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My friend just got scammed on craiglist

Craiglist Fraudulent Activities

I vowed to never deal with Craiglist again. The site lures scammers. It's plagued by criminals. They have access to your Paypal account, once you communication via email when doing a purchase. It's also very risky meeting personally to make a buy. If your item is faulty, there is no way to track them. I now deal with amazon.
 
italeki said:
I vowed to never deal with Craiglist again. The site lures scammers. It's plagued by criminals. They have access to your Paypal account, once you communication via email when doing a purchase. It's also very risky meeting personally to make a buy. If your item is faulty, there is no way to track them. I now deal with amazon.
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Only a fool would respond to those emails requesting to pay by PayPal. I bet the buyer offered you more than your asking price and you could not resist and sent your PayPal data to the person.
 
italeki said:
I vowed to never deal with Craiglist again. The site lures scammers. It's plagued by criminals. They have access to your Paypal account, once you communication via email when doing a purchase. It's also very risky meeting personally to make a buy. If your item is faulty, there is no way to track them. I now deal with amazon.
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on CL you should only do the face-to-face transaction. CL even has a post to warn you about that..
No shipping on CL is the best thing to do
 
Only by an email address, they can access your Paypal account. And yes, they want to offer more money then you're asking for, saying a false story that the purchase is for someone out of the country and they need the item ASAP.
 
italeki said:
Only by an email address, they can access your Paypal account. And yes, they want to offer more money then you're asking for, saying a false story that the purchase is for someone out of the county and they need the item ASAP.
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i bet you did alot of research about scamming after that eh?
did you get your item back by any chance?
 
If someone post the phone number doesn't mean is genuine. They can use google voice, scam you then delete the google voice account.
 
italeki said:
I vowed to never deal with Craiglist again. The site lures scammers. It's plagued by criminals. They have access to your Paypal account, once you communication via email when doing a purchase. It's also very risky meeting personally to make a buy. If your item is faulty, there is no way to track them. I now deal with amazon.
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so you don't give out your paypal?....

scammers on CL are spotted a mile away

If they reply with "item" ---------SCAM
If they reply with offering more than you listed---------SCAM
If they want you to ship it-----------SCAM
If they have a weird email (ymail or something not common)-----SCAM
If they want to use paypal------------SCAM
If they can't compose a readable email or the email is too generic--------SCAM

Any legit buyer on CL WILL try and lowball you or at least talk you down PERIOD

Any legit buyer will meet you in your city

Any legit buyer will pay with cash

Anything less is a SCAM
 
italeki said:
Only by an email address, they can access your Paypal account. And yes, they want to offer more money then you're asking for, saying a false story that the purchase is for someone out of the country and they need the item ASAP.
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They can't access your paypal account with only an email address. Of course.
 
F34RTEHR34PER said:
He can be found, unless he specifically uses proxy, and other misinformation to hide who he is.

If it's worth the time and money, you can find this person. Talk with a "private detective", and they'll give you a good idea of what can be done. If this were me, I'd already have an idea in the office of a clerk of court to get a subpoena done to get the ip address that was used to create the listing; and then go from there.
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Yeah good idea. Pay a private detective $5,000+ so you can find this guy, go through due process, and hopefully recover the $350 you spent. That is certainly time & money well spent!

Or accept the $350 loss, sell off the phone you got on eBay or Craigslist to recover at least half of it, and let it be a lesson.

If its too good it probably is, and buyer beware. It's his fault he did not test the unit out in person to verify it before handing the money over. Case closed.

If a seller does not want you to turn the unit on or examine it in your own hands before asking for the money tell him no deal and walk away. Use your heads people.
 
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iMrNiceGuy0023 said:
I dont think its a scam if he inspected the phone, the seller may have thought it was a 4S himself
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That's what I was thinking.

I haven't seen the back of my 4S in forever and i'm not taking it out of the case it is in to look but doesn't it say 4S on the back and list the size of the memory?
 
MuddyPaws1 said:
That's what I was thinking.

I haven't seen the back of my 4S in forever and i'm not taking it out of the case it is in to look but doesn't it say 4S on the back and list the size of the memory?
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The box is indeed of an 4s, but when he check the phone's IMEI, it's of a 4. A 4 will never have the price like $350. Maybe the phone was even stolen by the seller. I never know.
He cant check the phone's IMEI because when he met that guy, the phone was set to factory reset. He couldnt go to Home because he didnt have the micro simcard to activate
 
ThePreditor said:
You're missing out on some fantastic deals. I have $20,000+ worth of furniture and goods in my home from Craigslist that I paid under $3000 for. All perfect transactions and with no signs of usage. $4000 brown leather couches for $800. 55" LED Samsung 8000 series TV for $1000. Crate and Barrel dining room set with 6 leather chairs (normally $4000) for $800. Top of the line kegerator for $150, 20" Core2Duo iMacs (one for kitchen, one for office as a secondary) $150 each. Just for some examples.

