OT Craigslist Scammer Worth Reading

Here's a copy of an email I received after I posted a field cultivator on craigslist. Twenty minutes after I posted it Monday morning I got 4 texts all from different numbers very similar to this email I got. They all want to send certified check over night with extra money. One told me he was at military base in Texas so I asked him which one. Never heard from that one again. One I asked what bank certified check was coming from never heard from that one. It goes on and on. Today I heard from none of them except this one. They knew I was on to their scams. I just played them. It may have been the same person with many different cheap phones to show different numbers. Two were from Texas as they said. But I know better.

Anyway here's the email I got from the one yesterday. Take note of the email in case you get the same.


Feb 27 at 6:38 PM
jonathanwnn5rl <[email protected]>

Thanks you for the response according to the description,am okay with the price and the condition pasted on . I am ready to make instant purchase. My mode of payment would be in Certified Check and i will arrange for a local pick up as soon as you get the check, because that is the only inconvenient means for me and due to my work frame i can not be able to get there and i promise everything will go smoothly.I really wish to be there to check out the item but i don't have chance cause am very busy person (US MARINE). Concerning the pick up, i will arrange for it after you receive the payment and it clears... Pls get back to me with below info so that i can proceed with the payment immediately if you are selling to me.

Full Name:

Address: Not P.O.BOX

City:

State:

Postal Code:

Total amount for the item

Phone Number: That i can send text

Item Name

And as soon as this is provided, the payment will be overnight to you and i will let you know when its mailed out. Thanks and i hope we handle this in good faith while waiting to hear from you. i will add an additional $50 so that you can hold it for me till the check reach you.

Best Regards
Show original message

I get a lot of them. Usually I just say cash only and do not get any more.

One must wonder why a US Marine would need a field cultivator....

Dean

Well he does talk like a Marine.

I always love that they are ready to buy your "item", never your field cultivator.

John B I had a JD 6620 straw chopper for sale a year ago. I got one of these type of deals. I decided to play along for a time just to see how far they would go. They even sent a "Cashier check" and all. It was all fake and fraud. I had my bank run the number and the account was fraudulent. They hope you will deposit the check and give the transport person money.

What makes this stand out so much is they have zero idea of the real value of things. I was only advertising the Chopper for $450 with the drives. They sent $1500. So they were trying to scam me for $1000. They where going to "give" me $50 for the extra trouble.

Had that happen when I was trying to sell a roll-o-matic. I asked where I was going to send it. He said Utah! Asked him isn't there one closer? (As I'm in Minnesota.) He never replied.

I bid on a school bus that was a couple of years old (on eBay) one time. I wasn't that interested as it was a little far away and the bus I was driving was fine. I got outbid and was quickly contacted by the "seller" saying it fell through and would I like to buy it. I just played along for quite a while and then called him out on it. He swore he was the seller. I told him I was more than happy to believe him if he verified the weight rating of the axles by sending me a picture of the build tag posted on the roof panel. Funny, I never heard back...

Dunno why any of you think it's so "cool" to correspond with/play along with/attempt to annoy an obvious scammer.

There's NO "upside" in it for you and ANY bit of data they may glean from your correspondence can only benefit the folks in the dartk shadowy areas of the 'net and be traded/sold to other scammers and used against you.

Simply NOT replying is probably the most prudent thing to do.

Read up on identity theft sometime, and how the "baddies" can gradually build up your full identity from an email address here, part of a credit card number there, an address somewhere, or even part of a phone number.

Each little "slip"/info given up is insignificant but collected and put together the info can be used for nefarious purposes.

Don't believe me? Talk to some folks on the "internet task force" of a LE agency nearby.

(quoted from post at 23:57:47 02/28/17) Dunno why any of you think it's so "cool" to correspond with/play along with/attempt to annoy an obvious scammer.

There's NO "upside" in it for you and ANY bit of data they may glean from your correspondence can only benefit the folks in the dartk shadowy areas of the 'net and be traded/sold to other scammers and used against you.

Simply NOT replying is probably the most prudent thing to do.

Read up on identity theft sometime, and how the "baddies" can gradually build up your full identity from an email address here, part of a credit card number there, an address somewhere, or even part of a phone number.

