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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."
>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.
And if you're lucky, you might also _do_ time.
Could someone wrap up in a few words how you could scam money from people who want to SELL something?
From buyers, yes. You could simply ask for advance payment and refuse to deliver.
Or is this the old "I'll overpay you $500 when I'm paying for the bike and you give $400 to my old friend Vladimirostowzitschzky, but have to do that before you see any money from my side"? Do people still fall for that?
As another advanced reading about how successfull scamming works, I'd suggest the Most von Lipwick books in the Discworld series.
bickerdyke
...if he set up a fake ad, doesn't that just make HIM the scammer?
It often takes much longer to confirm that a bad check is a bad check. I am not sure why. However, I read somewhere that some bad checks need to be physically inspected by the "issuing" bank to determine that they are forgeries. My understanding of that situation is that the check is written against an account which does have money in it to cover the amount of the check, but the check is not actually written by a person with authority to disperse money from that account.
I am not sure on this because all of the articles I found on the subject merely stated that it sometimes takes weeks to confirm that a check is good or bad. None of them discussed why that is the case.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
"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.
Finally, a "businessman" so honest to admit that he's a scammer.
I picked up on that quote as well, and you've got it the wrong way round. He's someone who - at heart- knows damn well he's a worthless, low-rent pissy little thief/conman and is trying to rationalise his behaviour and kid himself (more than anyone else) that he's a "businessman".
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Could it possibly be money?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This interview is full of classic self-justification;
"I like to think I am a businessman. Not a criminal."
"I like to think my victims are rich and won't miss the money I'm stealing."
"I like to think those I'm stealing from had the opportunities I didn't. This makes us even."
"I like to think that because scamming is hard and takes time, it's like a real job."
"I like to think it's my victim's own fault I'm scamming them. It's not my fault they don't follow the rules and don't know the game."
so basically that whole thing only happens because people are still using cheques?
I only had to write one in my life and that was the first and the last one. over 20 years ago!!
bickerdyke
CL has taught me just how broken the mental health system is in the USA, and just how many lunatics we have who seem to have access to the internet. I had a really old junk Craftsman garden tractor in my garage that i just wanted gone. So i put it on CL under the free section. My phone got so many calls, texts, and emails that my phone was LOCKED UP for nearly 2 hours from so many alerts (this is back in the Blackberry day). Couldn't do anything. My voicemail was filled up in under 3 minutes.
I had every personality imaginable on the voicemails. I had death threats. I had people telling me i was a scam artist, or asking if i was lying. I had people going through lists of reasons why they should have the tractor over everyone else, including the "my kid has cancer" stories, because we all know lawn mowers are a critical element in most chemotherapy. I had people who were incoherent and didn't make any sense. I had people crying and begging. It was ridiculous, and I refuse to use CL for anything again.
The calls and stuff started seconds after hitting "Post". There must be armies of people who literally sit there all day long clicking refresh on the fucking page.
This is about Craigslist, which is essentially an electronic newspaper Classified section, so these are private persons interacting with one another. So credit cards are out, and due to the prevalent use of those, most people rarely carry enough cash on them for the sorts of large purchases these scams target, like vehicles. A check can be cancelled, but if you show up to shady guy's motorcycle ad with $6k and he holds you up and steals it, then you've a lot more trouble ever seeing that money again.
I can see an international purchase on my bank's transaction history in one hour. Why does it take US banks 3 days to discover there's no money in a cheque writer's account? Why doesn't the seller wait a week before sending the item?
Banks can take just a few hours but scammers will seek out things which take the longest.
For example, scammers use fake western union money orders which take longer for whatever reason.
Did you read the article? Don't assume that he's a "little", "low-rent" conman. He may well be in a country where the scams he is pulling off, net him an income that allow him to live very comfortably and have considerable pull in local society. And in many developing countries, the line between "businessman" and "conman" is far more blurry than people in North America or Western Europe might think.
I and my friends have encountered these scams numerous times. The scam actually revolves around Paypal, and not craigslist or whatever the listing / auction site is. They open up a conversation to obtain your email address (that's how craigslist works, unlike eBay which specifically discourages people from communicating outside their system). Once they have your email address they say they're sending money, and *oops* they "overpaid" by accident. They send a spoof "You've Got Money!" Paypal email from some domain that contains "paypal" in the domain in some way. Usually crap like paypal.asdasda.com. That is the key to the whole thing, is that fake Paypal email that makes it look like they paid.
Then they immediately start threatening legal action unless you refund them the amount they overpaid. However, instead of Paypal, they insist the money be sent via Western Union.
