is this an accurate statement about craigslist responses to your ad?

[evident]

I post an ad on craigslist for an item, then i get a bombardment of replies that don't reference the item at all and is a generic message stating interest.

in the past when i responded to them they are normally a scam such as "plz ship it to xxx whatever" or the money deposit scam.

is it safe to say that messages where someone doesn't address your item by name or by specific detail that it's a scam?
examples:

hello please let me know if the items is still available and get back to me with the final price you are willing to sell it and also the conditions thanks and stay bless

Hello, I am interested to buy your item and i will like to know the last price you wish to sell it.Reply me asap if its still available for sale.Thanks

Hi,I am highly interested in your ItemKindly get back to me if still available. Thanks.

Hi there, i am rex. . . I have taken a clean look at your advert andam completely satisfied.I will be purchasing this from you if itsstill available for sale,kindly let me know a.s.a.p

hello .. i wanna know if the item is still availible for sale

Hello seller,I will like to know if ya item pasted on craigslistis still available for sale please get back to me ASAP with thepresent condition and you final asking price

 

[Chronoshock]

They are all scams, sorry

 

[RedArmy]

The only one that could possibly be real is the second to last response. All the others are bogus.

 

[purbeast0]

is this a joke thread?

 

[OCGuy]

Seems legit.



Stay bless.

 

[Zolty]

If you say something like local pick up only No shipping, and do not post your email address in the ad you normally avoid that sort of thing.

 

[Beanie46]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Seems legit.



Stay bless.

Yep.....every one of 'em. I always email a potential seller of a car, computer, TV, whatever, and call it "the item" every time!

Yeppers!

 

[AstroManLuca]

One subtle thing I've noticed about scammers?they tend to forget to put a space after they use a comma. That's not a common mistake even among the most annoying internet kiddies.

 

[OCGuy]

Just send the item to an escrow account, or the buyer's cousin in England, and they wont give him the item until they give you his money.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Just send the item to an escrow account, or the buyer's cousin in England, and they wont give him the item until they give you his money.

Judging from some of the "is this a scam?" threads I've seen here, I don't think you can safely say something like that and expect people to realize it's a joke.

I am constantly amazed at how bad people are at recognizing obvious scams. Every single thread asking if something was a scam was obvious within less than one sentence of reading the email.

 

[evident]

i just want a freakin sale already. all i get are these crap responses.

 

[natto fire]

Yes, I have been there.

Then again, I remember posting on forums that presented the posts in a chronological order. I think this was an idea that played out of the 1800's or something.

Anyhow, there was this website forum that said "FUCK THAT, we will display the posts in any order we see fit" and thus timewarps where born. At first it was supposed to be a joke, but then it got entirely too big for a joke, and became a phenomena. After that there were empty promises of better software, but they never came to fruition.

So what we can learn about Craigslist and the Internet in general is that it never changes much, just finds ways to fuck people over more and detract from any sort of literary skill they might have had!

 

[DrPizza]

Respond to them. Donate just 5 minutes of your time to make it seem like they've got a sucker ready to fork over a bunch of money to them.

Better yet, if you can get them to send a cashier's check, which you deposit & then wire them the remainder between the check & selling price, go for it. Lead them on.

I'll bet that non-scammers receiving such emails outnumber the actual scammers by 100 to 1, if not more. If each person spent a few minutes doing this, the scammers would be overwhelmed. Their scamming would cease being profitable & they'd quit.

But, at present time, scammers send out 1000 automated replies (easy to do, and takes only a minute of their time, total, if that.) They might receive maybe 10 responses from those 1000 replies. Of those 10, 9 might fall through, but the reward of scamming the one person makes it well worth it.

As soon as they have to start mailing out dozens, or even hundreds of counterfeit cashier's checks, at today's price of postage, they're going to start spending money faster than they make it.

/soapbox to reduce the scamming problem by annoying/bothering/wasting scammers time.