Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Selling an item on Craigslist, is this legit.

hey guys, I'm seeling my SMS1 on craigslist and have gotten a few replies, one from a guy that says the product is a joke. I can tell that guy is a true audiophile troll.

Anyway, got one today from a guy in France that will use paypal, still a little uneasy about that...

Today, another guy shows interest and here is how he replied after I told him it was still available.....do you think this sounds fishy? He says I can wait until it clears my bank, however, sending someone for pickup is fishy unless this guy is some executive. I'm not going to wait around, why not ship ups, fedex, or dhl...hmmmm

Hi,
Thanks alot for the email. I'm highly intrested in your item but i won't be able to come take a look at it as i'm the busy type but believe it's exactly what you stated in the Ad. Mind you, i will be paying you with a cashier check and my shipping agency will be coming for the pick up of the item from your location as soon as you confirm to me that you receive the checkand it clears your bank. If this arrangement is okay by you, Pls. provide your full name, contact address and a valid cell # so i can forward it to my financier to mail the payment to you as soon as possible and you remove the add from craigslist.Thanks..I hope to read from you soonest. Regards, James

Way sketchy. Way, way sketchy. So's the France one. Craigslist should be local only, imo.

It's a scam.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...ml?page=2&cat=3

Search for "busy" on this page.

dang our company Webwasher won't allow the website.

I stay away from both of them. Why not use Audiogon or Ebay?

SCAM! DO NOT GIVE HIM ANY INFORMATION OR DO ANY TYPE OF TRANSACTION WITH THIS PERSON.

May try one of those, Craigslist is free, no charges. If local a good deal...

Or give the information for someone you really hate, or the address and phone number of the local FBI office or something!

Dr.Omar Bose, Framigham MA

Noel Lee, Monster Cable

Give him CV's address. It will give him something to do until the EP800 arrives.

I listed a set of winter tires from my old car on the local Buy & Sell and got a similar kind of response... one that was so vague, it was funny... speaking of "a great need for the item you are selling" and that "(I) seem like an upstanding individual in regards to (my) description of the item"

I guess I was really upstanding... listing the tire size and quantity of them?!?

Anyway, I deleted that one.

Bren R.

Randy - I've sold lots of things on Craigslist. The only way it works is if you only sell to local buyers. Test people in your reply to their ad by asking them where in town they live or could meet to see the product... if they can give you an even semi-legit response, you're on the right track.

If you get any inquiries that don't mention the product by name or show some level of knowledge about what is for sale, you've got yourself a scammer. (your note above fails this test)

Stay local and you will be fine. If you can't sell it locally, ebay is the way to go.

Jason

It's pretty much word-for-word identical.

"I'm highly intrested in your item but i won't be able to come take a look at it as i'm the busy type but believe it's exactly what you stated in the Ad. Mind you, i will be paying you with a bank check and my shipping agency will be coming for the pick up of the item from your location as soon as you confirm to me that you receive the check and it clears your bank.If this arrangement is okay by you, Pls. provide your full name, contact address and a valid cell # so i can forward it to my financier to mail the payment to you as soon as possible. "

The general idea behind the scams is that there seems to be some kind of two-stage clearing going on with the cashier's checks. Your bank confirms the check cleared, you release the goods (or send money, or...) and then a couple of weeks later your bank comes back and says the check was bogus. I have no idea how that works, but...

yep, that was the one, what a scam.... I replied to him not so nicely....

anyway, I think I have a guy in Waukesha, WI that might be interested.. He wants to use paypal, which I have, but haven't received payment much, only once to Lorenzo1000. I think there is a transaction fee, which I assume I should pass onto the buyer, as well as shipping costs..

I sold a ktichen table on craigs list and gave ouir old cofee table and end tables (with a borken glass) away on craigs list... both local.

Yeah, that's a scam. Cash only transactions, face to face with Craigslist. And only do the transaction in public.

I've had good luck w/ Audiogon, both as a buyer and seller.

What about this guy in WI, I know it is not Merchman, but he said he could pay me via paypal?

Transaction fee is 3% for paypal. They kind of bend you over on that...

I would ask the guy for his paypal ID that you can check for on ebay. Then at least you can qualify him. I've done this w/ no issues so far but you do have go to w/ some faith there.

Paypal is pretty safe. I've done a lot of transactions thru them and never had a problem. You can wait for the money to clear into your bank account before shipping. Typically that takes a few days.

The one time I had an issue with an Ebay transaction where the seller never shipped the item, Paypal refunded my money with no questions and no fees.

ok, the Wisconsin guy is interested in my item as we came to an agreement on the price, and he will cover the paypal processing charge. He said he will use Paypal Echeck, which I read about and it sounds like the way to go. It will take 3-4 days for it to clear into my bank and then I'll ship to him.