That's basically it. They typically copy / paste some background story about them being out of the country or something, and they'll have a transport service come get the vehicle. The "marine biologist on a ship doing research" is a story they were using a lot a few years ago.
Better known as 318230.
And pretty much ignore mental illness, loneliness and Alzheimer's as factors. When people look it's mostly those 3 with a little bit of naivety from living a sheltered life...
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The only way to fight these scammers is to waste their time. Make them think you are falling for their scam so they lose time and money trying to pursue you for nothing in return. This scammer even admitted that he loses money some weeks. It is because he didn't get anyone to fall for it. If the typical scammer had to chase down 1000 dead-ends instead of 10 before he got someone to fall for it, the whole thing would not be worth it. It's like telemarketers. Ignoring their calls is not what you want to do. You want to answer it and give it to your 2 year old so the guy on the other end spends 5 minutes trying to get the toddler to "give the phone to mommy". Waste their time and they will eventually stop.
If we vote for Donald Trump, will he order air strikes against CraigsList scammers in non-allied countries?
Nope, he'll build a wall around them, and make the scammers pay for it!
Enigma
House rentals are another big CL scam. My ex-neighbors house was being actively scammed.
It was up for rent, and this young woman shows up at my door asking about it. She had been in contact with some dude on CL.
"$900, all utilities included."
Of course, he was out of town (had to move to California suddenly). He had the key in hand, and wanted her to send him the $900 + $900 security dep. In return, he sends her the key, blah blah.
This was a house that actually was being rented for $1100, with no utilities. From a valid real estate agency.
I told her in no uncertain terms..."This is a scam. You will never see the key, nor will you ever see that $1800 again"
Young single mom, but she did have the smarts to ask around.
I have no rational explanation for this. It's just how things are. If you sent a "Nigerian prince" email to a bunch of people, few would actually fall for it. But for some reason many people, especially but not only people under 30 years old, believe that you simply can't be cheated on Craigslist - ever. Simply doesn't happen. But if it did, Craigslist would make you whole. Ha ha ha! If they only knew.. I really have no idea why rational people lose their minds on Craigslist and assume there is no risk to any transaction.
How many people do you know that use Facebook, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Asley Madison, ... How many that buy lotto tickets or "may already be winners in the publisher's sweepstakes"? Nuff said.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
I can definitely understand the motivation for someone to do these scams. But ultimately, you're in a situation where you can't really get "the law" to crack down on the people doing them (thanks to their location and ability to post their ads using various internet connections that aren't their own).
The way to deter them is to cost the scammers as much time, effort and money as possible. Lead them on into thinking you're going to give them a payout, when you're really just harassing them. (If they're going to "send you a check in the mail", make sure you tell them you never received it and get them to mail another. If you can get them to pay postage for an item they think they're scamming from you, mail some heavy rocks or bricks.)
Email and Robocalling works because scammers can send out a million emails or call a million phone numbers for nearly free. Most are ignored but a few respond and out of those few who respond, a few victims can be easily scammed. The answer is to force the scammer to waste too much time trying to find the few gullible victims. If every email blast got a million responses, but only one or two of them were going to fall for the scam and the other 99.999% of them were just bogus responses by people pretending to show interest; then it would cost them too much to find their victims. Same with phone calls. If you answer the phone and pretend you can't hear them or just put the phone down for a few minutes while they read their script to nobody, you are part of the solution. Making it super quick to rule you out means they can contact/bug 10 other people in the meantime. Waste their time!!! Buy or fall for NOTHING!
Preferably immediately after detection and verification.
This opinion is unpopular, until you've been scammed.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
So, what you're saying is that he'll order air strikes on the competition?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Right now the so called solution is to make it difficult on people who misbehave and don't teach them the proper way to behave.
We talk about the greedy being caught by these scams and don't feel too bad when they trap themselves. Another class of victim is the inexperienced and we know that they are unlikely to be caught twice. However one group of victims that gets hit time and time again is the mentally impaired. As the father of a son with Down Syndrome I am very scared that his beautiful trusting nature will expose him to this sort of crime. Sadly he won't learn from experience because he can't. It isn't in his nature to distrust and he really doesn't understand the concept of (malicious) lying.
So without constant supervision, and from my talking with other parents with older kids even with, he is vulnerable. I'd love to have some way to protect him that didn't involve a magic bubble or disconnection from the modern world.
I like to carry the phone to the loo where I give them an earful of at least a #1, bonus points for a #2. And there's always the "OK, wait a minute while I go find my credit card". Or just ask, "Does your mother know you're a criminal?" if you just want them to get pissed and hang up.
Really? Suppose they were legitimate people and you sent them a bad check? It would be something if you have a warrant for your arrest for passing bad checks.