A scam?

[Randy Rizzo]

My brother is trying to sell my backhoe attachment on Craigslist. First inquiry,a guy offers to buy, listed price, no negotiations, wants Bros paypal info. BTW he' in the military and someone else will be picking this thing up. Sounds like a scam to me, but if he's paying by paypal is that not a safe transaction? Anyone know how this scam, if it is one, works? For the moment we told them cash only.

[Jerome Stanek]

It's a scam phishing for paypal account info

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Yep. Scam. Always either in the military or working on an oil rig and wants to buy for his son and blah, blah, blah. I almost have stopped using Craigslist due to the numerous scammers.

Also so beware when buying. Often they post cars for sale at cheap rates and want a deposit or other payment and you never hear from them again. They are so stupid they post on Virgin Islands craigslist and they have pictures of cars with pine trees or oak trees in the background, or brick homes with flat driveways. Nothing here is flat.

[Scott Shepherd]

A scam for sure. Something was posted on a local CL recently and it was one of those deals you see from time to time, where if it's a real deal, and you can see it first, you'll have scored a nice win. It said text them, which I don't do because then they have my cell phone number. I emailed them from a burner email account. Got a reply that it was a guy who was at work at the moment, but he was helping his sister sell the item because she wasn't computer literate. He gives me "her" email address and I email from my burner account and get a reply back, telling me that the item is ready to go, but Amazing Payments is handling the transaction, so email my name, address, and contact information, and we could start the process. Once I did all that, Amazon would contact me and ship the item (which weighed about 800lbs). I played along with them for about 2 weeks.

I showed it to a friend of mine and within a couple minutes, he had sent me the original listing on some real site, from the person that actually owned it, with all the actual photos of it. They had swiped the photos off a legit website posting, and then turned it into a CL posting and were posting it in various CL's around the country.

[Rich Enders]

We recently sold a cooktop on CL, and the very first responder offered us an extra $50 if we would hold it for a day for him, and provide our banking information.

[Randy Rizzo]

Thanks, you guys confirmed my initial suspicions. Wish there was a way to get these creeps. There must be enough folks who actually fall for these schemes or they wouldn't continue doing it. When my brother first contacted me about this offer and all the details, my first question was, "Is this guy from Nigeria?" The second comment was, "Run away from this as fast as you can!"

[Wade Lippman]

I don't see the scam. So what if they know my paypal name; how else are they going to send me money? The guy might be legit; what is there to lose?

What I don't get it the "I want to buy what you have on CL; is it still for sale". What do they hope to gain? My email address? Big deal; Gmail sends 500 emails every day to my junk folder from "Mary in the Ukraine, what is your name". What is 100 more.

[Rick Potter]

For me the first tip off to a scam when I advertise on CL is when the e-mail asks if I still have the ITEM (or something like). Second is when they don't ask any questions about it. Those pretty much peg it as a robot scam.

[Wade Lippman]

For me the first tip off to a scam when I advertise on CL is when the e-mail asks if I still have the ITEM (or something like). Second is when they don't ask any questions about it. Those pretty much peg it as a robot scam.

Yeah, but why? What do they get out of it?

[Tom M King]

and he wants you to click on the email link to talk to his wife about the amount, or something like that.

[Wade Lippman]

and he wants you to click on the email link to talk to his wife about the amount, or something like that.

Not on the ones I get. At first I was naive and responded to a few. That was the end of it; no viruses, no scams, nothing. Just the robot asking me if my item was still for sale.
They have to have a reason, but I don't know what it is.

[Chuck Wintle]

My brother is trying to sell my backhoe attachment on Craigslist. First inquiry,a guy offers to buy, listed price, no negotiations, wants Bros paypal info. BTW he' in the military and someone else will be picking this thing up. Sounds like a scam to me, but if he's paying by paypal is that not a safe transaction? Anyone know how this scam, if it is one, works? For the moment we told them cash only.

yes cash only, when the item is picked up.

[Jerome Stanek]

When I was looking for an item on Craigs list the first thing I ask if the item is still for sale but also ask about meeting at a safe place to see the product. I find that I get my answers most of the time.

[Randy Rizzo]

Sold the backhoe today. You could tell from the gitgo this guy was a legit interested buyer. Asked all the right questions, how does it attach, also had a Case 1840, will it fit on my trailer, negotiated price, offered cash, wants directions for pickup, was willing to leave a cell and home #, which was local. The kind of response you expect from someone who wasn't out to screw you. We had two buyers who were obvious scams.