how many of you guys stumbled on obvious craigslist scams?

[68GTXNH]

whenever i find and ad thats too good to be true, i always reverse image search their pic. and yes, it usually is too easy for ******** to scam these days. so yesterday i found a listing "69 charger" in maine, for $2000. heres the pic

clearly its a faded great condition B5 blue 70 charger. reverse image search find a number of links on it being a barn find big block b5 70 charger RT.

a few months back theres a listing in nh "$2000, old challenger rot box, get it out of my yard" clearly from the pics it was a 70 challenger rt/se small back window, rotting away. funny thing was i read the mopar blog about it, and the hotrod magazine, and the hemmings motor news, all of them, and instantly recognized the pictures.

what they do is pretend they know nothing, price it super cheap. usually pic mopars because even gm and ford guys know what they are worth. anyone who knows exactly what it is, bites, calls, gets the "holy crap im getting a boatload of calls, if you want it ill need something to hold it, do you have paypal, ill take a$1000 to take it off CL for you, and you can come get it, or we can work with you to ship it"

because its so cheap,. and us mopar guys tend to know exactly what they see in pics, and exactly what something like that is worth, even as a rusty heap. people dont think and say hell ya, 2 k, i need it now. list it, spend an hour answering calls, getting people to paypal them several thousand dollars, then close the ad, throw away the burner phone they used. quietly pay other paypals with that paypal account. and close it.

moral of the story always google image search an ad thats too good to be true. if you drag and drop an image into google, itll bring up any site that has the same image, and if just that cl listing shows up your good, if you get ten stories clearly showing its not really theirs to sell, run, flag it and report it.

 

[kiwigtx]

Good advice and a timely reminder for those who are unaware....thanks.

 

[plymouthman72]

That is very interesting to know about reverse looking up pictures! I sure would hope that people wouldn't throw down a grand or two sight unseen on a car and person they know nothing about. It is craigslist after all. Anytime someone says they need money up front, I just flag them and move on.

 

[kiwigtx]

Or you can simply click on "Search Google for Image"

 

[moparnation74]

Never knew the ability to google search a picture like that! Thanks for that advice

 

[khryslerkid]

About 15 years ago, there was a seller on ebay who was selling incredible nice looking cars for half their value. They stated in their add to contact through an email address and not through ebay. (RED FLAG)
Then I clicked on "sellers other items" and there were about ten more cars, all stating the same instructions. The pics were of cars that had been previously sold on ebay at one time. I reported this to ebay, they said they have been after this person. All adds were taken down and a week later they were up to it again! Buyer Beware on any sale!

 

[PRND21]

Thanks for posting that, didn't know about image search, either. I've been on CL maybe 3 times in my life. Always figured a lot of ads are scams, but I've got a good friend that is always buying something off there. Funny thing though, a few years ago I got on CL just to see what it was about, the first thing to pop up was a 63 Fury that just happened to be about a dozen miles down the road from me. I had never seen it before so I went and looked. It was a local car all its life, had all the paper work from new, a complete car with all the trim in good shape, with a trunk load of new parts. I ended up buying it for about half of what it was advertised.

 

[GetX'd]

I haven't searched for cars on cl but I have for other things and I've found numerous scams. Rentals in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica for $500 a month - besides the ridulous low prices the pictures are of the same unit. I've seen that many times. I've contacted a few and there's always some God laden story and how you have to send the rent or deposit in advance to get the keys because they are missionaries in Nigeria or there about..... on and on...

CL is a swamp for that kind of stuff.....

 

[68GTXNH]

ok cool right click never realized that, i just open another window and drag and drop it. i also have an app on my phone called "search image" so if im on my phone, long press, save image, then open the app and search for it that way.

ya CL is great, i do alot of deals on there. but theres alot of bs, and annoying dead beat buyers, the rewards outweighs the risk though if you know what youre looking for. heck , i made the $4k back i borrowed from my wife to buy the GTX in just three weeks selling some parts and stuff around the house. one thing i do, alot of people show up and say awesome ill take it but ill grab a pickup truck and be back saturday, then never show. so before i digg something out of a shed or from way out back, for them to "come back saturday" i ask for a little deposit, so i know theyll come back before i waste time digging and moving stuff. worst case i did the work for nothing, but have $50 in my pocket

 

[monaco66coupe]

A month ago I found a 2000 Tacoma for sale using my craigslist email addressBut the number went somewhere else. I have no idea why someone would do that. It got flagged eventually.

 

[68GTXNH]

the funny story with that guy with the 70 charger, i texted him saying "hey it is still available, do you have more pictures? any interested in trades? ive got cars firearms tools etc" by the time he called back, i found it was a scam, he actually said, i really want cash only, but what do you have for firearms, so i said "oh so you found the car in missouri in a barn ?" he said "what no i got the car cheap in a trade in maine" and i said, so youre going to try to do a face to face to trade a gun with someone who will clearly be packing a gun, to trade for a car that you dont have?" and he said i have the car man its right here, listen im getting tons of call on this, if you want it youll have to put some money down to hold it for you, then ill give you your money back for whatever deal we make for firearms" i said, listen asshole, i found more pictures of the car myself, that car was a barn find in missouri, and some ones trying to sell it at auction for a lot more then 2 grand, your phone numbers been given to Maine state police... he hung up pretty quick.

 

[MOPARENT]

The typical Mainah would tell you that $2k is too much for it and then try to trade you a cow for it…..yes, I live here.

 

[44070dart]

I'm on it a lot looking for deals and always take the time to flag the obvious scamers .. there seems to be more than ever ..read somewhere CL. said they were going to do something with the reply mail, don't know if they have yet

 

[68GTXNH]

I'm on it a lot looking for deals and always take the time to flag the obvious scamers .. there seems to be more than ever ..read somewhere CL. said they were going to do something with the reply mail, don't know if they have yet

i wish you leave a comment why you flagged. but let other people see instead of just blocking the add. it should still show the add, but with a logo saying it was flagged, then if you click the logo you can see why its flagged. because as it is now, CL is essentially self police-ing. so theres alot of flaggers just being dicks to people they compete with or they recognize a vehicle but dont like the person so they flagg it. and basically without question it gets pulled. but if people knew they would be asked why its flagged, and they dont just remove it, that BS could stop. but imagine if you have several flags saying "hey this vehicle isnt his, here a link to the story about it" or "this guy took my money and ran for the same vehicle listed in another city" thatd be really beneficial.

 

[MOPARENT]

Oops!! Somebody fell for it!! New ad on Maine CL, some guy went for the western union deal and is now out $200 bucks and looking for revenge!!……People, when will you learn?

 

[68GTXNH]

Oops!! Somebody fell for it!! New ad on Maine CL, some guy went for the western union deal and is now out $200 bucks and looking for revenge!!……People, when will you learn?

Bummer. I just emailed him to read our little chat here. Maybe will learn his lesson. Too bad my flagging and info to the maine state police didnt beat the poor sap to the punch. Man that guy sounded like such a douche on the phone too. Knew he was full of **** just from his tone.