Craig's list question/ heads up.

brianlux

Question: have any of you who have sold on Craig's list gotten questionable sounding responses in which the buyer seems overly eager and asks for your Paypal account info?

I strongly suspect there are some scams going on out there related to that. If so, consider this post a heads up.

Appreciate any input any of you with experience can give. Thanks.

ShimmyMommy

Since you are questioning it...I would not do it...but that's just what I would do...

joe2317

I have sold stuff on Craigslist many times. I remember one time in particular I got a fishy sounding response to my ad. On a hunch I copied it and pasted into google and it immediately came up as a scam. Yes, there are MANY scammers out there on CL. Be careful.

klusterfuk

yeah Ive gotten many shady responses but, Ive sold cars and boats on there too. The shady ones are scams and the ones i sell to i always meet them some place that has plenty of people around and always carry a sidekick. You just have to watch your ass, people will rob and shoot you for five bucks. seems to happen more than you think. Never give out your address.

brianlux

Yeah, I think these people are fishing for personal info. I'm just deleting their email at this point because they keep coming back with the same fishy responses.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Slap upside the head

There are scammers everywhere on the internet whether it be Craigslist, e-bay, messageboards, etc.

give me your paypal account info and I will look into this for you.

81

craigslist is FULL of scammers and spammers :x

typically pretty easy to spot. i run all my craigslist stuff to a generaic email.

i've sold a few big things and delievered to people and had a couple of mommies come out to buy a sand box without issue. bought a couple of items without issue. outside of the scammers, it's no different than newspaper classifieds back in teh day

just be smart

polaris_x

yeah ... if you even have the slightest feeling it's a scam - it's 99% certain that it is one ... anyone that wants to know your address, says they will send you more money for it and just to send the difference via western union or something ... no good ...

Monster Rain

The biggest Craig's List scam is people who "accidentally" send you a check for too much money and ask you to send them back the difference (because making out another check before sending their payment would apparently be much more of a hassle than having you cash out a check for more of their money thant they want you to have and hoping you're nice enough to return the extra money). Those are always counterfeit checks and I've seen many customers burned by that in my old job--some more than once. It's hard to feel bad for someone who falls for the exact same scam 3 times, but most of them just didn't know any better and thought they were doing the right thing for someone else.

Travelar

I've sold a few things without issue... well, there was a crazy chick who tried to buy something from me, and after blowing me off all day just shows up at like 11pm on a week night, which is entirely too late for me. I ended up selling to the next interested person without issue. I recommend that you always deal in cash and meet in person for the exchange, whenever possible. Checks and money orders are too easy to forge.

brianlux

Here's an email I just got regarding one of the items I've listed:

"i am willing to purchase. can we make a deal today? "

The other two people who emailed and kept asking about my Paypal account said EXACTLY the same thing.

Her's another one that turned out to be bogus:

"Thanks for the mail and sincerely i am so sorry for
being so late to
your response, have been out of connections and will
like to purchase
it out rightly,i want to be the best offer by adding
$100 to your
money then keep other offers off and i will be paying
you via my
PayPal account,I will also like you to send me your
PayPal
details(PayPal e-mail address) so i can effect
payment to you right
away and make sure you get back to me so that we can
arrange for pick
up as i will like the item to be picked,so no
shipping included as i
have arrange for how is going to be pick up after the
payment as been
proceed. Hope to know if its still in a good
condition.cos i wont be
able to inspect it as am busy,so i will like you to
take some pictures
of it and send them to me for me to see the
condition.Let me have your
phone number Get back to me in time."

Scamorama!

Monster Rain

brianlux wrote:

Here's an email I just got regarding one of the items I've listed:

"i am willing to purchase. can we make a deal today? "

The other two people who emailed and kept asking about my Paypal account said EXACTLY the same thing.

Her's another one that turned out to be bogus:

"Thanks for the mail and sincerely i am so sorry for
being so late to
your response, have been out of connections and will
like to purchase
it out rightly,i want to be the best offer by adding
$100 to your
money then keep other offers off and i will be paying
you via my
PayPal account,I will also like you to send me your
PayPal
details(PayPal e-mail address) so i can effect
payment to you right
away and make sure you get back to me so that we can
arrange for pick
up as i will like the item to be picked,so no
shipping included as i
have arrange for how is going to be pick up after the
payment as been
proceed. Hope to know if its still in a good
condition.cos i wont be
able to inspect it as am busy,so i will like you to
take some pictures
of it and send them to me for me to see the
condition.Let me have your
phone number Get back to me in time."

Scamorama!

I know that there are some stupid people out there who aren't the best writers, but anything that looks like that is a scam. Having seen many lottery/Craig's List/Nigerian prince scams, the letters are always filled with horrible grammar, misspelled words, and phrases that don't make any sense. Some of them are so bad that I wonder who could ever fall for it.