Question about Craigslist...

[Jim E]

I sometimes sell things on CL, right now I have a set of tires on that I listed for someone else. This listing has generated several offers to buy them that involve a check and shipping and one includes a deaf person. So I figure there is no way someone is going to buy a set of used tires and ship them somewhere and surely not several someones so these offeres must be a scam of some kind. What are they trying to pull anyone have an idea?

 

[MikeH]

I think with Craigslist (and they even post it in the warnings) it is best to stay local. Check out the Avoid Scams section on the front page. Also if you've got some time to kill vcheck out the Best-ofs section. There are some sick puppies out there.

 

[Jim E]

Now I get it they send you a fake chasiers check which your bank cashes then you ship the goods and later the bank comes back for the money from the fake check.

 

[RootesRacer]

Now I get it they send you a fake chasiers check which your bank cashes then you ship the goods and later the bank comes back for the money from the fake check.

Sounds fishy...

If you do accept a check, specify that you will require a 10 day wait while the check clears. Any domestic check will bounce or clear in 7 working days.

Best to require up front cash and specify no shipping, thats why there is a craigslist for every decent sized city.

 

[Jim E]

Would not accept a check for the CL stuff ever and not sure I would ship anything sold on there. Mostly the crap I sell on there is stuff that shipping is just to much and to much trouble. I have had pretty good luck moving stuff on there.

 

[SDuncan]

The scam is you have an items for sale at say $100, they offer to buy it, pay you $1000 and you send the item and the remaining money, less a little extra for your trouble. Of course, the cheque/money order/bank draft is bogus and you are out the cash and your goods. The crooks at the other end could care less about your item, it is the cash they want. You'd be surprised how many people bite on this kind of scam. The crooks throw thousands of hooks in the water everyday and even if a small percentage bites, they make some good cash.

 

[Alpine 1789]

There is new variation on this scam. "Companies" that supposedly do mystery shopping recruit shoppers, then send them money orders for their payment. But, the payment is way more than they are supposed to receive. The shopper is instructed to cash the money order, then send the excess to the "next shopper". As with the other scams, the money order is counterfeit, and the next shopper is an accomplice. To make things even more confusing, this is often done in the name of legitimate mystery shopping companies. I know about this, because my company does mystery shopping and we've had people use our name. The local Attorney General tells us that it is next to impossible to catch the people behind the operations. A friend of my daughter got scammed this way. I was able to stop it before the girl cashed the phony money orders, but not before she gave the scammers her SSN. I suspect this girl is in for a world of hurt!

 

[howard]

With the sophisticated desktop scanners/printers available to anyone nowadays, it's almost impossible to tell a fake cashiers check from a real one. The banks can't tell, most of the time, and it can take up to 30 days for them to catch it. (And there's always the possibility that the bank cashier will vouch for the check, because it appears to be genuine, only to have it bounce after a month or so. Guess who's left holding the bag?)

My wife works at a bank and brings home stories of people who get ripped off... or try to do the ripping themselves. Banks respond to shenanigans like these by making security harder for everyone (and costing everyone more $.)