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March 4, 2024 5 mins

Jack almost fell victim to a Craigslist scam the other day. These scammers are getting good and some are even linked to the cartel. Stay vigilant, friends! 

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I almost got scammed by Craigslist yesterday, and I
had to do some searching on it to figure out
what the scam was. I went further down the road
than I usually do, just I couldn't figure out what
the scam was. So I was like staying in it
trying to figure out. I don't know what you're getting
out of this, but I don't know if you've ever
had this situation. Well, does anybody use Craigslist other than me?

(00:20):
Most people use fists a long time Facebook marketplace, I think,
but I refuse to be on Facebook, so that's not
an option for me. But anyway, so I listened something
on Craigslist, and it's well known that if somebody replies
and doesn't mention the item, you got to watch out.
But I've done that before. Do you still have your
lawn mower for sale? As opposed to hey, is this

(00:42):
still for sale? But oftentimes if it's if you get
a hey, is this still for sale?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
It's a bot of some sort.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
But anyway, I got one of those and I replied,
yes it is, and he said, cool, I really wanted.
I've been looking for one of those. You can't find
him anywhere, and can we take this to email? And
I thought, okay, now I'm going to give you one
more data point, but I went ahead and emailed him.
Then he sent me this long email about how about

(01:10):
consider it sold. I'll give you fifty bucks just to
hold on to it. I'll send you a cashier's check immediately,
I'll overnight it as soon as it clear clears let
me know, and then I'll send shippers to pick it up.
And I thought, okay, where's the scam here? This smells
like a scam, but I can't figure out what the
scam is. So I did some I actually just copied

(01:34):
the email, pasted it on Google, and got a gazillion
replies from Reddit in all kinds of different places. I
guess what happens A lot is and watch out for this.
People send you the cashiers check, you deposit it, but
out of being in a hurry or good faith or whatever,
you don't wait for it to actually clear because that
would take days, right, and then your bank hits you,

(01:57):
you know, four days later with hey, this was a
fake catchers check four days later after you've already shipped
the thing. So I guess that happens. I guess that
happens a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that could get you.
That could get a person who's reasonably savvy because they
having established their credibility by paying in advance, they say,
oh my god, I told you it's going to take
four days. I'm leaving on vacation Thursday, right.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. The thing that was
the biggest giveaway, and it always is, is the poor English.
It's amazing that they can't clean that up because they're
in another land, and they used phrases and words in
a way that no American speaking English person English speaking
American does and it was just weird.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I'd like to offer my services as an editor a
translator for the various scammers and pots of the world.
My rates are fairly reasonable. All I need you to
do is send me my taxes in advance, and that
works for you.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Right. I wonder how often these work, And I guess
the whole thing is it doesn't need to work very often.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
It's practically effortless. Oh yeah, it's cost free per attempt. Yeah. Oh,
speaking of which, So I came across this scam and
I got to admit, this one is way, way, way
more sophisticated than most has to do with Mexican time shares.
So many people go to Mexico. They love it, they
have a great time. Whether it's Cobo or Yakapulco or
Kankun or whatever, they love it, and they get talked

(03:22):
into buying a timeshare because they think, well, hell, yeah,
we'll come down here once a year for three days
or whatever it is. But then you know, as you've
heard on many commercials, the costs go up, they're hidden fees.
You'd rather do something else. After a couple of years,
you want to sell it. Well, the cartels have found
a new business venture, and that's fraudulent. Well, it's a

(03:42):
timeshare scam. What happens is people who want to get
rid of it, they list it for sale and the
cartels contact you and they have very good people who
speak fluent English. They sound very professional, and they say, hey,
we've got a fire for your time share. We're willing

(04:03):
to pay you this and it's more than you were
even hoping for. And often it takes the form of
all you have to do is sell send us the
sales tax first so we can finance baba, and people
fall for that. You should never have to send money
first anyway. And then here's where it gets crazy. So

(04:23):
if indeed you get ripped off for several thousand dollars,
they will call you back as the local bank and say, hey,
we listen, we just found out you guys got ripped off.
It's terrible. There's been a scam. We're trying to track
these people down. Can we get this information that information? Okay,
thanks very much. And then they call back, having established

(04:46):
it to two or three calls where they don't ask anything,
they just help you. They say, hey, good news, we
have a consortium that's buying your time. And they get
you for a second time, and sometimes even a third
time because they keep changing the base six of the scam.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah that one. My mom almost had that happen to her.
Where your first contact is hey, this is the bank
and somebody got your account information, but luckily we caught them.
We're going to need you to come down here.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, that's that's a common one.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
They will send you documents that look one hundred official
and real too. The cartels are really good at their jobs.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
I'm guessing AI is going to make this more difficult
to notice too, in a variety of ways, Great

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Armstrong and Getty
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