kross57

I received this message today on a bike I am selling:

"Thanks for returning my message. I'm currently not in town for now, so i wont be able to meet with you due to my work frame and also we are very busy at this time preparing for our daughter's wedding but I'm okay with the price and condition as shown on the advert. I'll proceed in issuing a cashier's check to you and when you receive the payment and it clears your bank, I will make arrangements for the pick up. I will also add an additional $50 to hold it down for me. So get back to me with below details to mail the check out to you asap.......

Name to be on the payment ...........
Address to mail the check to ........
City, state and Zip code ............NOT P.O BOX
Final Asking price...................
Phone number to text you on ... "

If you get something like this, do not respond. Or ask for THEIR name, phone and address. Then verify it before giving yours.

SoccerBallXan

Your name, address, and all other relative information is available publicly through your county assessor/recorder department (if in the US). Giving out your name through email is enough for any individual to know your address and other information (given they do 5 minutes of research).

If someone wants to pay you I say do it!! Just tell them that you won’t be sending over any bikes and that the payment they send is only for your gain. Then see how they respond!

(P.S. don’t actually respond to any scam emails, it can leave you in a sticky situation.)

jamesdak 

LOL, typical scam we get here from the local classifieds all the time. I just give them the name and address of the Sheriff to send their "money" to. If I bother to respond at all.

ramzilla

Yeah. That's a pretty weird scam. It doesn't sound like they're trying to take anything from you. But, they might be trying to give you something that you don't want. Whenever I receive weird offers like that I respond by giving the buyer instructions to bring cash and to meet at a neutral location. (I usually take my bikes down to the hardware store parking lot to meet buyers). If they don't like my terms then I ignore them.

katsup

That is an older one. The most common one I get now a days is the buyer asking if they can send me a code so they can verify I'm a "real" seller.

Binky

Hmmmm...

My contribution:

A few years ago I had a bike for sale. The interested party took it for a test ride around the block and brought it back with the chain catching and jumping all over the rear sprocket. He got irate and claimed he had come a long way for the bike and that I had misrepresented the condition of the bike but he still wanted to buy it but at a reduced cost.... and OWED him something, like $100 off the price of the bike, for wasting his time.
An inspection showed that several pins on the chain had been pushed partially inboard so the chain was fouling on the next largest sprocket when it went through the freewheel.... so I flat out refused to sell it to him.

A couple of days ago I had a similar experience with a front wheel that suddenly wobbled because it suddenly got 5 loose spokes on one side during a test ride, and the same demand that I OWED it to the buyer to sell the bike for a deeply discounted price for wasting the guy's time.

Nope.

Bink

repechage

I would just go along on the test ride. "just to explain anything as you go"
And have my Cinzano team pump ready if need be.

ramzilla

Wow. Just wow. I can't imagine somebody actually doing weird stuff with the drivetrain to get over on a bike deal. Most of the time people just try to talk me way down on price. When they throw out a 1/2 price offer is when I put the bike back on the rack and, get ready to leave. The most I usually come down off a bike price is about $10. Sometimes........... I give them away for free. But, those don't get advertised. They go straight to charity.

oldspokes

A buddy of mine was selling a motorcycle a number of years ago, the 'buyer' arrived in a fairly new car, checked the bike out and asked if he could take a test ride up the road or around the block. Figuring that if he didn't come back, he had the guy's car, he let him take the bike on the road. When he made the turn at the next light it was the last he ever saw the thing. Forty minutes later he calls the police, the guy's car still in his driveway, (blocking him from getting his car out). It turned out that the car was a stolen rental car nabbed from a restaurant valet parking lane. The guy stole the car, used it to block the driveway and make the seller think he was coming back but he took off never to be seen again leaving the stolen car in the driveway with no keys or way to move it.
The bike never turned up, insurance paid for it but a valuable lesson learned I guess.
I've sold quite a few bikes, with and without motors, and never once had an issue, but I live on a dead end street, they have no where to go, and any test ride is always within my sight.

Binky

Read between the lines: not meaning to label any specific group but I think it may be in some people's CULTURE, especially if they come to North America from an environment where an honest or dishonest effort at outwitting the other person is expected in every commercial or financial transaction, and the prices of commodities must be determined through haggling.

For some people it is a small step up from the urge to haggle to the covert action of deliberately damaging something in order to get the upper hand: It is the wonderful world of capitalism.

In both of my cases (only 2 cases in hundreds of transactions) I truly suspect that the idea was to cheapen the cost of the bikes with reversible damage in order to increase their profit magin when they resold the bikes later in Toronto and this little trick of theirs was something they try to do regularly in order to increase profits. Some flippers have multiple bikes on CraigsList and if they pull something like this with every purchase.... it all adds up.

Bink

ADguy 

That scam isn’t limited to bikes.

I have placed two CL ads in the past several years, one for a $3500 sea kayak and the other for a $275 window a/c. The first response to each posting was a version of that scam. I think it was originally known as the Nigerian Scam. It must be pretty successful to still be in use.

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.


Cheers

madpogue 

Only if you own the property where you live.

SoccerBallXan

And if you’re registered to vote they can check through the elections department or recorder. So unless you’ve gone rogue in America they can pretty much find anything they want, always!

madpogue 

I haven't checked other states, but in WI, to get an individual person's address through voter registration, you have to know the name and birth date. You can buy mass voter lists, but they're not cheap.

xiaoman1 

Not saying any of this is right but I assume it cuts across "all" CULTURES and all are capable of doing similar things...It's capitalism, right?
Best, Ben

Binky

If you say so....

Cycle Tourist

That's a common scam. It's still being used so it must work occasionally. Use paypal or have the money wired. No checks! It can take several weeks to verify if a check is good and you are charged if it's not. Usually the scammer follows up in a few days with a request for you to pay the party that is coming to get the bike. The party doesn't show up because they were in an accident and they make a request to get money back. Strangely they don't accept checks. Get the idea? I give a fake name and address so they have to print the fake check and overnight it to the address given. It's a small victory.