Craigslist Scams

Craigslist Scams

Craigslist has proven to be a very legitimate source for selling things, finding apartments, locating services, and meeting new people, but as great as Craigslist can be, it also calls for much precaution. With the proper precautions, Craigslist can be a great source for online sell and trade. One must always understand that con artists are out there and they will steal your money!

The most common known craigslist scam is the Nigerian scam. This scam was created by Nigerians who email you in response to your ad, usually offering more than the asking price, asking you to ship it out of contry, and/or writing with broken mispelled english. Many of these Nigerian con artists will email you asking you to ship the item to somewhere out of the country and recieve your payment using paypal. The Nigerians then use a fake version of paypal which requires a tracking number before the funds are released to the seller. Once the seller ships the item, they go to post their tracking number, they find that there is no where to insert a number making it impossible to recieve their money. Now that the seller has shipped the item to this unknown seller in a foreign country, they are left with nothing in return.

It seems as if today's society has completely let go of all morals regarding business transactions with strangers. Would you walk up to a stranger and hand over a large sum of money? I didn't think so. It is proven by the number of scams that are successful through Craiglist. It is absolutley obsurd that someone would actually trust a face-less stranger.

Craigslist now provides the following advice on avoiding scams to anyone using their service:

- Trust your instincts

- Deal only with local buyers and sellers

- Never wire funds to a distant buyer via Western Union or any other carrier

- Be warry if the other party wants to use an escrow service such as BidPay Squaretrade, or even PayPal

- Never give out personal finance information (eBay or PayPal info, checking account number, SSN, etc.)

- Always remember the most important rule - BUYER BEWARE