I posted a piece of furniture for sale yesterday ($300) and got an interesting response:
The potential buyer wanted it, but couldn’t get there right away. So he would send me a cashier’s check for the amount plus an extra $50 for my trouble - and would only pick up the furniture after the check cleared. And by the way, he doesn’t respond to craigslist email so please contact him at this email address.
Seems foolproof … what could go wrong? But I turned him down just on general principles – cash only.
What’s weird is that a few hours later I got another response from a different individual, with the exact same script. Cashier’s check, extra $50, “contact me at this email”.
It seems like they’re going through an awful lot of trouble just to get stuck with a huge piece of ugly furniture.
All of these are sent by bots. There’s no one individually responding to posts (which is why they use generic words like “the item” when responding). They don’t want the furniture and no one will ever show up at your house because the true purpose is extract real money from a fake check. After you cash the (fake) check they will either ask you to send the “extra” money to their “courier” (actually the scammer using a different contact) or ask you to buy gift cards because they are buying your item as a present for someone else and want to include the gift cards with the “gift”, then later ask you to scratch off the gift card and send the code(s) to the scammer. They may try to claim the transaction is being “handled” by eBay, Amazon, or another well-known brand, which is completely false. These companies only provide transaction support for products sold directly through them.
Even if you do cash the check, which you should not, your bank will appear to credit the full amount to your account. This happens because the fake check is in the form of a cashier’s check, which banks are obligated by law to credit immediately. But the fraudulent nature of the check will eventually be discovered over a few days or even weeks, at which point your bank will remove the entire amount of the check from your account, possibly causing an overdraft to boot.
Also, it’s good to know scammers have found new methods that get away from fake cashier’s checks or requests to ship goods. They will offer payment with common peer to peer payment systems like PayPal or Venmo, but they will not actually send you money.
Rather, you will receive a (somewhat) convincing email that appears to be from the payment service, claims your money is being held until shipment, that you must reply with a tracking number to “release” payment, and that you will not see the pending transaction in your account view until it is “released”.
Scammers may also falsely claim you must “upgrade” your account to a business account to receive payment and you can do so by sending some fee (several hundred dollars) to “verify” your account, after which you would be refunded the “verification” or “processing” fee. This is common with Venmo or CashApp and takes advantage of general unfamiliarity with these services.
Needless to say, this is all completely false. Genuine payments will always appear when you are logged into your account and there is no such thing as a Venmo or CashApp business account. And while PayPal does have business accounts, they aren’t required to receive personal payments and getting one does not involve sending a “verification fee” to anyone. The address you are told to send “verification” is actually controlled by the scammer, after which they will take that money and disappear.
Naturally the best defense against these is to stick to the original intent of Craigslist: in-person, cash-only transactions.
We just got a used BBQ grill on Craigslist, listed for $10. It was part of an elderly man’s estate; the son just wanted to get rid of stuff and gave it to us free, but didn’t want to list it as free because he’d gotten burned by Craigslist crazies before.
The responses I got to my posting yesterday consisted of the 2 “cashiers check” people that I now know are scam-bots; and a 3rd that I thought was legit…except that he asked if I take Venmo. Sigh. Needless to say I haven’t heard from him today.
Numero two o, I’ve never sold on Craigslist. I have had good luck selling on Facebook Marketplace. I was never contacted by a scammer. Everything I sold was actually paid for.
I’ve successfully sold stuff like furniture on Craiglist. I’d say about one third of responses are scams, one third are problematic humans, one third are okay humans.
A difficulty is that even genuine buyers reply with vague stuff like “Is this still available?” that doesn’t distinguish them from a bot. I reply only via Craigslist email, ignoring any request to use some other method of communication. After answering any questions, agreeing to or rejecting any price negotiation, I always ask specifically “When do you want to pick it up?” without giving my address. You can usually figure out from the second reply if someone is real, and if they are going to be straightfoward to deal with or problematic. Nobody ever gets my phone number, and nobody gets my address until a few emails have gone back and forth and they have passed psychiatric triage.
Hard no on any nonsense about “will you hold it for me until…”, hard no on ANY complication. This will be the entirety of our business dealings: you bring money, I give table.
With those parameters, I’ve successfully sold a bunch of extra furniture, and met a few nice people.
I’ve also used Nextdoor succsessfully. It doesn’t access such a wide market, but much less triage is required.
Perhaps contrary to other advice out there on the Internet, IMO Venmo/CashApp is OK if the person is meeting you face-to-face and sends payment then, where you can confirm receipt before handing over the item and which rules out distant scammers. Up to you, of course. But sticking to “cash only” is still the easiest way to exclude scammers.
Venmo is not risky in terms of the payment - you see an unconditional and irrevocable payment arrive in real time. But is there any way to avoid giving the payer either the phone number or email associated with your account?
It’s not all scammers–I’ve bought three of my last four cars off Craigslist and had no problems at all. I’m pretty thorough in my vetting before I ever go see the car and if the seller won’t give up the VIN to run a Carfax report (and to make sure the VIN matches the particulars of the car itself) then I have no need to go see that car. I don’t give a shit if you’re selling a gullwing Mercedes for a hunnert bucks, you don’t give me basic info and VIN and I lose all interest in pursuing the vehicle. Maybe especially if it’s a gullwing for a Benjamin, my mama didn’t raise no stupid kids.
About 10 years ago when I tried selling a old but still working fine 50 inch TV on Craigslist the scan was people would try to “trade” you with whatever the scam product of the week was. I got so many people wanting to swap “Speakers that retail for $500!” for my $200 HDTV.
I’d say that’s been my experience as well. The scams I ignore. The flaky sellers and buyers drive me nuts, though. I get really irritated with people who try to haggle through email. Show up when you say you will with cash and then we can deal.
Facebook Marketplace seems to have its share of scams, too.
We just bought a used $1200 couch for $250 last week on Craigslist with no issue (damn thing even has two USB ports!) My wife and I have bought probably 10-20 items, and we’ve sold probably a half dozen (including a car), and had no problems. I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten the cashier’s check scam from them (I have from other places), but that’s such an obvious scam (going on over a decade or so by now, maybe two) that if I did, I would have forgotten about it, as that email would instantly been glossed over.
@pulykamell I just went through my emails and see that over the past 6 years we’ve bought at least 10 items on Craigslist with no problems. There was another item that was a scam attempt, but 1 out of 10 or 12 isn’t bad.
I’ve had decent luck on both CL and FB Marketplace. Better luck on the former than the latter. Marketplace seems to be full of people who just like to ask “Is this still available?” and then never respond or follow up.
I’ve been buying and selling on craigslist, nextdoor, and more recently, fb marketplace for years. Everything from beds to chickens. I’ve probably had scammers email me but they are so obvious I delete and forget almost instantly. The rule for these venues is face to face and cash only, and that is widely understood. I’ve never offered a check or been offered one. Long distance stuff I do Paypal. I ship after I get paid.
The main problem isn’t scammers, it is flakes. People who make an appointment and then never show. I figure about 50% of people do this. It’s part of doing business that way.
It’s 9 years ago now but I had very good experiences on Craigslist in the Midwest. Sold a houseful of furniture & accessories to a bunch of very nice folks. Only had one or two flakes, and quickly somebody else showed up and took the goods instead.
Here in So FL in 2022 the word on the street is it’s 100% flakes except for the 85% who are conmen to boot. I can’t say from personal experience; haven’t had the guts to try.