How to Spot a Scammer on Craigslist

Many people today use online advertising to sell houses, personal items, clothes, and stuff that they have lying around or tucked away in their attic. I use Craigslist almost religiously. I've sold homes, cars, furniture, DVD players, books, maps, plants, yardwork supplies, appliances--you name it. It's also how I found both of my NY apartments (no broker fee!) and my "Spamalot" tickets, among other things. And the best thing is, it's free! Lots of people use Craigslist all over the world. I'd give anything to meet Craig and thank him for all his help.

For home sales, I did give ForSaleByOwner.com a try, but that was a big mistake - for my $600 all I got was spamming and scamming and no buyer. Over the course of 11 months, the ForSaleByOwner ad only brought in two legitimate inquiries - and neither resulted in a purchase. So I don't recommend it. Owners.com gave me the same lousy result. I did try the Batlimore Sun online ad, but guess what - not one single response from that one.

Anyway, when you use online advertising, you're always at risk of falling prey to the many scam artists that are lurking on Craigslist and other sites. After you've seen enough liars inquiring about your FSBO item, you learn to recognize the scammers pretty quickly. And I hope that this blog entry will also help you do that. Please feel free to use the Comments section to add scammer tip-offs that I might miss here.

Ok, for starters the email address of the scammer is always a freebie - from Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail. Those are the most common. And look at the email address. It's usually a funny name (or a "real-looking" name like Kevin Smith) followed by a 2- or 3-digit number or a handful of meaningless letters. This is so that they can continue to create new email addresses by simply incrementing the number or changing consonants. Obviously, they do this a lot, hence the large numbers.

The name that appears in the Reply-to field is frequently all lower-case (and many times is "Jimmy" or "Jim" or "James.") An uncanny number of them refer to themselves as "Reverend" this or that. How ironic is that? These are people who are lurking on Craigslist to steal from unsuspecting people, and they use Christian labels? I'm still waiting for Sister Mary Covenant to contact me about my home.

Here are just a few fake email addresses I've seen in my Inbox over the past year:

jimmy cole [collyjim001@gmail.com]
Hugh reksten [honieresie.ent@gmail.com]
lisa hepner [lisaheps@gmail.com]
Edward Smith [edsmith222@gmail.com]
geovanni james [geovannij@yahoo.com]
rev_morgan108@yahoo.com
joe_martins02@yahoo.com
Johnson Billson [johnson_billson1o1@yahoo.com]
Lisa mary [lisa_mary1o1@yahoo.com]

Anyway, you get the picture--the name and/or email address is frequently a dead giveway.

The next thing is, scammers love to type in ALL CAPS. Most of us know that this is considered yelling, and typing in all caps is something to avoid online. Many times the subject line will be in all caps and/or have many exclamation points insisting that you get back to them immediately. A lot of scammers also type out the body of the message in all lower case letters with relatively little punctuation. (These thieves are in a hurry!)

But the subject line, nine times out of ten, is the biggest giveaway of all. Some subject lines I've seen that are commonly used by scammers (cutting and pasting these from actual scam emails I've received):

Get back to me!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get back to me!!!!!!!!!
thanks for your email
Got interest in your placing-----
GET BACK TO ME

Another giveaway is bad grammar and rotten spelling. Either these guys really are foreigners who failed ESL class, or they want you to think they are (somehow that is supposed to invoke your sympathy?)

And 75% of these idiots claim to be "out of the country" or they want to buy your FSBO item as a gift and have their shipper pick it up. For the guys in Costa Rica and France, they generally tell you that they have an agent who will handle the deal in your home country, and that they are sending you a cashier's check for a large sum of money. Whenever that is the case, they will also tell you that you need to pay their agent out of these funds. (And that's how they steal your money - they send you a bad check and you send their agent a good check. Bye-bye funds!)

Several of them like to send you a list of questions like this - almost always the same:

Hello,
Thank you for your mail,Indeed I believe first to secure the property through a deposit before any arrangement is to be made because of some other interested party.I am impressed with the property ,I should love to call you to discuss with you but am on a field assignment in Costa Rica and would like to know the followings about your property:-
1. Your last price
2. How many owners?
3. Insurance certificate if any?
4. When did you buy the property and why do you want to sell it?
5. The property and the ownership is on whose name?
Finally,I would like to know your last price ,if your price is ok then I can arrange for a deposit while my agent will call you to arrange for the property inspection and other necessary renovation if any will be taken care of by her.