Does this sound ok? Once it clears, I would think I'm good to go on shipping, he can't back out right? Should I still ask for his paypal ID, or once I see his email address, is that it? Sorry for all the questions.

Randy - sorry, still almost certainly a scam.

If you're that confident in moving forward, be sure to follow the precautions listed here.

Personally, unless this guy sounds like he knows exactly what an SMS-1 is, why he's buying it, and can tell you what subwoofers he's trying to calibrate, I'd be highly suspicious that it is a scam.

Keep us posted, I'm curious if it turns out to be real. Hopefully I'm just being overly suspicious, but I'd hate to see you get burned.

Jason

oh man Jason your worrying me....well he gave me an address and phone# so far. The address is for a company called Digital Studios, a photography store in Waukesha on 258 W Broadway. It pulls up on Google maps. So if I wait until the funds are in my paypal account, I'm ok?

Yes Randy, most definitely wait until everything has cleared. I have used PayPal many many times and it's a good system; just be smart about it, and don't rush. I think people rush to get the sale finished, and that's part of the problem.

Jason-
I think your confusing buyers.

One was from Wisconsin, the other certainly a scam.

Wait, maybe I better read back in case I'm wrong!!

You're wrong Mark . Just kidding LOL

Wow, I really need to read what I type before I press enter...

Ha ha . Funny thing is that, that quite frequently happens with my voice program, especially when chatting on MSN. My voice program recognition is a very quick (almost too quick) and quite accurate, but when I'm chatting away expeditiously, quite often it doesn't quite catch what I'm saying and puts in words that sound similar to the word intended but have nothing to do with the conversation, so needless to say it makes it very interesting; especially when it happens to put in expletives

PS. I didn't proofread this message so if there's any errors it's my voice recognition software's fault

Hi Randy:

The guy from Wisconsin using E-Check is probably just fine. Just wait for the money to clear into your paypal account before you ship him the item.

Happy holidays everyone!!!

So Cam, be honest:
When you first got the voice recognition program, did you just feed it a lot of swear words to see if it worked?

Your hilarious Mark . I'm actually really surprised at how very few are in its built-in vocabulary, but once you program them in they tend to pop up when you least expect it .

Like when you're speaking to Mark?

Hey Mark, I don't think I'm confusing the buyers, but hey, I could be wrong too!

Randy, to answer your question, I think you're fine as long as you wait until the money shows as cleared in PayPal. That's the only caution I was adding to make sure you didn't fall for the dupes that apparently commonly come 3-4 days after the point you're at now in the sales process.

Like I said, I'm likely being overly cautious as I've just seen SO much garbage on Craigslist. As long as you've got the money in PayPal before you ship, you're good. After all, if PayPal somehow didn't pay you once they said the money was there... what good would their whole service be?!

Jason

Well, just got the email from paypal that the transaction was in process. He payed the paypal transaction fee as well, but said normally the seller pays that.. He said the address is his place of work, which will be cheaper to ship FedEx ground. Sounds like Digital Studio is some type of photgraphy/camera shop... He wished me a Merry Christmas an Happy Holidays as well, so maybe it is ok. I'll be sure to wait until I get the funds, and even call paypal to verify I've got those funds before i ship....

Yeah a call to paypal couldn't hurt.

I guess I am even more paranoid than Jason. I would make sure the money is transferred out of the Paypal account so that the buyer can't make false claims and ask/demand his money back.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that paypal has reversed transactions before and that people have been scammed this way.

Randy - he's right that normally the seller does pay so that much is a fair point (but hey, if you got him to pay, all the better).

Given the amount of dialogue you're having with this guy, he's either a much smarter scammer than average (most of the ones I've conversed with for fun on Craigslist seem to have an IQ < 20), or he is legit. At this point I'm leaning towards legit. I think once you've got the money in PayPal cleared you're good to go.

Jason

Well, I just installed http://www.iconix.com/ which is a free download and recommended by Paypal and many other legit vendors. This way you know if that Paypal, Ebay, and 1500 other vendors is legit and not SPAM or a SCAM.

I did get an email from "sendmail@paypal.com on behalf of xxxx" which at first had me guessing if it was real or not... After downloading this tool, it validates that the email did come from Paypal, and I have a transaction that is still in the "uncleared" state. The buyer's address is not registered, but that is not always bad, some people may have a different billing and shipping address.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted over the next 4-5 days...

Cool program Randy, thanks for posting the link.

Randy, something to keep in mind is that PayPal will always send a payment confirmation to your desired e-mail address, but they will never solicit you. I have received probably five phishing e-mails that look like they're from PayPal but obviously not because they appeared at random times. After reporting them to PayPal they responded stating that they where indeed phishing e-mails.

Thanks for posting that program, I'll have to check it out.

Yep, it seems to work great, and is recommended by Paypal...