Craigslist scammers: how to deal?

[anabolice30]

So, I'm selling a car on craigslist. Within hours I have out of state area codes texting me saying they are military men who will pay me in the mail, or that the car hauler will have my money. Is there anything I can do to fuck over these low life scammers?

[mrcheezle19]

Send them a 95 civic shell?

[steve68]

^^^^^ Now that idea I like, loaded with cow shit!

[anabolice30]

I thought I would be slick and let them pay to have the car shipped, but the guy sent me a fake paypal for the amount requested plus $600 for me to cover cost of shipping. Maybe I can still get his address or something.

[CENTURION]

be the bigger man. that shit happens all the time. just ignore him or object the deal.
smoke pole and it won't matter

[bddog]

Play them along. Get the phoney Cashiers check.
I have over thirty fraudulent checks from people replying to my ads for property that I own and rent.
They send extra money by accident, then want me to Western Union them the difference. As If!
The way I have it figured if they are wasting resources on me, maybe some Grandma won't get ripped off.

[Ether-D]

Play them along. Get the phoney Cashiers check.
I have over thirty fraudulent checks from people replying to my ads for property that I own and rent.
They send extra money by accident, then want me to Western Union them the difference. As If!
The way I have it figured if they are wasting resources on me, maybe some Grandma won't get ripped off.

Ya know, I think I like this approach. Waste their time, so they can't be using it to steal.

[papag1234]

I had a marketing professor that told us every now-and-then he would get spam ads faxed to him. Every time he would get one he would proceed to fax back 50 pages of black paper.

[varg]

Wait, you actually put your phone number in a craigslist ad?

You must be new to this.

E-mail only. Then you can just hit delete and not deal with your phone buzzing. Once you've figured out someone is a real potential buyer, then you e-mail your phone number to them.

Craigslist is a cesspool, it's barely worth trying to sell something there, you can buy stuff if you're savvy, but generally it's best to take your selling elsewhere. Too much riff-raff.

[anabolice30]

Well the scammer was smart. He paypal'd me $3600 dollars and wants me to go to Walmart and pay them $600 to ship the car to him, but he gave me no informatiom as to where the car was going, so even if I were to fall for this I don't see how he would get the car. His English was terrible and the way he phrased things he was definitely a foreigner. He probably just had a way of recovering the cash from Wal-Mart.

Wait, you actually put your phone number in a craigslist ad?

I get awesome deals on craigslist all the time, buying and selling. You do have to deal with the peanut gallery a lot though, but it's not that bad. Just always meet in public.

[BobombETA]

Well the scammer was smart. He paypal'd me $3600 dollars and wants me to go to Walmart and pay them $600 to ship the car to him, but he gave me no informatiom as to where the car was going, so even if I were to fall for this I don't see how he would get the car. His English was terrible and the way he phrased things he was definitely a foreigner. He probably just had a way of recovering the cash from Wal-Mart.

Walmart ships cars?

[anabolice30]

Walmart ships cars?

I didn't know they did either, but he told me to go to Walmart and give them $600. Didnt specify what department to ask for or anything.

[varg]

I get awesome deals on craigslist all the time, buying and selling. You do have to deal with the peanut gallery a lot though, but it's not that bad. Just always meet in public.

I've been craigslisting since I was in high school, and it wasn't bad back then, but in the last 6-8 years the scamming activity has become so bad I can't list something that's worth money without getting at least 2 scam e-mails. After the first time I got a text from a scammer in 2009 or so, I have never put my phone number out there since. If someone wants what I have, they'll e-mail me, and it's far easier to ignore the scumbags, the time wasters and the scammers via e-mail

[nando]

remove your phone # from the posting.

I sold a car on CL last year. I had my phone # on it at first - 100% of the texts I got were spam. I got like 5 a day. It's not even worth the time, just use your email instead. The person who bought the car never used my phone #.

[Nick's e30]

They can work around the phonetics now and that bothers me. I used to always list my number as zero-zero 0 1 one one 2 2 two 2, or some combo of words and numbers. It wasn't until sometime last year that I started getting spam texts.