The Market Place Scam: Let Me Share

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When someone wants to give you an object of value on a sale site, beware. A free piano is usually not a free piano.

Two objects I would like:

PS 5

Baby Grand Piano

The most recent scammer had a beautiful white baby grand piano available for… wait for it… FREE. Wow, says they just wanted it to go to a good home. Here’s the listing.

piano for free on craigslist

The email from the piano woman.

Often there is a sob story. With the PS 5, the man was giving it away because he bought it for his son who had just passed away.

Here’s how I responded to Marc/Emily.

She never replied. The ad is still live on Craigslist. I did report it as a scam.

Here’s the grift. At some point, Marc/Emily was going to ask me to pay a moving fee. Since the movers had already taken the piano, I was going to need to Venmo them the money to bring the piano to me. Of course, there was no piano, no movers, and Emily was probably using a fake name.

In the case of the PS 5 system, the man needed me to pay him about $86 for the shipping and insurance. Again, for a product that would never be shipped.

There’s one other grift that happens when selling stuff online. When I’m selling a guitar or an old MacBook, there will be people who connect and say, “I’ll take it. I’m FedExing a cashier’s check that you will get in 2 days. Once you have deposited the money, I will have a delivery service pick up the guitar. I’m adding an additional $100 for packing the guitar up. Thank you.

Only one problem, cashier’s checks are hard to fake, but these scammers are working hard and have resources at their disposal. I once got two cashier’s checks for a Mystery Shopper project. They were amazing. And fake. The problem happens when the cashier’s checks are good enough to fool your bank. They take the deposit. You get the money in your account. The days later, after the product has been picked up, the checks BOUNCE. Then you’re out the money, you’ve lost your product, and your bank is going to flag your account for security.

Practice safe hex out there. Use protection. And if it appears too good to be true, it is.

John McElhenney — let’s connect online
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