100% scam.

There is no buyer.

Notice how the scammer doesn't call what you are selling by name? He uses the generic word "item", that is because he sends the same stock copy/paste email to anyone selling everything that he can find and he has no idea what you are selling and doesn't care.

There is only a scammer trying to steal your possession, your electronic item, name brand clothing or jewelry.

The scammer isn't interested in your identity or bank account only in convincing you to ship your possession to him without him sending you a penny.

The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be "Paypal" saying "kindly send the tracking number and we will release the funds".

Paypal does NOT send such emails, ever. Paypal does NOT have escrow or money holding services like that scammer describes. Paypal does NOT demand you send a tracking number before money is sent. EVER. No exceptions.

Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of being the perfect buyer, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

If you google "cragislist buyer scam", "fake paypal email scam", "ebay escrow fraud" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near victims of this type of scam.

Check out the one and only official paypal website, read up on what paypal does and how it really works.

It's a long running scam. This article from 2008 explains how the scam works - just substitute Benin for Nigeria and Droid for laptop

http://consumerist.com/2008/10/how-a-nig...

This is why Craigslist tells you in their scam warnings to ONLY deal with people you can meet face to face, NEVER give out Paypal details and AVOID all transactions involving shipping

It is not your responsibility to ship overseas - if someone wants it sent to Benin, they meet you in person, pay in cash then they have to send it to Benin

Even if they paid you with a real Paypal account they will file a chargeback after you've sent the item and get their money back as Paypal does not allow any accounts in Benin and you have NO protection from Paypal if you ship anywhere but he buyer's verified address, which cannot be in Benin

Don't even write back or you'll end up on a spam list

Instead relist your Driod with something like

CASH ONLY, LOCAL BUYERS ONLY, NO SHIPPING, NO EXCEPTIONS

across the top and bottom and ignore everyone wanting anything else.

Remember YOU are the seller and YOU set the terms of the sale, never let a buyer tell you how they are going to pay you or where they are going to meet you.

Do you know how to read email headers? This information will give you information on the ISP and then use the site to see where that IP is.

I would do a wire transfer - this way you get the money (or WesterUnion / MoneyGram). Of course this would then switch the trust - he would have to trust you.

I would not ship out of the country just on principle, the chances of it being a hacked account is too large, likewise of you ever get an offer higher than your asking price paid with check.

There's a site that guides you on how to waste the scam artists time, leaving them less time to do real harm.

http://www.419eater.com/

Here's an information site on this sort of scam

http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/

The Nigerian pop song "I will chop your dollar" celebrating such scams.