it was an inconvenience and a concern.

I had a car for sale two years ago on craig's list. I had a scammer of some sort contact me via email. At first they seemed to be making legitimate inquiries about the car. The person said they were representing someone in England, who wanted the car, and they were buying it for them here in the U.S. to be shipped back to England. Then they said they wanted to buy it with a cashier's check but the amount would be over the purchase price and I would need to send the difference before shipping etc, etc. Since this was April of 2005, the scam was new at the time but I still knew it was a scam of some sort. I researched it online on the FBI's website. Sure enough, there were big warnings about the new scam. I reported this person but never heard anything from the FBI. However, they didn't use an international address. They actually used the address of a bed and breakfast in michigan. But the phone number they gave me always went straight to voice mail. And when I called the B&B, they had no idea who that person was. Since the money was to be wired to them instead of sending it to the B&B, I think they just picked an address at random that seemed legitimate. They weren't planning on getting any mail or money at that address. But having a U.S. address made them seem more legitimate, I suppose. One of the things that made me curious at the very beginning was it made no sense for anyone in England to want to buy a used car in the U.S., especially a gas guzzling Ford Explorer. So big for a country with such narrow streets and sky high gas prices. How much is the equivalent of a gallon of gas there? Isn't it around $6? And plus, the steering wheel would be on the wrong side of the car! Anyway, I never did tell the guy that I'd busted him. I wanted to see if the FBI would catch him. But they didn't do anything. No one ever contacted me. I did find an article at the time in the Chicago Sun Times on this then new scam. So I emailed the reporter to give him the details on how they'd tried to scam me. He emailed me back and I forwarded him the emails. I thought at least a reporter could make use of the info to get the news out.

I have donotcall and the phone rings once and then stops. If it rings more than once I look at caller ID and if I don't recognize the number or name, it goes to voice mail. We were expecting a call from Apple almost two years ago and coincidentally got one of these scammers. Thankfully nothing happened but not because my husband was smart. As he talked with this guy with an accent and started doing stuff on the computer I googled the number. Guess what?.. Nigeria. I've only gotten one call since then and I let him have it.