Scum Bag Scammers

[greymatter]

posted a few items on our local CL . A Music Hall tt and a Thorens 150ab . It didn't take 5 minutes before the old scam of , send a check and a courier will grab the stuff . On the funny side I gave them a silly name and a wrong address and told them to make the check out to cash .so much BS to even list stuff for sale on CL .

 

[DirtFarmer]

redundant thread title

 

[Sandstrom]

redundant thread title

Well...not all Scum Bags are Scammers even though all Scammers are, in fact, Scum Bags.

 

[musichal]

Scammers call our home every day. It took several rather heated arguments with Christine to stop her providing info to the computer scammers. Now she knows just to hang up, but it bothers her to be "rude."

"All I did was give them our email address," she used to say.

Good grief.

 

[grillebilly]

call our home every day

Sound interested, ask them to hang on a second, put the phone down...and forget about it.

 

[Archguy]

My phone ringer is always off, and I cancelled voice mail.

Life is good. I can listen to music all the time now

 

[DirtFarmer]

Scammers call our home every day. It took several rather heated arguments with Christine to stop her providing info to the computer scammers. Now she knows just to hang up, but it bothers her to be "rude."

"All I did was give them our email address," she used to say.

Good grief.

I just start talking nonsense.... "Can I massage your grandmother in the banana patch? My shoes hurt", etc.

That usually keeps 'em away

 

[MannyE]

I sometimes do a version of this:

 

[SteveA]

Common one here is a call from 'microsoft' to tell me they have detected an issue with my computer (but can fix it if I let them)
Sometimes I start off my side of the discussion with "which one" and then ask for the mac address so I can identify the correct one. That discussion goes on till I get bored and/or feel I have sucked up enough of his time to feel good about doing a public service.

 

[Wildcat]

I've been in a "Tired of BS" mode the past few years. Can't be bothered to list much on CL, just for this reason.

 

[musichal]

Here where the wind comes rushing down the plain I've had nothing but positive CL experiences.

 

[chili555]

Chili's tips and tricks for Craigslist.

# You will get lowball offers. Don’t get insulted or mad. That’s just how it works. I usually just email back, “No, thanks.”

# You will get scammers: “I want to buy this for my nephew and I am not in town now. I’ll send a check and include a little extra for shipping, etc.” Of course, if you send the item, you will find that the check is NFG. I usually just email back, “No, thanks.”

# People will offer checks, subway tokens, trades, live chickens in a crate, and everything weird you can imagine. No, thanks.

I tell people that I will meet them in the daytime in any nearby grocery, drugstore, Walmart parking lot they want. ‘Nearby’ because you don’t want to drive to Homestead. They bring cash. I’ll bring the item. We trade. Goodbye. No other terms will be considered.

Not so hard, in my opinion.

 

[MannyE]

Chili's tips and tricks for Craigslist.

# You will get lowball offers. Don’t get insulted or mad. That’s just how it works. I usually just email back, “No, thanks.”

# You will get scammers: “I want to buy this for my nephew and I am not in town now. I’ll send a check and include a little extra for shipping, etc.” Of course, if you send the item, you will find that the check is NFG. I usually just email back, “No, thanks.”

# People will offer checks, subway tokens, trades, live chickens in a crate, and everything weird you can imagine. No, thanks.

I tell people that I will meet them in the daytime in any nearby grocery, drugstore, Walmart parking lot they want. ‘Nearby’ because you don’t want to drive to Homestead. They bring cash. I’ll bring the item. We trade. Goodbye. No other terms will be considered.

Not so hard, in my opinion.

Yep. It's totally your fault if you acknowledge the idiots and assholes. Just say "No, thanks" and move on. Well said.

 

[Wildcat]

An ignore/block works also, although on CL you have to be careful not to block the wrong thing, or you get no emails (they end up in spam).

I think it's the gall of these buyers and what they offer us that is amazing at times. Like when I listed a spotless Rotel power amp, got an offer for half (maybe less) saying the same one was listed on eBay and my price needed to go down. So OK, that one was a lower model, and beat to shit. Either the buyer was a clueless idiot, or the buyer thought *I* was a clueless idiot and wouldn't notice he was trying to scam me. I just dumped the email (after blocking him).

I can totally relate to @greymatter since we live in the same area. I've had my share of the same arseholes myself.

 

[Dave_1962]

Ain't capitalism grand?

 

[MannyE]

It sure is. The big problem I come across here is very low intelligence and just plain crazy. There is a story about a turntable I posted in this thread maybe a year or two ago that made me change the way I scour CL for usable equipment. It was just insane and I got lucky I didn't get mauled by a huge dog thanks to keeping my cool and knowing how to handle big dogs.

 

[judsonw]

Scammers call our home every day. It took several rather heated arguments with Christine to stop her providing info to the computer scammers. Now she knows just to hang up, but it bothers her to be "rude."

"All I did was give them our email address," she used to say.

Good grief.

There is a guy online who streams videos of him stringing along scammers like that. He wastes up to 4 hours of their time. He has a virtual PC set up so they can access it but do no damage, he pretends to be an 80 year old woman but uses the name Edna Mode (from the movie the Incredibles), and gives the address for the business in the US version of the Office. It can be entertaining to watch as he flusters the scammer taking over an hour to actually provide a credit card number because he keeps going on tangents while looking for the card.

 

[superdog]

Scammers call our home every day. It took several rather heated arguments with Christine to stop her providing info to the computer scammers. Now she knows just to hang up, but it bothers her to be "rude."

"All I did was give them our email address," she used to say.

Good grief.

Its probably all he wanted.

Here where the wind comes rushing down the plain I've had nothing but positive CL experiences.

My cl experiences have been positive also but I word the ads to politely don't bother me if your not serious.

Chili's tips and tricks for Craigslist.

# You will get lowball offers. Don’t get insulted or mad. That’s just how it works. I usually just email back, “No, thanks.”

# You will get scammers: “I want to buy this for my nephew and I am not in town now. I’ll send a check and include a little extra for shipping, etc.” Of course, if you send the item, you will find that the check is NFG. I usually just email back, “No, thanks.”

# People will offer checks, subway tokens, trades, live chickens in a crate, and everything weird you can imagine. No, thanks.

I tell people that I will meet them in the daytime in any nearby grocery, drugstore, Walmart parking lot they want. ‘Nearby’ because you don’t want to drive to Homestead. They bring cash. I’ll bring the item. We trade. Goodbye. No other terms will be considered.

Not so hard, in my opinion.

Right.You have to take the good with the bad.It is just to be expected.
Selling on cl is not one of my favorite things to do but if i want move something it really is the only option.

 

[tarior]

That's where I'm at. Ya' have to take the bad with the good. Just like everything else in life. Also like in life, the bad and good of anything is often what you make it.

 

[Wildcat]

I will say one thing: as a buyer, I'm always courteous even if I make a lower offer. My low offer is always reasonable, and I engage the seller if I can. If I see the price is way too high, I don't even bother replying. If it's only a little too high, I could easily get in touch and say "it's a little out of my budget at the moment." Or, "Would you take $$$.¢¢ for it," if the ad does not say "firm" on the pricing. Sometimes just planting that seed is enough that they'll get in touch if the item remains unsold.

Why can't other buyers out there have this same common courtesy and respect? I would think most do operate this way, but it's the lower end of the humanity pool that are the ones who pretty much ignore our listings and demand the transaction on their own terms. And as I've said in other CL-related threads before, some areas are worse than others.