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100% scam.

There is no buyer.

Notice how the scammer doesn't call what you are selling by name? He uses the generic word "item", that is because he sends the same stock copy/paste email to anyone selling everything that he can find and he has no idea what you are selling and doesn't care.

There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money.

He is not interested in your identity or bank account, only your cash.

The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "secretary/assistant/accountant" and will demand you cash a large fake check sent on a stolen UPS/FedEx billing account number and send the money via Western Union or moneygram back to the scammer posing as the "shipping company". When your bank realizes the check is fake and it bounces, you get the real life job of paying back the bank for the bounced check fees and all the bank's money you sent to an overseas criminal.

Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.

When you refuse to send him your cash he will send increasingly nasty and rude emails trying to convince you to go through with his scam. The scammer could also create another fake name and email address like "FBI@ gmail.com", "police_person @hotmail.com" or "investigator @yahoo.com" and send emails telling you the job is legit and you must cash the fake check and send your money to the scammer or you will face legal action. Just ignore, delete and block those email addresses. Although, reading a scammer's attempt at impersonating a law enforcement officer can be extremely funny.

Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of being the perfect buyer, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

If you google "fake check buyer scam", "fake Western Union buyer fraud" or something similar and you will find hundreds of posts of victims and near victims of this type of scam.

100% SCAM

Craigslist is ONLY for face to face CASH transactions. Anything else is going to be a scam. Any check they send will be counterfeit which you won't discover until weeks after the books have been sent

Not to mention that you NEVER give your home address to anyone on Craigslist for any reason. Do you know how many people have been targeted for home invasion robberies after giving this info to fake buyers, and one guy was even killed during one of these robbery attempts

No seller ever needs to know your full name or address for any reason. If they can't meet you in a public well lit location (Starbucks, hotel lobby, mall food court, McDonalds, public library) and exchange the items for cash you will get scammed 99.9999% of the time

You can tell it's a scammer from overseas as they use terms like "advert" and "postal code" which are not used in the US. These are common terms used in Nigerian scams

Besides, notice how they never mention WHAT you are selling. They say "the item" because they send this exact same email to everyone no matter what they are selling

Don't bother writing back or your email will end up on a spam list

Ignore anyone who does not try to arrange a time and place to meet and cannot pay you in cash

Read Craigslist's very clear scam warnings

http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams

"Recognizing scams

Most scams involve one or more of the following:

inquiry from someone far away, often in another country

Western Union, Money Gram, cashier's check, money order, shipping, escrow service, or a "guarantee"

inability or refusal to meet face-to-face before consumating transaction"

This person can't meet, mentions a check and mentions shipping - so it's always going to be a scam

Yes, its an extremely common scam on Craigslist.

Anytime, you deal with someone outside of your own city--the scammers are there with a scam.

Once the check is deposited - which most will do right away, so it can clear -- he'll back out and want you to wire the money to him.

Never wire money to a stranger ( with Western Union or Moneygram)

Then you get the check back either stolen or NSF

Scam! Scam! Scam! You've been warned, and if you proceed with this crap, then you will be taken for a ride you don't want, i.e., you will probably lose the item as well as your money. If you MUST sell it, place it on eBay or Amazon. Both can be trusted, if you tell them the truth and post this honestly. Craig's List has been a scam from the day it started, whether you are buying or selling.

SCAM. I tried to sell a car on Craigslist a couple of years back. They assured me the details of the car were fine, they also said they could not collect the car personally but would send a courier to collect, consequently they offered to pay £2,000 more than I was asking for the vehicle. All I had to do was pay the courier what amounted to several hundreds of pounds for his services. Their check will clear OK, you send them, the item after a while the check bounces, and your left with a Red face. Take a tip and only deal face to face with preferably someone local. I know there is a fee to pay but your better off putting them on EBay, at least you will have redress

I don't really trust craigslist, unless they come to your house.. So no i wouldn't trust them. I was selling my gold necklace on their and they told me to it to them and they send the money to my paypal. Many people on there are scammers so like i said see them in person. Otherwise I would go on ebay there protection is much better. The only downfall is they take 5% i think. Good Luck :)

This is a SCAM! Immediately delete their email and block their email address!

CL is for CASH ONLY, LOCAL SALES! Never pay someone with anything except CASH or accept anything but CASH!