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CL question

S

sb47

Well-Known Member
Hi
I have a question about CL and thought someone here could answerer my question.
I use cl to sell lots of things. In my ads I will say I will not respond to emails. But I get emails every day from people on cl.

Sample ad:
I have a pair of Cerwin Vega AT-12 speakers for sale.
There in great condition and work perfectly.
I am asking $200.00 for the pair.
Please call 000-123-4567
Sorry I will not respond to emails.
Thanks for looking and have a great day.


Sample of the emails I get.
I have a pair of Cerwin Vega AT-12 speakers for sale.


Most seem to be sent from an iphone.

Why do I continue to get these emails? What are they wanting?
They only put the first sentence of my ad. They don’t ask any questions.

I’m confused!

Dennis
 
Register to hide this ad
How do you expect people to respond??? On craig's list, they respond by an email, based on your account. If someone is interested, they hit reply....which goes to your email......
 
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Are you sure "I have a pair of Cerwin Vega AT-12 speakers for sale." is not the subject line of the email?
 
I get those, too (although I prefer email). They're either the first sentence of my ad, verbatim, or the first sentence clumsily phrased as a question. I assume they're spam/scams and delete them.
 
you limit your customer base but not emailing IMO. why be so hardnosed and not reply to emails. I dont get it. I sell on CL and EXPECT a email responce. I gess everyone doesnt tho. to each his own.
phone calls are much more annoying if you have to play phonetag.. with email you just reply and wait.
 
Probably why people who DO accept e-mails ask you to use a unique subject line in the email you send.
Scammer/spammers will copy the first line (as you've seen).

Is there a special reason you don't use e-mail when dealing with an internet-based sale?
I personally find it convenient to e-mail since I often "surf" outside of people's normal living hours and may be the first response to an ad if I can e-mail the seller.
 
I don’t like the emails because I only get a sale on maybe one out of 100 emails I respond to.
If I respond to them, I never get a result; they never call or try any further contact.
For safety reasons I don’t put my address in the ad. I want to talk to the person so I can feel them out a little bit before I have them come to my house.

I was told that these emails were fishing emails. That if you respond to them, someone with the rite soft wear, can hack your computer.

It takes to long to communicate through emails. They email me and they wait. I respond, we wait. They respond back and we wait some more. It’s much easier to just make a phone call and be done with it.


I get emails that ask how much? When it’s clearly on the ad how much I am asking.


I do respond to emails that have a full name and phone # and that are clearly interested in the ad, and by asking questions about the item.

I just don’t understand why you would send an email to and ad and just put the first sentence verbatim and nothing else. it makes no sense to me.

Dennis
 
It is for the purpose of harvesting emails. Most people will click on reply to ask WTF and then they have a confirmed valid email to send spam to and to use as a return address to send spam to others.
 
^^^what he said

The scammer does not know your email address just by responding to your ad because CL does not give it up. It is when you reply that the scammer now has your email address. What they do with it I have no idea but there are many possibilities.

Why it contains the first line of your ad? Just guessing but I would assume that this is all done by a program and that the scammer never reads your ad. There are probably programs running that respond to thousands of CL ads and generating automated emails.

I further assume that these types of activities are taking place from countries in parts of the world with economies even worse off than ours and where there is little, if any, chance of getting in any trouble.
 
I have an email account set up just for CL; when it gets too much spam I delete it and create another.

I never have my name attached to the account so it's as anonymous as possible.
 
Just use a disposable e mail address for c list etc. You can also have it copy to your reg e mail. Disposable e mails are handy to register at web sites with
filter out the spam etc.
 
Those kinds of emails are clearly SPAM and should be ignored. I agree that all the no shows are annoying, but it's better than having people calling at all hours.

To save time when I'm selling something I usually reply to every valid response with the same generic answer. I tell them it's still available, and give them my phone number and a rough idea of when and where to meet. I also tell them that the first person who hands me the money gets it.

When I'm shopping, I hate ads that only want you to call. Unless it's something really important to me, I usually don't bother. It's much easier to ask questions about an item via email than having to play phone tag, or trying to get a model number from someone who hardly speaks English.
 
Some have asked why I don’t use email. My answer is, with all the scams and spam and computer hacking going on, why should I?
99% of the emails I get appear to be scams so why bother?
Like I said I do respond to those that look legit but I just delete those that are a copy of the original ad.
Most of the time I just delete them without opening them up.

I was just wondering what they were and why I get all these emails.

Thanks for the info.

Dennis
 
I'm in business, and it's a whole new generation. Do yourself a favor and open up to the idea of people responding by email, or texting.

I'm sure there's plenty of scams out there, but if you see something like this, you can bet it's legit:

Re: KLH-23's - Local buyer, interested. Please give me a call at 602-555-xxxx or bryan@gmail.com at your convenience.

Thanks!
 
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azmonsoon said:
I'm in business, and it's a whole new generation. Do yourself a favor and open up to the idea of people responding by email.

I'm sure there's plenty of scams out there, but if you see something like this, you can bet it's legit:

Re: KLH-23's - Local buyer, interested. Please give me a call at 602-555-xxxx or bryan@gmail.com at your convenience.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Nice garage ya got there AZ..
 
Poor schmuck posts here asking what these emails are about, and gets lectured by 17 people about why he should accept email responses to his ads. :rolleyes: As far as I'm concerned you can run your CL sales any way you like.

I agree they're spam - possibly even automated responses to every ad - for the purpose of harvesting your email address when you respond. I once got into an email argument with some schmuck who swore that he wasn't spamming, only getting email addresses that he would sell to someone else, so it wasn't unethical. Unbelievable. :thmbsp:
 
I have never responded to spam. It irritates me that someone is pushing there product in my face as if I’m going to buy from them.
I can’t see how it is worth posting spam on any forum or email.
In my opinion those that promote spam are scum and I would never do business with them.
If I want something, I’m smart enough to find it on my own. I don’t need or want junk emails.
Does spam really generate any profit?


Dennis
 
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