Craigslist Scams Increase?

I put a free dog house on there last year and had a call wanting it. I gave my address and phone #. The guy kept calling to cancel his appointment with different excuses why he couldn't come. A friend said maybe he was trying to find out when we wouldn't be home to show it to him so he could rob our place. Finally, never heard from him again.

A few years ago, I put an ad on Craigslist to sell Mrs. Rex's 10-year-old Volvo—just your average generic white Volvo 4-door—of which there were probably dozens, if not hundreds, for sale throughout Southern California. I got an email from someone allegedly in the Middle East (UAR maybe?), who absolutely HAD to have that particular car for his daughter. He said he would take care of all shipping charges and pay me $1,000 above my asking price. I would have enjoyed playing with him online, but there was something else going on and I couldn't. The Volvo wound up going to a very nice family in Goleta.

You can't trust total strangers with personal information given over the internet??!! Tell me it ain't so. Sorry to sound sarcastic but the internet world is becoming more and more inhospitable with troll farms and con houses popping up like mushrooms. Craigslist can't filter them from the bonafide buyers/sellers but you can. Ignore suspicious posts and meet potential buyers/sellers in public locations, not at home.

Some buyers are scammers, and some sellers are too. I called on a bike several years ago and had to meet the guy at Big 5. He showed me the bike and it had a lock on it attached to the seat, he said he had lost the key. I bought it for a low price but later wondered if the bike had been stolen and that's why he wouldn't meet me at a house and didn't have a key for the lock? But now you are suggesting that he was just being cautious in case I was a scammer?

Ditto, of course CraigsList can't "filter out" horrible people. Ebay can, to a certain extent, because it's a PAID service and in order to make an offer you have to be a paid user. Craigs List is FREE, remember that, so you get what you pay for (i.e. no absolute safeguards against random scammers). I recently had the exact scam situation you described :a buyer willing to pay, sight unseen, plus add an additional $1800 from which i was to deduct my $100 and pay the remainder to the "mover", once i cashed their Cashier's Check. I played along, and made them send TWO bogus cashiers checks, which they did. I figure i cost them about $20 in Priority Mail fees. A small victory against the dispicable scammers. Try it -- it's fun and will cost them some money!!!

Craigslist tells you when you post to avoid the scammers. If you use the Craigslist email relay (anonymizes your email address) and put "cash only" in your ad most scammers won't bother you.

As long as we're talking about scams: I received the "Hi Grandma!" phone call 3 days ago. I got this same call about 4 years ago, but since none of my 7 grandsons call me Grandma, I knew immediately it was a scam. The gist was that the 'eldest grandson' was at the 'downtown police station' - he'd been in car accident and they thought he was at fault, so he needed $5,000.00 to get out - and could I give him my Credit Card!! That's when I told him to get lost.
Quite a few of my friends got this same call 4 years or so, ago. And I know that some people bought into it and lost a lot of money. Well - they're at it again ... Grandmas Beware!

I posted a Rolex watch I found while dumpster diving,(it was real) and was contacted by some guy who wanted me to come to his motel room,(good thing it wasn't hot because it was the PD) they offered me a crack rock for it I laughed and left. It got stolen from me not to long after that...I have found all kinds of things dumpster diving while recycling somethings could be quite scary.

Craigslist was briefly a wonderful way for just-plain-people to connect. No more. Too easy for abusers. It still has value if you can avoid unscrupulous people and sketchy businesses looking for easy marks, but remember that posting and responding is open to everyone all over the world. There are whole countries for whom dishonesty, scheming and scamming are a way of life, and the US fields its share of psychopaths and desperate addicts.