By Chron Contributor Updated January 30, 2021
Craigslist is a convenient way to buy and sell goods or services, find a job, a roommate or almost anything under the sun. However, it has also opened the doors to scam artists who prey on buyers and sellers online.
Avoiding Craigslist Email Scams
Craigslist is intended for sellers only. In fact anyone posting outside of your local area can be reported and suspended from the service. Email is best used only to arrange a price and a time and place to meet in a public place.
Of course, distant scammers continue to prey on Craigslist vendors and are often from other countries. A common Craigslist problem is the prevalence of scam artists who pay for items with counterfeit checks and you are asked to cash it immediately and wire leftover money via telegraph. By the time your bank kicks back the fake check, you've already sent the money and you must pay back the bank.
Protecting Your Contact Information
Craigslist automatically hides your email address from listings with an email relay system. But once you start communicating to messages in your Craigslist inbox, it will use the name in your own email address. As well, it's not difficult for a scammer to get your email address using a Craigslist email address decoder.
Create an account on a Web-based email service dedicated to handling email from Craigslist. Use a different name; do not include your own name in the email address such as john.smith@gmail.com. Instead use a name like one_eyed_jack@gmail.com.
Identifying Potential Scams on Craigslist
Read the email you receive in response to your Craigslist ad very carefully. Look for poor grammar, misspelled words or strange phrases. Many scam artists are from outside the country and may not speak or write English well.
They typically send form letters stuffed with big promises hundreds or thousands of times. If you're suspicious, copy a key sentence from the beginning of the message and paste it into Google search inside quotation marks. You'll quickly discover if others have been scammed with that exact same email.
Protecting Yourself When Using Craigslist
Respond to the email you receive with your dedicated Craigslist email address. Limit personal information, such your address or phone number, in an email response. You can handily deal with an interested party or even a confirmed buyer without initially divulging this information. Some other ways to protect yourself include:
- Read up on services like Fraud Guides to be aware of recent scams on Craigslist.
- Trash correspondence from anyone asking for any financial information, such as your checking account number, Social Security number or other account numbers or passwords.
- Disregard email from anyone offering a nice rental for a very low price; they'll typically ask for a credit report but they are actually stealing your information.
- Reject an email from anyone offering to purchase anything sight unseen or offering you a large price above and beyond what you are asking for your listed item. The scam artist will pressure you to send merchandise before letting his counterfeit check clear the bank.
- Disregard email that sends you what appears to be an invoice from Craigslist, offering purchase protection or payment processing. Craigslist does not endorse or offer protection from any transaction. Craigslist users are on their own.
- Ignore email that suggests you use an online escrow service for payment of goods. Most Internet escrow sites are fake, according to Craigslist.
- Avoid email problems entirely by dealing with people in person.
- Take someone with you when you meet to handle a transaction.
- Ensure that any money order or check received from a Craigslist transaction clears the bank before you ship anything.
Remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
