Buying boat, or anything on craigslist

[chloe1990]

A couple of years ago I was working in California and looking for a rental house. I found one that I liked on Craiglist and emailed the person who listed it. He wanted a deposit beforehand and he would leave the key in a box outside the house. He said he was "out of town at the moment" and couldn't meet me. He wanted me to pay even before I saw the place....who does that?! Does it actually work on some people? I ended up just going through a property management company.

 

[Granddaddy]

Good advice, especially the part about a cashiers check. I always call the bank to verify the check, check# etc. Also verify that funds are there. I have been burned by a cashiers check that looked perfect but was a fraud. $9800.

 

[ByrdDawg]

Several communities have safe meet places for conducting Craigslist transactions. Dalton has a place that has 24 hour video surveillance outside the police office. I suggest using the safe meet zones. Scammers will not want to meet you at these type of places. As your grandparents told you if its too good to be true its probably not.

 

[WaterChap]

My favorite was the 10 year old Ranger on sale for $2500 in Hixson. Lots of palm trees were in the background. I kept emailing them about how they kept those tropic palms alive in Hixson, but they never got back with me.

 

[Thomn8r]

Just sold a couple of items on CL. A few clues to scammers: frequently have foreign accents, they want to communicate via text( so they can hack your phone and mine it for info), they use poor or wrong grammar, they won’t meet in person at a neutral site(again they want your home address), they’re hundreds of miles away( Atlanta buyer wanted my utility trailer).They use as much of your personal info as they can get to perform other scams while identifying as you. Local legitimate buyers met in person at public site and paid cash.

 

[trbr81]

would never consider buying a bass boat on craigslist or anything for that matter