Here's How To Handle Craigs List Scammers

I have been contacted by a scammer on craigs list about one of my items for sale there. For those interested I’ll outline here what I did to handle these.

First, what happens is somebody will respond to your ad via email with the following:

Is this item still available for pick up?

No other information is exchanged.

What the scammer is doing is trying to get your e-mail address. If the item is still available it is natural to reply to the e-mail with an affirmative. They now have your e-mail address.

What comes next is a message something like this:

From: Teresa Garcia [email protected]

Thank you for your quick response, i am Teresa Garcia, from Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Colorado. I would have wish to come over and inspect this at your place but I am presently off-shore. I am interested in buying this for my son in FL as a surprise gift and please just make sure it is in great condition as described. I will appreciate more pictures if available and will be sending your money asap. My shipper will be available to pick this up as soon as payment is made. Do you have PayPal account? because, I have a PayPal account that I can easily send money through because, its good for business payments. Kindly get back to me with your PayPal email address and name in order for me to transfer your money asap. Confirm sale to me by deleting the advert from Craigslist.

Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station
Colorado, Denver.
Regards

Unless you prefer to do else wise, you should be putting in your Craigslist ad that you would like a Cash and Carry deal and no shipping is available. Also you should be asking responders to be replying via phone call so you can take this out of the virtual world and putting it into the real world ASAP. These people will wear you out with e-mail chatter for sure! It’s best to get them on the phone.

I suspected I was dealing with a scammer when I got the first e-mail but really didn’t know for sure. This might have been somebody that truly couldn’t comprehend what I wrote. After I got the second e-mail I knew right there I was dealing with a scammer.

Here are the steps I did to deal with the individual:

Did a quick Internet search of the person’s e-mail address. I did find quite a few places where there were people complaining about this person. You might consider doing a search on the first sentence of the e-mail as well. This usually reveals some results likewise.

I replied to the e-mail with the following:

Please do not contact me anymore with your scams. Any future contact will result in my giving your e-mail to the proper authorities. Namely, local police, the GBI, the FBI, and your e-mail ISP. Misrepresenting yourself to scam and steal from the less knowledgeable is a serious offense.

Others have reported you on several web sites as a scammer. In the future I will not let you off that easy. Be Careful who you contact in the future with a scam. You might be being setup for a sting!

BTW, I will be contacting Gmail and Craigslist about your activities.

I then dug out the original e-mail sent via the Craigslist anonymous reply system and clicked the flag link to flag the original contact as a scam.

After doing that I went to SpamCop dot net (Setup an account if needed) and reported the second e-mail. SpamCop recognized that it was sent through the G-mail server so, all is good. Careful, you don’t want to report the first e-mail contact from Craigslist, as that will report the Craigslist server for sending Spam.

There is a space provided by SpamCop for you to input some text. I copied the same text in this space that I sent to the person doing the scam. I do this because G-mail needs to know why I am using SpamCop to report the individual.

The last step in the process is posting the e-mail address of the person that is doing the scam in this forum. This is sure to generate a few more e-mails for the scammer – LOL!

If more people would take a proactive approach to reporting these scammers we can take back Craigslist from the scammers. But it will take everybody getting involved to report them otherwise these people will continue to rip people off.

Enjoy!

Phil

  Or you could just delete the email.

There are just too many people participating in these scams to do anything about it. It's extremely difficult to find these people because they operate in foreign countries. Trying to prosecute these guys is kind of like the war on drugs; they seize a few kilos here and there but what about the other 200 that made it across the border?

I play along and get them to send me out a check to a fake address. I figure if everyone does this it will waste much of their time and resources.

I give them the address of the local FBI office and the name of the Special Agent in Charge for the state to be on the check   Why go to the trouble of reporting them let them do it   Got the idea from someone on this forum several months ago

If you ask me your putting in way too much effort dealing with scammers. Scammers have software that reposts multiple ads in multiple cities, flagging them isn't goign to do much as they'll have a dozen more posts to replace the one you had taken down. Also they have auto responder email programs so when you are corresponding with them , you are actually not corresponding with them your takling to a bot or an autoresponder email program. Craigslist is a household name now everyone knwos how to do it, everyone knows nobody ships items. if someone asks they are a scam basically. My advice is dont respond at all if you do you'll probably have your email sold or be put on their list for future spam. my advice is ignore and delete.

LOL! It isn't much of a hassle at all... Just a couple of clicks and done.

Phil

your right it doesnt take much time and if it makes you feel better go for it but your not sticking it to anyonbe as its all autoresponders nad takes the scammers no time to put up more ads or respond to your emails and your risking getting your email put on lists and stuff. if you ever start getting emails about nigerian lotteries or from yahoo or paypal saying you need to click a link b/c they detected spam its all from you replying to craigslist emails

if it makes you feel better go for it but you're not sticking it to anyone as its all autoresponders and takes the scammers no time to put up more ads

I beg to differ. I never hesitate to report those lowlifes scumbags that run scams or use auto-posting software. It takes some persistence, but the ads always seem to go away after a couple of days. I fully encourage everyone to report all of these type of ads posted by these cheaters.

I dont reply at all, a lot of these emails are just being used to confirm you have a valid email address and then are sold

I beg to differ. I never hesitate to report those lowlifes scumbags that run scams or use auto-posting software. It takes some persistence, but the ads always seem to go away after a couple of days. I fully encourage everyone to report all of these type of ads posted by these cheaters.

its one thing to click the report button, it's a whole nother thing to respond to the emails as thy then have collected your email address and will continue to spam you as well as sell your email to othr scammers and spammers. also i click the report button as well but they got up ten more ads before your one gets taken down