Slashdot Mirror
Interview With A Craigslist Scammer (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: Ever wonder what motivates people who swindle others on Craigslist? Roger Grimes did, so he set up a fake Harley Davidson ad on Craigslist and requested an interview with each scammer who replied to the ad. One agreed, and the man's answers shed light on the inner world of Craigslist scamming: "If you mean how often I make money from Craigslist, it depends on the day or week. Many weeks I make nothing. Some weeks I can get five people sending me money. But I respond to a lot of ads to get one email back. I'm not only doing Craigslist -- there are many similar places. I haven't counted, but many. It takes many emails to get paid. That's what I mean. Some weeks I lose money. It's harder than most people think. But I don't have to go into a place at a certain time and deal with bosses and customers. I can make my own time." Grimes asked the scammer a number of questions ranging from "How do you know when you have a good victim?" to "What country do you originate from?" and everything in-between. He ended the interview asking the scammer for any words of advice for readers. The scammer responded: "It's getting harder for business people like me to be successful, but if they [the victims] follow the rules it would be very hard for me to be successful. That's one of the surprises. My friends and I thought we would not be successful for so long, especially with how Craigslist is different now. But there is always someone looking to sell something who doesn't know the game."
"From the end of the sixth working day after we receive it, if the Cheque is returned unpaid by the paying bank, we cannot take the money from your account without your consent unless you have acted fraudulently" Form TSB Cheque clearing process, but it is the same for all retail banks. Smaller building societies have a couple of additional days as they pass the cheques to a bank to clear.
Same as some people who think that if they send you a proof of payment means that the payment is done. It isn't. It is when it is on our bank account.
With automatic payment there are rules that they can get the money back within a certain amount of time and when they follow certain rules. So even AFTER it has arrived on our account. Luckily almost nobody knows how to do that and if they do it for the wrong reason, it will be fraud and the payment has to asked for by the receiver, not send to by the person doing the payment.
As a European we do not use checks anymore. So no "the check is in the mail". What we are dealing with now is that when a person does a money transfer it take several working days (not even calander days) before the money is with us. Technically this could be done almost instandly, like a credit card payment. However due to some laws it takes 3 working days (to businesses).Not going int detail, but the reason is that the Americans are not working on the weekend when they want to look at the transactios.
The issseu as a company is that when people say they did a payment, they show they did a payment we still can not handle it as if the payment was done and you have customers that are pissed of and thing we are stealing.
So no, this is NOT because the banks can make money from those two days. It is NOT because we want to make money for a few days. It is even NOT the customer who want to pay a few days late and says the payment was done while it wasn't. It is because the Mericans need to know because of terrawrists.
Unfortunately many banks employess do not know this and give the wrong info to their customers, because they do not deal with companies and mainly with payment between private persons within their own bank where the payments DO happen almost imediately.
Private person to company at the same bank? 3 working days.
In general I do like the banking system. It works, exept for this where the US had to meddle because they want all the data they can get their hands on.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
They would have the information from your ID, which is likely real since you think you're being honest. Thus when the cheque bounces a bailiff will show up at your door for cheque fraud (a little more serious than just not paying debts, thus the bailiff rather than annoying collections agencies).