Is this a Craigslist Scam?
I posted an ad on Craigslist for some vintage Altec speakers, and a man from Korea contacted me to buy them. I have spoken to him on the phone and his number has the correct country code for Korea, and from his emails he seems legit, none of the typical "scam" language. He has also been asking legit technical questions about the item, and wanted the dimensions for shipping purposes.
He wants to arrange to have a shipper come and pick the item up from me. I have made it very clear that I will only accept cash, and he claims that he has arranged for the shipper to pay me when they arrive.
Assuming that they actually do arrive with the cash, is there a scam here? If they show up without cash I will turn them away immediately.
I should add that he originally wanted to use paypal, but I insisted otherwise. After seemingly much trouble arranging it he agreed to cash.
I figured with cash, he can't pull a chargeback on me.
100% scam.
There is no buyer.
There is only a scammer trying to steal your money and maybe your speakers, a scammer that knows his speakers or at least knows how to google so he can ask informed questions.
There are 2 common scenarios:
1) There will be a "mistake" and the buyer's assistant accidentally paid via Paypal. The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be "Paypal" saying "kindly send the tracking number and we will release the funds".
Paypal does NOT send such emails, ever. Paypal does NOT have escrow or money holding services like that scammer describes. Paypal does NOT demand you send a tracking number before money is sent. EVER. No exceptions.
2) Or the scammer will tell you that there was an "issue" with the shipper, that the shipping company is insisting on payment up front before they will show up at you door. The scammer will beg you to pay the shipper in cash, via Western Union or moneygram as this is his favorite shipping company in the whole wide world and he only trusts this one shipper.. He will insist you pay the shipper as he is broke, all his money is tied up somewhere and he will "pay you back" somehow. The "shipper" is just the scammer using yet another of his fake names and free email addresses.
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.
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.
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 shipping company craigslist scam", "fake paypal email scam", "ebay escrow fraud" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near victims of this type of scam.
Whats On My YouTube Today?
Vintage Altec Lansing A7 with custom (Bravura) 1600 HZ crossovers
Here Are A Few Items From Amazon You Might Be Interested In.
 Altec Lansing BXR1221 2.1 Speaker System (Black) List Price: Sale Price: $19.99 You save: $9.96 (33%)  Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days  |
 Altec Lansing Octiv Mini Speaker System for iPhone and iPod (Black) List Price: Sale Price: $22.25 You save: $37.74 (63%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
 Pyle Home PNGTT1T Classic Horn Phonograph/Turntable with USB-To-PC Connection and Aux-In (Maple) List Price: Sale Price: $99.62 You save: $174.37 (64%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
Items recently purchased on this site:
Thanks for visiting!
Tags: hifi, vintage altec lansing, audio, vintage altec microphones, vintage altec speakers