(Mods I don’t know if this for the Market Place, I’m just aggravated though about scammers)
Scammers are using AI to try to ‘purchase’ something.
I have a very nice barely used target air rifle for sale. That, and it’s special compressor are worth about $1200, I’m asking $600. I put it online at an air guns site.
Their responses start off good, but then gets kinda hinky. For instance “I’ll send a courier to come get it” or “I’ll have a moving company come get it”. A moving company? I don’t even need an FFL as it is not technically a firearm, I can UPS it.
I wrote - “We should talk on the phone to work out the details.” No response to that. Everything looked pretty good, but something was just a little bit off. Sort of like AI imagery.
Well it mostly sounded legit. One claimed to be a guy from LA. Pretty much American English. But, then, movers will come get it? That, and no response to talk on the phone to work out details.
So I suspect a scammer is using AI to sound legit, because they don’t really know English.
They don’t want your air rifle. The next step in the scam will be to separate you from some money. The same verbiage is used to cover people selling objects where those terms actually make sense. They cast a large net. You are just the sardine who noticed the tuna net. The scam probably doesn’t us AI, but it is automated.
Yeah. The scam sent off alarms. At first it sounded OK, but a few words, and not wanting to talk to me, shut it down on my side.
I didn’t give them anything, and ghosted them. I’m pretty sure they where fishing for banking info.
I’ll try to find a local shop that will want it. I’ll never shoot it again, my new yard is not quite big enough, and it’s not right for a firearm shooting range.
Yup, sounds like a classic purchase scam; either they write the check for an order of magnitude higher (so in this case, they’ll write it for $6000 & then ask you to write them one for $5400 to cover the overpayment. The issue is that a couple of days later you’ll find out that their check was bogus & you’ll be out $5400 &/or they’ll want you to pay the courier/mover with the ‘extra’ funds that they give you in their check so you’ll pay the courier a couple of Benjamins & then, again, the check they gave you is bogus.
I know it’s a scam but that second one never made sense to me. You pay your courier; why should I get involved in the middle of your transaction with a third party?
