People want me to ship or deliver items

[Lillian Dunbar]

Now that spring is here and I have started to advertise my estate items on CL and in a regional classified ad magazine, I am getting contacts from people that want to wire me money hand have me ship the items to them because they live hundreds of miles away, or actually make deliveries to their home since they have to babysit or are handicapped. For the former potential customers, I tell them that I'm not running an Ebay sale. For the latter, I say that I definitely do not make personal deliveries. If they want to see what I have, they will have to come to the sale site. These inquiries usually do not pan out, so I can only surmise they aren't interested enough to make the effort.

[STEVE GUSTAFSON]

Good for you!

[Margo Giroux]

They are often up to no good! Their intent is to rip you off!

[Timesavers Estate Sales]

Lillian - do NOT even deal with this....as Charles said, these are mostly scams....I get them all the time for my estate sale listings on CL, they don't even READ the ad, they just want to send money and many times once you say okay, they will say they are sending more than you asked for (this is usually a large amount) and send them money back. Most of these send cashier's checks which look very real, your bank deposits it and you have the money in your account....however, sometimes many, many weeks later, the check is found to be counterfeit (they look very real even to the bank) and you are OUT the money.  The best thing for CL if you get any of these, instead of wasting your precious time explaining, is to hit DELETE.  This happens to me almost every week when I put my auxiliary ad at the last moment on CL.......too many scammers out there and many times you can tell from their wording...they are in another country such as Nigeria and their spelling and grammar are a dead giveaway. I know someone who bought into this and it was bad, bad, bad........

[Lillian Dunbar]

I only sell LOCAL and for CASH - I don't like the idea of shipping items that later the buyer can claim was damaged in shipment and demand their money back, or pay with fake checks. Too much of a hassle even compared with dealing with local scammers.

[kathy park]

in SA we dont just get local scammers, we get them from all over Africa, mostly Nigeria and Zimbabwe, i had to learn very quickly here. Every year they find a new one, we just have to trust our instincts - i usually get a feel, and pretty often am correct, i do this when we get new members join to make sure our site is as safe as we can be, but on occasion an odd one slips in - but quickly gets removed. I f only they put their cunning to good use !!!