What's Up With This Scam?

[John McClanahan]

Never mind that this 2006 Jeep is only $3,047. Notice that in the title, and every other line in the description is jibberish. What causes this?

You would think these idiots would at least do some simple proof reading before posting such an ad. At least the dollar sign is in the correct location! Their "customers" must be even dumber! Never mind the odd area code (for our area) in the phone number, either!

John

[Larry Edgerton]

My guess is that they are using a computer with a translating program and do not know the difference. Its quite common. Small utility tractors are another one of their favorites.

Larry

[David Weaver]

Yeah, utility tractors, small backhoes and skid steers are top shelf fake items here.

[Stephen Musial]

Have some fun with them. Reply that you're interested but you'd like a closeup shot of the posterior winky linkage as those are known to rust out on 2006 jeeps.

[David Weaver]

Set up a separate email account on yahoo or whatever and send them a message that says "Hi, I'm Brian Fellows. Did you see that loud mouth bird? I don't know what he told you, but he is not Brian Fellows"

Or pick any ridiculous routine from a comedy skit and tie them up with it.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Yeah, utility tractors, small backhoes and skid steers are top shelf fake items here.

Dave, i noticed that too, but WHY do they do it. There really can't be many people who would blindly send money. Sure, we have all heard stories but nowadays anyone with a pulse has to be smarter than to fall for this, don't they????

[David Weaver]

Yeah, I can't figure it out, either. There must be something about the size of the purchase that makes it worth their time, but that also finds them people who don't have a clue they're going to get taken.

[Brian Elfert]

Unfortunately, there are people dumb enough in this world to fall for this. If a criminal gets one person a month to fall for this they would be making a decent income tax free. It would not be surprising if the criminal is actually overseas making it harder to prosecute and the money probably goes a lot further.

[Brian Ashton]

Never mind that this 2006 Jeep is only $3,047. Notice that in the title, and every other line in the description is jibberish. What causes this?

You would think these idiots would at least do some simple proof reading before posting such an ad. At least the dollar sign is in the correct location! Their "customers" must be even dumber! Never mind the odd area code (for our area) in the phone number, either!

John

At least the picture is in focus. I just don't get people that post blurry pictures.

[Brian Ashton]

Dave, i noticed that too, but WHY do they do it. There really can't be many people who would blindly send money. Sure, we have all heard stories but nowadays anyone with a pulse has to be smarter than to fall for this, don't they????

Not sure about North America but here in the "smart state" (and it's even written on the licences plates here) of queensland there are 4.7 million people. So lets assume 2 million of those hobbit footed smart staters have some money to burn... Over $70 million leaves the state for Nigerian and other similar scams yearly. Plenty of idiots here to fall for such a scheme. YMMV

[John McClanahan]

At least the picture is in focus. I just don't get people that post blurry pictures.

Too bad our little part of the country doesn't look like the background in the picture!


John

[Dave Sheldrake]

Greed, plain and simple, "If I do this I will get that"

cheers

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

Stuff like this generally ends in an escrow-style scam. You say you want the (big ticket) item, and the "seller" says he wants to use an escrow service for the protection of both you and him. The seller suggests a service (which is really owned by him), you deposit your money, and <poof>, it's gone.

[Wade Lippman]

Things like that puzzle me. Nobody would be stupid enough to buy it without seeing it. Would they?

[Dan Hintz]

Things like that puzzle me. Nobody would be stupid enough to buy it without seeing it. Would they?

At that price? Certainly...

[Fred Perreault]

I believe that this is also a method to get one to click and let his email address be seen. The money isn't as much in the sale as in the receipt of a living breathing email address. Email addresses and personal info can make more money than the sale of an absurdly low priced 300 hour John Deere compact tractor with tiller, backhoe, snow blower, belly and rear mounted mower, and a 2 bay garage to store it in for ...... $4800.... no address and the whole page is a hot link. :-)

[Dan Hintz]

I believe that this is also a method to get one to click and let his email address be seen. The money isn't as much in the sale as in the receipt of a living breathing email address. Email addresses and personal info can make more money than the sale of an absurdly low priced 300 hour John Deere compact tractor with tiller, backhoe, snow blower, belly and rear mounted mower, and a 2 bay garage to store it in for ...... $4800.... no address and the whole page is a hot link. :-)

Doubtful... this would be a painfully slow method to extract email addresses. Spiders can collect thousands of addresses per second, so doing it "manually" like this would be seriously diminishing returns.

[Jim Becker]

Yeah, utility tractors, small backhoes and skid steers are top shelf fake items here.

And horse trailers...

[David Weaver]

And horse trailers...

Well, when you put those all together, it looks like they're after the "horse people"! (I don't know if that term is used out there. When I was a kid and we had to load hay, we always wanted to know if it was just a regular load, or if it was for "horse people").