Need help on weird craigslist response...

[gregpj]

What Steve said.  It's an obvious fraud.  These come a dime a dozen these days.  Just ignore anything that sounds remotely like this and move on.

 

The key Red Flags are:

 

Broken and / or very poor English

Sentences that don't make sense

Asking for banking / routing info

The buyer asking to pay a high price for the item

Any response that appears to be a cut and pasted copy of a generic message

Just about anything with an Indian or Indonesian address

And there are many many more...

 

I've been a police officer for 14 years and for whatever reason people fall for these scams every day by the tens of thousands...

 

Peace out!

 

-Rob

 

I'd have to say that your red flags are unfortunately accurate, but I have had some recent messages with excellent English and no hint of a scam until the "I need to mail you a check routine." They are getting better. It's only a matter of time before they realize that the no negotiating on the price is a tip off as well. They used to only go for the high priced ads (I've posted a few pieces of furniture over the years and they ALWAYS get this type of response) but they've recently started targeting lower priced ads up here as well.

[naf]

Craigslist is for selling your used coffee table and old baby items.  After some initial success selling sealed sets on craigslist, all I get now are scams or lowball offers.  The classic one I always get is "this set can be purchased cheaper on (ebay/bricklink/amazon), can you lower your price?"  Then go buy it there and stop bothering me!!

[buidee]

This is obviously a scam.  I have gotten one where the buyer is away on business and will have her assistant personallly bring you the cashiers check to pay for the lego, blah blah blah

 

There was an advertisement on CL last year offering TB and HH for sale but the seller offered to be paid in Money Order, Cashiers Check, and Paypal.com.  He also offered to ship the items.  Now obviously, you are thinking this is an obvious scam.  It was on CL for about one month.  Finally, I emailed him asking to meet him in person at a public place and to pay with cash.  Surprising, he emailed me back.  I then asked for his cell phone and we actually met up.  Because both boxes were opened, I was able to bargain him down a lot ($300 for both) so you never know with these CL ads.

[Yinchuan]

Funny little world though. After the scam this morning I had a phone call from a nice trucks driver passing through the area that saw a listing of mine. Smooth transaction. Take the good with the bad I guess!

[Rob11Z]

I'd have to say that your red flags are unfortunately accurate, but I have had some recent messages with excellent English and no hint of a scam until the "I need to mail you a check routine." They are getting better. It's only a matter of time before they realize that the no negotiating on the price is a tip off as well. They used to only go for the high priced ads (I've posted a few pieces of furniture over the years and they ALWAYS get this type of response) but they've recently started targeting lower priced ads up here as well.

I can say that in my experience in law enforcement most fit the mold of one or more of the red flags that I listed.  And pretty much all of them, with an occasional exception, fit the rule of "something just seems fishy."

 

The thing that really gets me, and I am sure that Steven can back this up as well, are the amount of "educated" people that do falls for these scams.  I've had doctors, computer programmers, engineer's with Masters Degree's etc etc fall for some of the really obvious ones.  

 

If people by and large stopped falling for these things the scammers would find something else. But remember, spamming goes by the "big net" theory whereas they only have to get one bite our of thousands to make it lucrative for them.

 

One other thing I forgot to mention, the guy that started this thread was asking if he should even reply.  DO NOT ever reply!  The reason is simple:  Any response from their point of view is a good thing.  Given that a single person on the other end can send out tens of thousands of emails in a day easy, they have no idea if the emails are even valid.  But once you reply, even if you are just replying to bust their chops, the joke will be on you when you start getting hundreds of emails a day about where to buy discounted medications and all sorts of other crap.  They will actually sell your name for pennies as a "valid" email.  So even if you know it's a scam, a simple reply can get you jammed up with more scam emails then you can shake a stick at!

 

I know I've not the only cop on here.  I worked internet crimes for years and I have a lot of info to share.  Please anyone hit me up with your questions about fraud / scams etc.  If I don't know the answer I will get you an answer.

 

-Rob