Actually, doing some more investigation, this scam is the same scam that has been running forever... Just with a new title.
You get a checkout message with a request to WESTERN UNION the funds to the authorized Google account specialist. That’s the whole deal - yet another Western Union scam to steal money. Your funds go to someone somewhere in the world, with zero recourse to get those funds back, or even find out WHERE they went.
It might even draw it out a bit - ‘the shipping company has your car and I’ll reimburse you for this, but they need another $800..’ before they disappear.
What raised the red flag for me on this one was the price vs the effort the guy was going to make to get it to me. Maybe I’m richer than some, but if my TOP priority before going to Afghanistan was to get rid of a vehicle, I wouldn’t sell it way below book to a guy in another state and then ship it to him at my “reduced” cost, with the risk that the guy doesn’t want it. I’d just take it to a “cash for cars” lot or sell it locally on Craigslist.
But the use of English was excellent, suggesting that this is good old American ingenuity in action rather than a bunch of Nigerians. But maybe they are just learning better English.