Bike related Craigslist Q?

[92degrees]

I put up a set of wheels on Craigslist to try to sell them locally and avoid dealing with shipping. I got an offer last night from England. My first and last thought is always "scam," but he wishes to pay with Paypal prior to shipping. I can't wrap my head around where the risk is for me. Anyone? Maybe I'm being daft today. Thanks. Steve

[Dancingbear]

We just had an experience with some furniture we listed. Out of town buyer, who said they would hire a "shipping agent" to deal with the pick-up etc, and would pay all charges by pay pal. We got a phony email that appeared to be from Pay Pal saying we had a payment on hold, for more than the sale price (they added "shipping agent and shipping costs", about $600 over the sale price) and here's the hook- we needed to send the "agent" the $600 by Western Union in order to get the rest of the funds released to our account. Yeah, right. I logged in to our Pay Pal legitimately and obviously there was no record of any "pending payment". I forwarded the emails to "spoof@paypal.com" and was confirmed that it was a scam.

Your buyer may be legit, just don't trust that an email you receive is actually from PayPal w/o logging into your account and checking. (not by clicking a link in the email, obviously)

[rec head]

Try listing computer stuff on CL. Talk about scam spam its totally ridiculous. I have had the same experience as the Dancingbear. I like to drag them out and keep asking questions just to waist their time.

[eippo1]

I wouldn't trust it, I can't see someone prowling overseas craigslist that wouldn't be scamming. Just say cash only.

Or tell them that if they want to buy them, you'll put them up on ebay with a buy it now listing and they can go through those channels.

[bellman]

I wouldn't trust it, I can't see someone prowling overseas craigslist that wouldn't be scamming. Just say cash only.

Or tell them that if they want to buy them, you'll put them up on ebay with a buy it now listing and they can go through those channels.

Yeah, this is exactly what I was thinking as well. Paypal thru ebay equals trust as ebay owns paypal.

I would say that you could contact him and tell him he will have to go the extra mile on the trust level and send you a check with the understanding that you will ship the wheels when it clears the bank. I hate to give all the transactions to ebay, they have been trying to buy craigslist for years because they feel they are losing business to them and its just too handy to let slip away
Even with a paypal payment in your acct a sender can still mess with it I think, for something like that if you decide to go thru with it I would only ship after the payment was recieved and the paypal balance was transfered to your bank acct.

[mjbabcock]

Total scam. I had one claiming to be a vet in Afganistan trying to buy a nice wheelset for his dad. I offered the eBay route and he flaked out.
I'm telling you, between adding commercials to online videos and these scams, they are ruining the interwebs.

[PJN]

I've sold stuff through craigslist and shipped when payed with paypal. I haven't had any issues.

Never over seas though. I wouldn't be willing to do that.

[christian]

Hey - you're in Western Mass, right? Are the wheels Campy? PM me....

[christian]

PS. This is not a scam. :)

[92degrees]

Thanks Guys.

Christian, no, actually they are Shimano/SRAM. I should probably post them here and be prepared to ship -- I mistakenly thought that Craigslist would keep it local and save me some hassle.

[chasea]

I used to track fraud for the relay telephone system that was used by the deaf prior to stuff like Skype. A good indicator, before they even use the shipping agent line, is to read the language. This person is buying from England, so he should have a pretty solid handle on the English language. If things are phrased funny, more often than not, something funny is going on.

Also, stop paying for your mail order bride's flights. She's missed three of them. She's not coming.

[EricKeller]

Thanks Guys.

Christian, no, actually they are Shimano/SRAM. I should probably post them here and be prepared to ship -- I mistakenly thought that Craigslist would keep it local and save me some hassle.

the money-back scam is big on Craigslist. One of our grad students actually got so far as having possession of the $5000 "money order" they wanted to pay for his oven that he was asking $350 for. This was a while ago too. It's a scam that targets non-greedy people. The funny thing was they actually had a local accomplice even though they said they were in London. I think if all the business had been transacted locally they might have gotten away with it. As it was, the grad student didn't have $3500 to give to this person, so the deal was no good from the beginning. The accomplice came and picked up the money order, police weren't interested.

[shorelocal]

It's gotten so bad that I regularly receive scam emails for goods posted on CL for as little as $80 ... they must be really scraping the bottom of the barrel to try and scam for that small amount. Even if they overpaid for "shipping services", it realistically couldn't be for more than say $50. Desperate times ....