To The Scammers Who Responded To My Online Ads – I See You!
So I am finally getting around to unloading some stuff that has just been taking up space in my life. Clothes, guns, tires, all kinds of things that I hope to turn into cash instead of having said items simply take up space.
So I spent the better part of the weekend taking pics, writing descriptions, researching current market values. You know, all that stuff that needs to be done in order to make a worthy ad, and hopefully sale.
So, it has been a little while since I posted things on Craigslist, and certainly some time since I posted things on good ole Uncle Henrys.
Once I got things posted I sit back and wait fo the responses to pour in. Some came in almost as fast I pressed "enter". Maybe that's a sign that my prices may be a little low, or I prefer to thing that I just have an item that is in high demand.
I do get commitments of a few items, but I also start getting nibbles. Some follow-up questions which I am happy to respond to.
Now this should be the end of the story, but, it isn't.
You see several of those nibbles, are nothing more than fraud attempts. You would think that those would be completely obvious to me, but, it really wasn't until a few of them asked for an address to send a certified check to and then "once it cleared" would make arraignments to have the item either picked up, or shipped.
Luckily, I've done enough reports on this kind of fraud to recognize that a scam was about to take place. What suck me as pretty amazing was that out of 8 ads being placed, I received fraud attempts on 4 of those and they wee very clever in asking follow up questions like "is the price firm", can I change something, etc.
It really wasn't until they asked for the whole check deal did I get any red flags about the tansactions.
They are very savvy, and persistent. So seller be aware! 50% of the ads I placed were attached by scammers. Had I not been so keen on some of the tell tale signs of such scams, I easily could have been roped into an active scam and been out product and money.
So be safe out there when it comes to posting things fo sale online, the bad guys are many and persistent.