Each little "slip"/info given up is insignificant but collected and put together the info can be used for nefarious purposes.

Don't believe me? Talk to some folks on the "internet task force" of a LE agency nearby.

Click to expand...

Good advice Bob.
Especially if your email address or phone number is tied to a Paypal or bank account.

Dean, that was going to be my next question.

Well Bob I see your concern in your message but most newspapers won't even post your classified ads without a phone number or email address. Is this not the same?

I agree with BOB, you reply and now they have your email, and so it goes. Best thing when getting those kind of "inquiries" is delete and ignore.
(Love his half baked wording b.t.w.)

I agree that giving out your email is dangerous. If nothing else, you'll end up getting a ton of spam. Our ISP allows us a number of users on our account (5, IIRC) and my wife and I are the only ones on it, so I have several "free" ones available that I can create/delete at will. I've created a "fake" email address that I use when I want to remain anonymous. I purge it every 6 months or so of the spam that normally filters in. I just checked it now and it had 305 emails in the last year.

I just came across a good one on CL. Not a scam,but funny. I'll copy and paste it.

"New Holland 474 Haybine with hydraulic cylinder. Haybine has a fair to good table and roller. tubes have been installed in tires. Got rid of wife and horses no longer needed."

The "dangers" of giving out your email, checking account number, credit card number, SS number, etc.

Well, folks, let me alert you to some REALITY.

EVERY time you use a credit card, you are giving the other party your account number.
EVERY time you write a check, you are giving the other party your bank's routing number and your full account number.
Your Social Security number is just about a matter of public record these days.
If you keep your email address a "secret," nobody will email you anything.

BUT....
There is no sure fire defense against identity theft except that there are MANY safeguards in place.
Banks have fraud alert departments.
Most credit cards have built in fraud protection.
Vigilance is your best protection. Know what is going on with your accounts.

A few things I would like to know...

How can another person harm you by knowing your email address??
How can another person harm you by knowing your telephone number?

A few points of information:

I have been doing business over the internet since it first became available to me. Never had even a hint of a problem regarding fraud. Mail order is over a century old. Before the internet, there was mail order from a catalog.

Over the years I must have written thousands of checks. So far, not once has anybody tried to use my account number to illegally take money from me.

I have also used credit/debit cards for most of my adult life. So far, I have only had to pay for what I legitimately bought.

Best way to deal with scammers is NOT to deal with them. Do not "play with" them. Do not acknowledge them. Some of these scams are as old as time.

Those guys can be so brazen some times. Last week we got a call from some foreigner that works for "cyber security" saying we have issues with our internet connectivity. He said to resolve the problem he needed us to give him our ISP address and that we had to edit some code in a certain file. Just a couple of characters nothing to difficult and he would talk us through it. What a nice guy! Here's some one I've never met willing to take time out of his busy day just to help us fix a problem we didn't even know about. Yeah right buddy like I'm going change code in a start up file on my computer to suit you. Big sigh. Funny how a week has gone by and no problems have occurred. JD

yeah,

"CASH ONLY" and "LOCAL PICKUP" helps quite a bit.

JohnB, once it is obvious it's a scam, by definition you are dealing with a CRIMINAL. As I said before, what's the POSSIBLE upside to you in continuing to communicate with them? (Unless you work for a scam/sting unit in law enforcement?)

(quoted from post at 05:54:50 03/01/17) I agree that giving out your email is dangerous. If nothing else, you'll end up getting a ton of spam. Our ISP allows us a number of users on our account (5, IIRC) and my wife and I are the only ones on it, so I have several "free" ones available that I can create/delete at will. I've created a "fake" email address that I use when I want to remain anonymous. I purge it every 6 months or so of the spam that normally filters in. I just checked it now and it had 305 emails in the last year.

Click to expand...

I have a number of different email addresses; each with its own purpose. One is used for online purchases, one for forums, etc. My wife gave an email to a magazine and I gave her the one that gets ZERO spam. What happens? Almost instantly it starts getting 1 to 3 spam emails per day!

Another time the wife had to have surgery. Had to give the hospital certain info. So, as I sometimes do, I made certain parts of it more "colorful". Sure enough, ended up getting lots of sales offers from that info. ...Now why in the world would a hospital give out (or "sell"??) someone's contact info to others?