Let the scamming begin!

ScottM

ScottM

Taxi to Parking
Joined
Jul 19, 2005
Messages
42,529
Location
Variable, but somewhere on earth
Display Name
Display name:
iBazinga!
Selling my motorcycle and put the ad on Craigslist this morning. The last time I tried to sell something there all I got was scam offers. I wonder if it will be the same this time?

Seems that there are lots of ads still, but has anyone actually successfully sold something there?
 
I have had good luck selling on CL, the key is to only deal with people that will take the time to call you. I do not deal with anyone that emails or text.
 
Dean said:
I have had good luck selling on CL, the key is to only deal with people that will take the time to call you. I do not deal with anyone that emails or text.
Click to expand...
I did not even list my telephone. I travel internationally and did not want 2am calls
 
Scott, I've had a lot of success selling stuff on Craig's list. Nothing as high value as a motorcycle. But I've sold, patio furniture, a snow blower, cross country skis, a work table. I think I have not been the subject of a scammer because the value of my items is too low.

My CFII got a lot of request to ship his motor cycle over seas when he listed on ebay. Good luck with it.
 
I just bought a 1 year old Craftsman mower from CL for about half price. I've sold several cars, and bought a few from there.

Deal with prinipals, and not third party. Only do face to face, even if it's in the mall parking lot. If you list a phone number I suggest using some text numbers/letters to spoof auto dialers which parse ads: 7 one 4 - 3 six 2 - O 4 three 2. If you get an email reply that is not specific; "I was contacting you about your ad on CL..." don't bother with them.

It works, it's not flawless. Plenty of low ballers, just ignore them. I have had problems. I had a woman come look at my car in a parking lot, then ran it down, found all kinds of faults, and left. Called me back 3 hours later wanting to buy it for $700 less. I said no, she kept calling upping the price by $50 bucks. I finally had enough and just told her it's sold. She was mad.
 
Last edited:
I've had great luck with CL, but as others noted, it's been with relatively low dollar value items. I've bought and sold a number of things.
 
Hey, Scott.

I'll send you a cashier's cheque for twice what you're asking for...just send me back a cheque for the difference, and I'll send a buddy over to pick up the bike.
 
JeffDG said:
Hey, Scott.

I'll send you a cashier's cheque for twice what you're asking for...just send me back a cheque for the difference, and I'll send a buddy over to pick up the bike.
Click to expand...
WOW! COOL! I'll PM you my home address. Sounds like an awesome deal for me!!!

I know it has to be legit, Canadians don't lie! :goofy:
 
ScottM said:
WOW! COOL! I'll PM you my home address. Sounds like an awesome deal for me!!!

I know it has to be legit, Canadians don't lie! :goofy:
Click to expand...

Oops, sorry...I forgot, I need you to send me the surplus back by Western Union, not cheque...sorry. Hope that's not a deal breaker. :yes:
 
just sold 20K in cem plots on CL, only one scammer cropped up in the year.
 
JeffDG said:
Oops, sorry...I forgot, I need you to send me the surplus back by Western Union, not cheque...sorry. Hope that's not a deal breaker. :yes:
Click to expand...

I'll send you a check for twice the asking price, if you just pay my shipping agent 25% of the overage and you can keep the rest for your trouble!! :D:D
 
It isn't that hard to spot the scammers, takes about 2 seconds to delete their emails.

I usually use a phone number and tell them to text or call.

When I buy stuff on CraigsList, and they have a phone number, I usually send a text asking if they still have it and what part of XXXX (town) it is located. Nobody has ever got upset.

I love the guys who put "No Scammers, Low-ballers, or Tire Kickers" as if somehow, a scammer is going to eliminate scamming somebody because they were told they weren't welcome.

If you are worried about being scammed, you might want to hire somebody else to sell the item for you.
 
You should probably scan all of the owner's manuals and any and all maintenance receipts you've had since you got it and place them on the ad as well, so buyers know you are serious about selling, and not just some a-hole.
 
I buy and sell on craigslist a lot. Only doing deals face to face and only accepting/paying in cash solves most of the scam concerns- the scam emails are usually pretty obvious anyway.

I try to get people to come to me to look at/purchase something. Have had multiple annoying parking lot meetings where the buyer shows up about an hour or more late calling every 15 minutes to say they'll just be another 15.... pretty infuriating but I wanted to get my stuff sold.

Always take pictures- good in-focus pictures, the more the better. I will always skip an ad with no pictures unless it's something particularly hard to find.

I don't usually leave my phone number in an ad, I let them email me then reply with my phone number if it looks legit. I've sold items within a couple hours of making a listing before, you just have to price it right(but inflate a little, they always want to knock off a little to feel like they got a deal).
 