I awaits your earliest reply
Regards

I think the guy in the example above offered to send me a ludicrously high $40,000 down payment on my property to purchase it sight unseen. My god, it was his grammar that made me cringe, though.

Here's another really common one:

Thanks for your mail,meanwhile I believe first tosecure the property through a deposit before anyarrangement is to be made.I am impressed with theproperty,I should love to call you to discuss with youbut am on a field assignment in France and would liketo know the followings about your property:-
1. Your bottom price
2. Is the property originally painted?
3. What major repairs has been done?
4. How the property has been maintained.
5. Any records available?
6. How many owners?
7. Insurance certificate if any?
8. When did you buy the property and why do you want tosell it?
9. Are you a US citizen?
10.The property and the ownership is on whose name?
However,I would like to know your last price(non-negotiable)from that of the net price for onwardtransaction,if your price is ok then I can arrange fora deposit while my agent will call you to arrangefor the house inspection and other necessaryrenovation if any will be taken care of by him.Do getback to me immediately as I have limited time toconclude this this transaction Till I hear from you have a wonderful day.
Regards,
Lisa Mary.

Scammers almost always don't read your ad, so they ask questions for which the answers are already clearly outlined in your ad. They also love to ask why you are selling it. In a follow-up email, just when they think they've hooked you, they'll ask for your name, address, phone, etc.

Here's another (note the ALL CAPS):

I HAVE A CLIENT THAT IS INTERESTED IN THIS PROPERTY.KINDLY INTIMATE ME MORE ON THE PRESENT CONDITION AND ALSO THE SOCIAL AMENITIES WITHIN THE SITUATED LOCATION,MOREOVER WHAT PERCENTAGE WILL YOU BE OFFERRING ME IF THE DEAL IS SECURED AT THE LISTED PRICE?

This one, that came today, is my all-time favorite, however. Note the tag line that "Jimmy" is using:

Hello Seller,
Am interested in the sales of the furniture placed in craigslist site but am sending it as a gift to my cousin doing wedding in next 3 weeks as wedding gift and i love it so much.immediately you accept my payment , i will send my shipper to come over to do the pick up from your house but you have to send me your full information include your name, address, state, city, state, zip code and phone number to send the payment through via fedex to delievered my payment to your house .I Await your reply back immediately..
THANKS JIMMY
Note
BEWARE OF SCAMMERS ONLINE THAT MY ADVISE

So I replied to Jimmy's email saying, "You spelled advice wrong." Usually when I do that, they know I'm on to them and they don't reply back. (They just go out and create a new email address and move on to their next victim.) But this guy actually replied back:

THANKS FOR MY MISTAKE BUT ARE YOU INTERESTED TO SELL THE FURNITURE TO ME?
JIMMY

Jimmy didn't stop yelling long enough for me to continue my fun with him, and I moved on. Here's one that came as just a list and nothing else. . .

1. Your bottom price
2. Is the property originally painted?
3. What major repairs has been done?
4. How the property has been maintained.
5. Any records available?
6. How many owners?
7. Insurance certificate if any?
8. When did you buy the property and why do you want tosell it?
9. Are you a US citizen?

Some of them make it easy on themselves and use a very general question that they can use to respond to multiple ads such as (again, note the frequent misspellings):

Is Your Item Still Availabe?

And a short but sweet one (keep an eye out for phrases like "keen interest" and "secure the property" and "get back to me"). . .

I have a keen interest in buying the above said. Kindly update me asap why you want to sell it and its present conditions.
Hope to hearing from you asap.

Or,

hello,
i will like to know if your house is still on for sale. get back to me.

Ok, so you get the idea about what kind of phrasing to look out for. It's funny, once you get one of these, and then a second one, after that you know almost instantly what's really going on. You too can become a scam-detector.

What I usually do is forward the scam email to either the email provider's abuse alias or to the classifed web site's abuse alias. Generally, using an alias of either "spam" or "abuse" will get you to the right person. For example:

spam@craigslist.com
abuse@forsalebyowner.com
abuse@yahoo.com

Et cetera. I encourage you to use these abuse aliases to report spam and scam artists. It's a shame that whenever we get a good thing going (like Craigslist!), some bonehead has to ruin it for the rest of us. But we can help if we keep shutting these bozos down; it certainly doesn't take any time and can't hurt (unless Yahoo pulls one of its "You didn't include the header" stunts, in which case I don't always waste my time correcting them and re-sending the header).

If I think of anything else to add, I'll come back. Meanwhile, send in your comments remarking on scams you've seen in your email Inbox in response to your FSBO ad online.

Cheers!