Craigslist Scams

Craiglist is the best resource that a newly arrived New Yorker needs. First to find a place to put your weary head at night, then to find stuff to make the bare carpets more hospitable.
Scanning the hundreds of daily adds provide a bizarre kind of entertainment and allows to find real bargains on almost everything. Apartments, desks, TVs or Iguanas. Its all there.
I found my apartment this way, I also found all the furniture and appliances for ridiculous prices. How about doing it all at under 1000$? Cool. But I also came across some shameless scams that can leave the unsuspected naive with no money and a returned email.
The first scam was actually very amusing. A 1 Br apartment in Chelsea, the nicest and gayest part of town, for 1500 $. Nice. I was striking gold here! The story got interesting when the person who responded to my add claimed to be a women living currently in Greece hence not able to show me the place, only photos. Theses were great and I was a newbie. "She" suggested to send me the keys via FedEx and use a third-side delivery company that will hold me funds and her keys until I inspect the place and agree for the terms. Only small problem in the brilliant plan. I will have to wire the first month rent as a deposit to that company before getting the keys. That sounded weird so asked for her phone number in Greece for a short chat. The answer knocked me off, she claimed to be deaf and mute not able to talk!
Second time around was for a 42" 6 month old Plasma TV for the ridiculous price of 500$. This one was more elaborate. The person (also a woman, I wonder if this is the way to make fools like me less suspicious) claimed to be living in England. She offered to send me the TV using another global delivery company called TNT (a genuine company by the way) and I will wire money to their agent in the UK. Once I get the TV and feel happy about it they will release the funds to her.
I was sent a very detailed email with an impressive design detailing who will receive the money. A small glitch caught my eye, the email and provided web page did not use the TNT domain. All the rest looked identical to the genuine TNT homepage.
Thank god for Google. I looked up TNT and SCAM. Hundreds of similar stories came up! All scams, all done brilliantly well, all ended with nada.
Future lessons to myself:
1. Never deal with third-side companies.
2. Never buy overseas products or services published on Craigslist.
Gotta look out for these bastards. Its a dangerous world out there. I was very close to signing the deal and sending funds to theses people. Lucky I never did. Hope this post helps a few other brave souls out there.