Here I'll be showing you what happened to me yesterday and today with my associations around Craigslist, and this is why you should stay away from this unsecure website.Right, yesterday I was in a deep urge to get an iPhone 5, since I was supposed to get one when it was released, although I was short on cash and I had to deduct my standards to an iPhone 4S. This was fine because the iPhone 4S was just as beautiful as the iPhone 5, if not better. I looked around on eBay to see if any iPhones were going for a very decent price, around the £200-£300 budget, I didn't find a single thing which was immaculate as I'd want it to be, considering I'd be selling my iPhone 4S to get the money. (And my iPhone 4S is immaculate, every time I inspect it, it feels like I had just got it out of the box for its very first time.) I didn't find anything on eBay, and this is where it took me on to looking for one on Craiglist.
Craigslist is popular, I didn't right know about it much during the time I was browsing these really cheap iPhone 5's. I came across
this listing which looked so legitimate I would have straight away bought it. I consulted my dad about it since he's
usually right. He said it'd have been fake and that Craigslist is a scammers paradise. Meanwhile I ignored him and consulted the seller. Here's what I sent him first:
Hey,
I was wondering if you would be able to give me more information about your iPhone 5's that you're selling because I am looking for one. I live in Sheffield and I shall pay extra for postage and package if you're willing to do that for me. Please contact me further asap please!
Thanks,
Darren.
Phone: -removed-
E-mail: -removed-
I then quickly got a reply back during the same night with a reply saying this:
Sure darren it's still for sale, another indivual is instrested but is offering 220 if you can give me a better offer then I can post it to you
This is where I usually get concerned, due to the lack of information within the email, for example, the casual 'thanks' at the bottom and the 'hey -name-' at the top, and that his formatting was absolutely stuff. I'm not saying I'm great at grammar and spelling myself but I can definitely make myself look capable to send formal emails.
That didn't stop me though, I wrote this and pressed the send button:
Could you give me some more pictures? because on the craigslist pictures I can see some scratches on the bezel area. Also could you add a signature on the image too to make sure it isn't a stock image on google? I can't be too sure because Craiglist is much more run down than eBay and I don't want to get scammed. I can't take any risks.
Do you also accept Paypal as a payment? That's the only way I can send payments.
Bobs your tea pot, I sent that and I got a reply the next day with the following email, attached with an image. At this point I thought he was a legitimate seller and that I was going to be negotiating prices with him.
Hi darren,
the only scratch is on the bottom as you can see in the image attached, I didnt understand what you meant by add a signature? And sure I understand why, because ebay is much more safer then CL, im 100% legit - my Name is Pat -removed- H -removed- - i live in london, and sure I accept paypal payments- please reply to me with your offer
thanks pat
Attachment
(click for bigger image)
His formatting of his email got better and he supplied me with a very high quality image, it was completely different in comparison to the other low quality images shown on the Craigslist listing. I then woke up this morning to see that he replied and that he gave me another image, I was happy; I replied to him with this without even thinking. (I was still half asleep so I didn't right think about it.)
Hi Pat,
Thanks for your reply, I'm willing to offer you £260, but I can only get that money after I've sold my old phone off, which I can easily get £250 on, would you be able to hold onto it whilst I sell my iPhone on eBay? I'll send you a link to the listing later in the day so you know I'm not wasting your time.
Thanks,
Darren
This was an hour before I realized, holy loving stuff, he's probably got that image off Google, because it's so loving high quality! I was right, I then used Google's image searcher.
Searched the image and this was my result:
I was scammed.
I gave him a quick reply and told him this:
Hey Pat,
I was looking around on google for an image quite familiar to that and then I came across something quite hilarious, plenty of stock images from Gizmodo and other news websites. Look at the picture in the attachments, thats what it all came up with.
I hope this wasn't a scamming attempt.
Here's the moral of the story... Don't buy anything off Craigslist unless you're 100% certain.
