There is no buyer.
Notice how the scammer doesn't call what you are selling by name? He uses the generic word "item", that is because he sends the same stock copy/paste email to anyone selling everything that he can find and he has no idea what you are selling and doesn't care.
There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money.
He is not interested in your identity or bank account, only your cash.
The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "secretary/assistant/accountant" and will demand you cash a large fake check sent on a stolen UPS/FedEx billing account number and send the money via Western Union or moneygram back to the scammer posing as the "shipping company". When your bank realizes the check is fake and it bounces, you get the real life job of paying back the bank for the bounced check fees and all the bank's money you sent to an overseas criminal.
Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.
When you refuse to send him your cash he will send increasingly nasty and rude emails trying to convince you to go through with his scam. The scammer could also create another fake name and email address like "FBI@ gmail.com", "police_person @hotmail.com" or "investigator @yahoo.com" and send emails telling you the job is legit and you must cash the fake check and send your money to the scammer or you will face legal action. Just ignore, delete and block those email addresses. Although, reading a scammer's attempt at impersonating a law enforcement officer can be extremely funny.
Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of being the perfect buyer, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.
You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.
Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.
Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.
If you google "fake check buyer scam", "fake Western Union buyer fraud" or something similar and you will find hundreds of posts of victims and near victims of this type of scam.
How long is this craigslist scam going to be around until people catch on?
Anytime they send you more than the amount - it's a scam
The check will be 100% fake.
It's usually out of the country - funny they changed the word to town.
Never deal with this.
Only sell if you can meet a person and exchange cash in a public place.
Consider Craigslit = Scams List.
Easiest way for scammers to make money. Unrealisticly easy.
It's so common it's one of the bullet points in Craigslist's scam warnings
ANY check sent to you will be counterfeit. ONLY a scammer offers MORE money -- they look for people whose greed is stronger than their common sense. And ONLY a scammer asks you to remove your ad
Craigslist is ONLY for face to face CASH transactions. NO exceptions. Any time the buyer cannot meet you in person and give you cash in hand before you hand over the item you will get scammed
Just google Craigslist fake check scam to see just how common this scam in
https://www.google.com/search?q=craigsli...
DO NOT even respond to this scammer or your email will end up on a spam list
Relist your item and be sure to put something in your ad like
CASH ONLY, LOCAL BUYERS ONLY, NO SHIPPING, NO EXCEPTIONS
Never take personal checks, most of the time they aren't good. Ask for a money order instead, they work like checks but are guaranteed to get you paid.
I posted an ad on Craigslist for a microphone, and I am quite skeptical about the legitimacy of the payment method. He wants to pay me by check, I don't really have a problem with that except the cashing hassle but just wondering if this is a common Craigslist scam or if a way exists for me to verify the check is real? This is his email response to me:
"Thanks for the response.I am willing to pay your asking price.I will pay by a CHECK as its the only way i can pay you at the moment.I will make arrangement for the pickup after payment have been received by you.I don't mind adding an extra $50 so you can keep it in my favor.I would have loved to come take a look at it but i am presently out of town,send me some pictures.Reply with your name,phone # and mailing address where payment will be sent.I will appreciate it if you take the posting off CL today and consider it sold to me.As for the pick-up,it would be handled after you receive your payment.
Expecting to hear from you soon.
Warm Regards."
Thanks.