I've sold a motorcycle, a car, and some other miscellaneous stuff on CL. Never had any trouble at all.
 
EdFred said:
You should probably scan all of the owner's manuals and any and all maintenance receipts you've had since you got it and place them on the ad as well, so buyers know you are serious about selling, and not just some a-hole.
Click to expand...


If those documents are going to be required, in order to complete the sale, that is damn good advice. Might as well get the paperwork in order before the phone starts ringing or people start showing up at your house.
 
EdFred said:
You should probably scan all of the owner's manuals and any and all maintenance receipts you've had since you got it and place them on the ad as well, so buyers know you are serious about selling, and not just some a-hole.
Click to expand...

Good idea. I will bring them all to a professional calligrapher to give and even more professional appearance to them.
 
EdFred said:
You should probably scan all of the owner's manuals and any and all maintenance receipts you've had since you got it and place them on the ad as well, so buyers know you are serious about selling, and not just some a-hole.
Click to expand...

Good idea. I will bring them all to a professional calligrapher to give an even more professional appearance to them.
 
I keep emailing and texting CL advertisers directly, even with "I'll take it at your price. I'll pay cash. Here's my phone number. I'm nearby." HELLO? HELLO?

No response.

HELLO?

Then I watch to see if the ad times out.
 
Sold a $2700 car there recently, no issues at all. Got a couple of texts from lowballers, but that's not much of a hassle, I just texted them back and said no to their offers.
 
I sold a bike recently on CL. Like others have said, I had a few lowball offers but ended up selling it with no problem.
 
Craigslist must be effective, as I don't see newspapers getting bigger any more with a return to classified advertising.
 
Within the last week I bought a house for a rental, sold an $8,000 car, and 50 big round bales of hay. No problems at all.

Selling is cash only, or a local certified check that I can verify with a phone call.
 
Geico266 said:
Within the last week I bought a house for a rental,,,.
Click to expand...

Weird - I thought I was the only one. I answered an ad for a house for sale in CO and went to check it out. Turned out to be a great deal and we are doing real well on it.
 
A 'buyer' for an older Toyota I had spiffed up a bit to flip:

'buyer' with a middle eastern accent: 'I would like to buy your car'

me: 'If you have current insurance and a driver's license we can drive it'

'buyer' : No problem, I bring cashier's check, good as gold!

me: This is cash only sale, but I can meet you at your bank, you can cash the check and I'll sign over the title.

'buyer' : I bring cashier's check, good as gold!

She called twice a day for a couple of days.
 
JimNtexas said:
A 'buyer' for an older Toyota I had spiffed up a bit to flip:

'buyer' with a middle eastern accent: 'I would like to buy your car'

me: 'If you have current insurance and a driver's license we can drive it'

'buyer' : No problem, I bring cashier's check, good as gold!

me: This is cash only sale, but I can meet you at your bank, you can cash the check and I'll sign over the title.

'buyer' : I bring cashier's check, good as gold!

She called twice a day for a couple of days.
Click to expand...


If it's something more than a couple hundred dollars, I prefer to do the final transaction at the bank. I'm not too excited about someone I don't know having knowledge of where someone (me) is that has a large amount of cash. When I sold the car the buyer handed me cash, which I handed to the teller about two minutes later.
 
And CL comes through again!!!

2nd email

Thanks for the response, I an out of the states too. I have a home in Panama (central America). I stay in half of the year. I have a home in Sprngfield the rest of the year. I like your bike a lot. I would like to buy it off of you as long that it hasn't been wrecked or major issues of this nature. I was wondering if I could wire you a thousand dollars to hold it until I get back to Springfield (may 7th) and then pick it up with the balance.
Kent Fitzpatrick
Click to expand...

Sounds legit!
 
ScottM said:
Selling my motorcycle and put the ad on Craigslist this morning. The last time I tried to sell something there all I got was scam offers. I wonder if it will be the same this time?

Seems that there are lots of ads still, but has anyone actually successfully sold something there?
Click to expand...

I've bought and sold all sorts of stuff (even cars) - with great success. Like others have said, phone calls, dealing in person, and CASH is what works.

It seems that a lot of sellers don't respond to emails. Text messages are somewhat better - but a phone call is best. For some reason a set of wheels & tires I listed attracted some scammers - but hardly anything else did.

Dave
 
I listed my Harley on CL and was expecting the scam deal too. A guy calls and wants to buy it, I say come look at it. He told me he would be in the Country on Saturday, flying into LAX. I just knew it was a scammer. I said call me when you land, I will fly to Santa Monica and fly you to my house, this was when they shut down the 405 for the weekend. I never expected the call but he did call and said he would be there soon. I was shocked when he was really at the airport. He looked at my bike and asked about the price, I said 19K. He pulled out 100 dollar bills, asked me for a ride to rent a car and went and bought 4 more bikes. I asked him how did he get through customs with that much cash, he said they never check. A company picked up the bike on Monday and said it was being shipped to Germany.
 