Also sold my 64GB iPhone 4S for $600 and usually turn a profit on every MBP I sell to purchase a new one.
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Well then your MR name is very apt ;)
 
italeki said:
And yes, they want to offer more money then you're asking for, saying a false story that the purchase is for someone out of the country and they need the item ASAP.
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I get these emails all the time, they want to give you a money order... So you send them cash back and you end up getting hit with Fraud. It is pretty simple, you ignore these emails and any others that are too good to be true.

I always sell items the same way on CL.

-Cash only
-Meet in location of my choosing
-Bring friends/protection of some kind

Thus far, every CL transaction I have made has been in the parking lot of my local Police Station. I pop in the door and tell them what I am doing (The clerks know who I am now) and they have no problem with it.

The first time, I went there after I listed the item and asked them for permission because I wanted to make sure I didn't get robbed. They said sure thing, and to let them know when I came to do the transaction. This might not be okay with every station, but my local one has always been okay with me doing it.
 
dukebound85 said:
so you don't give out your paypal?....

scammers on CL are spotted a mile away

If they reply with "item" ---------SCAM
If they reply with offering more than you listed---------SCAM
If they want you to ship it-----------SCAM
If they have a weird email (ymail or something not common)-----SCAM
If they want to use paypal------------SCAM
If they can't compose a readable email or the email is too generic--------SCAM

Any legit buyer on CL WILL try and lowball you or at least talk you down PERIOD

Any legit buyer will meet you in your city

Any legit buyer will pay with cash

Anything less is a SCAM
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Seriously, I don't understand what's so difficult to understand about that.
 
without even reading a single reply or or evven the description, im going to go ahwad and say your friend is a moron, and deserved to get scamed because he was doing something on craigslist for an iphone 5....
 
tomi156 said:
The box is indeed of an 4s, but when he check the phone's IMEI, it's of a 4. A 4 will never have the price like $350. Maybe the phone was even stolen by the seller. I never know.
He cant check the phone's IMEI because when he met that guy, the phone was set to factory reset. He couldnt go to Home because he didnt have the micro simcard to activate
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You should be able to still see the imei in your settings after a reset. I just sold my 16gb 4s on eBay for 350 n I reset it n still could hit the home button n navigate through the phone. Once n iPhone been activated u don't need a sim in it to go through the menus. Both of you should not be buying anything of Craigslist because y'all don't know how to even check out what your buying. If the phone works use it n deal with it. U live n u learn as the rest of these people have already told u.
 
1. Deal in cash.
2. Local pickup only.
3. Bring friends with anger management issues.
4. Verify what you are buying.

Adhere to those rules and craigslist is great.
 
I never use Craig and never will, but.....

Does Craig list have a "Beware" in RED on the site that tells potential buyers to take pictures of the trans action, i.e.: Seller > There Car Lic, and Car itself to be identified > Photo ID like a Drivers Lic, and such ? If I were to buy from some body I did not know from Adam, I would take pictures in a public place.

What say you ? ;)

----------
Darwing said:
without even reading a single reply or or evven the description, im going to go ahwad and say your friend is a moron, and deserved to get scamed because he was doing something on craigslist for an iphone 5....
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Actually the iphone 4S he was trying to buy, not iphone 5...
 
fingerprints you say. is the forensics dept willing to help?

take it as a lesson learned, its $100, not $1000.
 
tomi156 said:
My friend found a guy selling iPhone 4s on craigslist for $350 and they agreed to meet up and made a transaction
He asked me to go with him and we met the seller yesterday. He gave my friend the iPhone, in box and with all accessories. The phone was indeed new and just had few scratches on the sides.
My friend bought it but then today he called me, saying that the phone is actually an iPhone 4, and it is not worth the price. He looked like a zombie this morning when I met him to talked about this situation

What he got from the buyer is the name (probably fake), phone number, email, address (not sure if fake..)
Also the fingerprints on the box, the phone, and the pen to write down that seller's address

He called the police but they said they cannot help w the situation like this.
Do you guys have any suggestion?

Thanks alot
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Moral is... Mention in your ad that you will need to fully test the phone before the sale will be completed or at least advertise that you'll be taking the picture of the person selling the phone and maybe even asking to see their id!
 
tomi156 said:
My friend found a guy selling iPhone 4s on craigslist for $350 and they agreed to meet up and made a transaction
He asked me to go with him and we met the seller yesterday. He gave my friend the iPhone, in box and with all accessories. The phone was indeed new and just had few scratches on the sides.
My friend bought it but then today he called me, saying that the phone is actually an iPhone 4, and it is not worth the price. He looked like a zombie this morning when I met him to talked about this situation

What he got from the buyer is the name (probably fake), phone number, email, address (not sure if fake..)
Also the fingerprints on the box, the phone, and the pen to write down that seller's address

He called the police but they said they cannot help w the situation like this.
Do you guys have any suggestion?

Thanks alot
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Shouldve done your research beforehand.

I deal a lot with Craigslist, but mostly for car stereo stuff.

Whenever I sell my iPhones, I use eBay......Ill gladly pay the fees instead of letting someone hold/touch my iPhone and possibly dropping it.
 
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