Craigslist a little misleading?

[Grey]

In thier warning that they have pasted at the top of every page or sale you visit they say:

"# AVOID DEALS INVOLVING SHIPPING OR ESCROW SERVICES and know that ONLY A SCAMMER WILL "GUARANTEE" YOUR TRANSACTION. "

So...basically anyone who sounds honest is trying to scam me? Does this happen alot on Craigslist? I am not a total fool, but they pretty much tell me that anyone who isnt local and offering free pickup is a scammer.

 

[8bitnintendo]

The scammers are the guys that are in some African country saying they will have a shipper pick up your items and give you a money order for over the amount... I've seen it a million times, selling everything from cars to games. Although I haven't seen it as ofter, I still get the emails. It is pretty obvious when you get it, they tell the same story pretty much and in broken english, bad grrammar. I always try to get a phone number and talk to the person first, and just be cautious of any wierd requests. Most people I have delt with are flakes anyway, email you right off the bat and then you never hear from them again.

 

[Deadly]

You must be new to CL - because the answer is HELL YES THEY WILL TRY TO SCREW YOU. EVERYTHING you list - start the ad with "WILL NOT SHIP - LOCAL PICKUP ONLY NO EXCEPTIONS"

And my personal favorite tidbit I ad, "If you have to ask your wife/girlfriend if it's ok ... then do it first. If you don't have the money don't even bother asking, no I will not trade for your crap and if you have to wait until your next paycheck NO I WILL NOT HOLD IT!"

This really cuts down on the bullshit people.

I have personally been propositioned for this scam AT LEAST on 30 different occasions.

 

[Kongking]

In my CL experience the scammers are usually the ones offering way more than what you're asking. A ridiculous amount! They will then offer to send check or money order and arrange for pick up. Stay away from those!

 

[TheShanMan]

"If you have to ask your wife/girlfriend if it's ok ... then do it first."

Well this applies to me currently, but that doesn't mean I'm not serious. Our deal is, our current house doesn't really have much room to keep adding more games than I already have (at least according to my wife). So when I talk to her generally about getting another game she doesn't want to hear it. But if a specific deal comes up for the right price, she's more receptive. When I see a game listed that I want to inquire about, I might make casual mention of the sale just to see if she starts throwing things, but downplay the likelihood of it materializing. Then I talk to the seller, get more details, and talk $. If after that it seems like a deal I want to make happen, I talk to her again and while she may not be excited about it, I stand a better chance of talking her into it.

Perfect example is my tournament cyberball 2072. She did NOT want that huge cab in our house, especially since it wasn't working. But I talked her into it, and after getting it home she liked the look of it. Then when I got it mostly working the next day (just an occasional reset while warming up), suddenly she was happy with my purchase! And on top of that, she came up with a way to rearrange things in our house to make enough room to get all the games in the house rather than having one stuck in the garage!

That said, I think one more game in our current house is the limit of what I'll be able to talk her into.

 

[Deadly]

Certainly I also will confer with my wife regarding a major purchase. However I feel it is a waste of the sellers time to "window" shop them. If I don't have the wife's blessing then I don't waste the sellers time. Why ask anything if you can't buy it? I deal with this crap all the time - this week alone I've been trying to sell a desktop PC and have had to deal with MANY people window shopping/tire kicking and then never to be heard from again (price and every possible piece of knowledge was supplied in the ad to take the guess work out of it) and finally I found 1 person that was genuinely serious about buying - and bought it. It's one thing to have money in hand and ask a seller questions because their ad may lack information you seek. But it is my personal opinion to ask a seller without the true intention of buying (money in hand wife approved) is disrespectful. I recall several threads here on KLOV about people selling here and the buyers flaking out - it's no different. It pisses people off including me

 

[TheShanMan]

Gotcha. I don't think that's quite my situation. While I can't exactly say "wife approved" it's more of a situation where I and she needs more info. If the ad had all information needed to know that I want it, then I wouldn't waste the seller's time without wife approval. Unfortunately many ads lack information.

 

[Phetishboy]

However I feel it is a waste of the sellers time to "window" shop them.

Try being a Realtor sometime.

 

[Deadly]

Hell no dude. In fact - I just bought a house 3 months ago and the ONE thing I REFUSED to do was waste the Realtor time. She loved having my wife and I as clients. We were preapproved, knew exactly what we wanted as in what area of town, lot size, square footage - # of bedrooms - 2 stall garage. Every ad she sent us met our criteria. And we only had to look at a handful before we found what we liked. I could never do that job without shedding blood eventually.

 

[TimothyC]

However I feel it is a waste of the sellers time to "window" shop them. If I don't have the wife's blessing then I don't waste the sellers time. Why ask anything if you can't buy it? I deal with this crap all the time ... I recall several threads here on KLOV about people selling here and the buyers flaking out - it's no different. It pisses people off including me

Well said Deadly... One of the things I've learned in my brief time in the hobby is how unreliable some arcade buyers/collectors can be. Recently I made a deal for a couple of games in which I had to travel about 4 hours and the deal was delayed for 4 days. I was uber apologetic with the seller and when I arrived to pick up everything he just laughed and showed me other games he's been holding for other people for weeks and weeks and weeks. Having read literally hundreds of old threads here on klov this seems to be a common theme. It's strange to me how so many people go back on their word

.


Even though it seems to be a hobby wide issue I find it ironic that when sellers in the FS area lay down strict guidelines to save themselves the headache people complain about their restrictions anyway. Asi es la vida I guess.

 

[GameyMcGame]

looks about right to me.

Rule 1 on craigslist is that any ad that isnt local is considered spam and not allowed.