I buy lots of stuff from Craigslist. That said, as a buyer, if there is not a phone number I don't even bother. Phone is the only way I will communicate on Craigslist.
 
I sold a truck and a Jeep on CL a couple years ago. Before I listed them, I got a cheap prepaid phone from Wal Mart. I also signed up for a free email account to use specifically for CL ads. I was able to post a phone number and email for potential buyers without having my real cellphone number and email published for the masses and telemarketers. I wouldn't waste money on a phone for small items; but, big ticket items will net enough to be able to justify a disposable phone.
 
Hotrod97z said:
I sold a truck and a Jeep on CL a couple years ago. Before I listed them, I got a cheap prepaid phone from Wal Mart. I also signed up for a free email account to use specifically for CL ads. I was able to post a phone number and email for potential buyers without having my real cellphone number and email published for the masses and telemarketers. I wouldn't waste money on a phone for small items; but, big ticket items will net enough to be able to justify a disposable phone.
Click to expand...


Why? What dastardly thing were you expecting might happen if they had your normal phone number? Prank calls?
 
denverpilot said:
Why? What dastardly thing were you expecting might happen if they had your normal phone number? Prank calls?
Click to expand...

I, or anyone else can set up a bot to preen CL ads for specific sequences like phone numbers, and put them in a large DB, then use that for marketing purposes.

The solution, mentioned before was to use character in the phone number to fool the bot: 2 one 4 - six 8 3 - O 8 one 6. Works quite well.
 
denverpilot said:
Why? What dastardly thing were you expecting might happen if they had your normal phone number? Prank calls?
Click to expand...

For me it is that I am in Europe and I do not want to pay then long distance charges for people to tire kick or try and scam me.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
docmirror said:
I, or anyone else can set up a bot to preen CL ads for specific sequences like phone numbers, and put them in a large DB, then use that for marketing purposes.

The solution, mentioned before was to use character in the phone number to fool the bot: 2 one 4 - six 8 3 - O 8 one 6. Works quite well.
Click to expand...


What marketing company wants a bunch of phone numbers with no demographic data from people who don't want to buy their product?

There is no value to a bunch of random phone numbers. And, if you like, you could put together a program to dial all numbers in prefix 652-xxxx, and, I think you can even search on the web, easily, and get all the Verizon active numbers, all the ATT active numbers, etc.

Hell, I bet you can even go down to the local recycling center and get a bunch of copies of phone books people are throwing away. They are just loaded with phone numbers.

I just searched Google on my cell phone, and it has 318 hits on it.

The imaginary evils that people worry about. :hairraise: :yikes:
 
jesse said:
I buy lots of stuff from Craigslist. That said, as a buyer, if there is not a phone number I don't even bother. Phone is the only way I will communicate on Craigslist.
Click to expand...

I post a phone number as a seller (a cheap MagicJack number I have just for that sort of thing); but as a buyer, I tend to not deal with sellers who only want to be contacted by phone unless I'm really, really interested in what they're selling.

The reason is because so many sellers don't pull the ads down after the item is sold, so maybe four out of five calls wind up either not being answered at all, or with the seller telling me that the item's been sold already. That's just a waste of my time.

As a buyer, I'd rather send an email to the seller providing my own number (and sometimes a set of questions about the item), and asking the seller to get back to me by whatever manner they like if the item's still available. But I will want to talk to them on the phone or in person before the deal is closed.

I'm actually looking at hammered dulcimers on CL at the moment. I don't know how to play a hammered dulcimer, and in fact have never even seen a hammered dulcimer "in person," as it were. So one of my questions to sellers is whether they can play the hammered dulcimer, so when I go to look at the instrument, I can get some idea of how it sounds when played by someone who actually knows how to play it.

-Rich
 
We buy/sell on CL regularly. There are a few dbags but most are legit.

We have one of those Dollar General pre-paid phones with a local number which is used only for CL transactions.
 
JoseCuervo said:
What marketing company wants a bunch of phone numbers with no demographic data from people who don't want to buy their product?
Click to expand...

A legit company does not want it - but the company that scams businesses with '50,000 qualified leads' for $500 may not care as much.

I as well have had success with CL buying and selling various household items - just this past weekend sold the old outside table and chairs for a couple hundred dollars - the amusement was provided by someone who wanted me to ship an aluminum table and 6 chairs to India and take their cashiers check from some guy who was going to stop by with it - I ignored that one and never heard back again . . .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top