Any Craigslists horror stories?

david12795

david12795

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Just thought i'd asked the people of CAG here if they have any bad craigslist experience. i have heard people talked about their horrors of meeting people to do their transactions due to their questionable personality, offers, etc.

I havent had any horror stories...yet. so far i just had people come to my house if im ever selling anything. probably shouldnt do that.
 
I bought a broken xbox that was claimed to have worked fine once. Met in public, swapped cash for the xbox bundle. I got home and the laser was shot.

I would have tracked the guy down, but I didn't pay much at all. And at the time, the type of laser was plentiful and cheap on eBay, so an extra ~$5 and a week later I had, and still have, a great looking and working Xbox.

But consider it a tale of caution. Buying electronics from someone where it can't be tested is a gamble.
 
My biggest problem has been noshows. Buying and selling has been getting worse lately with people flaking out with no notice.

I only pay what I am willing to pay for a broken item because I am unwilling to meet somewhere to be able to test items.
 
Someone advertised a 60GB PS3 on craigslist at an awesome price. Normally I wouldn't buy a console on craigslist without seeing it work, but I was just leaving to go out of town for the weekend and contacted the seller to see if we could meet asap.

At the price I got it for I figured if it didn't work perfectly I could still sell it for parts/repair and not lose any money. He had the box and it said 60GB on it and I took a really quick look at the PS3 to make sure there was no damage.

When I get home I discover its a PAL/UK console!? Never crossed my mind I should check it for something like that. I had to research it and go buy a voltage converter on eBay just to test it out so I could make sure it worked and get rid of it. Luckily it seemed to work fine and I don't think I lost any money over this, maybe even made a few dollars. But it was a big hassle dealing with it.

I also bought an original Xbox once with a really weird problem. The disc drive won't open unless...there is already a disc inside it??? When I first set it up I noticed there was a blank cd in the drive which was odd. Later with no disc in it the drive wouldn't open at all. Luckily the original Xbox lets you manual open the drive with a paper clip though so it wasn't that hard to get it back open. After it had a disc inside the drive it kept opening just fine. Still got that piece of crap around here that I need to get rid of. Although it seemed to work otherwise I wanted a fully working system so found another one.
 
Around here selling electronics on Craigslist basically means a gun to your head so frankly I have not tried it nor do I plan on trying it. Too many people have had something similar happen for me to even risk it. Selling furniture isn't bad though, but I definitely wouldn't dabble in video games or electronics. If I have something that I need to get rid of badly and don't want to use ebay I am better off driving 45 min-1hour to the nearest fleamarket to pawn it as a craigslist sale would take me about the same amount of time or more if the person doesn't show up.
 
one time this guy showed up with like 6 guys in his car and their music was really loud and inside looked really smokey but he gave me the money and seemed like a cool guy
 
My friend recently was selling an ipod and scheduled to meet someone when it was getting dark. The guy got in my friends car, checked out the ipod and then jump out running away in the dark.
 
[quote name='kuyalos']My friend recently was selling an ipod and scheduled to meet someone when it was getting dark. The guy got in my friends car, checked out the ipod and then jump out running away in the dark.[/QUOTE]
Why didn't your friend chase him down in the car??
 
I met a guy for DVDs one day and he lied about the condition and so I told him no to them.

He started following me to my car and I was all fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck and finally he turned around and I think got a hold of himself and thankfully I never heard from him again.
 
once met a guy who gave me a stack of 1's equalling to 40 or 50. brand new, crisp, almost wanted to make it rain at the nearest "club". joking. did meet the guy in the dark in a desolate place but area was safe. i should meet people at a bank or a police station though.

A tip: I use a google voice number for my CL's so they dont get my actual number.
 
i had a guy who wanted to buy my ps3 and he said he was on his way but he never showed up....made me wait >.>. i still have his number...wonder if i should troll.
 
This thread is missing a lot of herpes stories.

I bought a Wii over CL in an Arby's parking lot. The moment the seller took it out of the plastic Best Buy bag, I knew the Wii was sick with herpes. I probably got herpes from the transaction. The dude was nice enough, but he had to have a horrible case of herpes, too.
 
Craigslistpee.jpg
 
[quote name='vodkablast']On another forum, someone bought an external hard drive and it ended up having hundreds of ants living in it.[/QUOTE]


link? id like to read a story about that :D


anyways, ive been having trouble posting my ads on craigslist. its asking for verification through a phone number if i want to add more ads. and my ad isnt showing up and its been over a day...anyone have trouble with this or is it just me?
 
Same as a guy posted. Bought an Xbox that had a game in it. It opened and shut. Didn't work without game in it. Guy was a psycho when I called him about it. Winded up cherry picking the games and sold the game lot on ebay for like $100 more then I paid.
 
My only horror stories are when people agree to show up at a certain place at a certain time to buy what I have listed, only to never show. And these people tend to use their regular e-mail addresses or work e-mail addresses for Craigslist, so I wonder what will happen when they cross a psychopath.
 
[quote name='eagleman70707']I always, always meet at a public place and exchange the stuff like a shady deal. Quick and with as little talking as possible.[/QUOTE]
Me too. I always meet at the local mall and I adamantly refuse to give out my number so people can 'call and make sure I'm still coming', since I had some older broad from online track me down via WhitePages.com reverse lookup by phone the one time.:shock:
[quote name='yourlefthand']My biggest problem has been noshows. Buying and selling has been getting worse lately with people flaking out with no notice.[/QUOTE]
People have flaked on me before, but I almost always make sure I have a backup person set up to meet the next day or something. Most of the stuff I put up on CL is stuff that I could care less if I sell or not. But if it sells, you better believe it's going to be for what I wanna sell it for or I just pull the ad.
[quote name='david12795']link? id like to read a story about that :D


anyways, ive been having trouble posting my ads on craigslist. its asking for verification through a phone number if i want to add more ads. and my ad isnt showing up and its been over a day...anyone have trouble with this or is it just me?[/QUOTE]
I had to verify who I am by inputting a code they sent me via an automated phone message. The whole process takes maybe 5 minutes and now I can post as many messages as I want w/o restrictions.:D
 
I've had several people want to sell me systems but want to meet in a parking lot rather than it being tested first, which is always a no. Other than that, I've had a lot of success and actually met some very nice people via Craigslist, a couple who still keep in touch after selling me collections.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']
I had to verify who I am by inputting a code they sent me via an automated phone message. The whole process takes maybe 5 minutes and now I can post as many messages as I want w/o restrictions.:D[/QUOTE]


i tried redoing this with my cell phone number but they said that number is already in use, but i do not see my ad ANYWHERE on the site. so i tried using my home number they havent called to give me the code. i wonder when they started doing this. its getting annoying for just posting one ad :roll:



i hate flakers. i had a person told me they were on the way but they never came. i still have his number.
 
I always make sure that if I'm buying a system, there's enough games to offset the cost of the system if it doesn't work. Other than that, I have a horror story.

About a year after the Wii came out, I found one on Craigslist for about 200 with a handful of games, this was when it was still kind of hard to find. Needless to say, I jumped on it with intentions of reselling it. The guy said it was in perfect, like new condition.

I meet the guy at Hooters (his call) and he hands me a box with the dirtiest system I've ever seen. Filthy. This thing is only a year old and it's fucking filthy. He says "it's like new, my wife forgot to wipe it down". I tell him he's crazy, in a few nice words, and I told him I'd still take it but I'd give no more than 100 bucks. We negotiate and settle on 120, I take it thinking I can clean it up and sell it, profit, and be done with it.

Then I get it home.

Not only is it filthy, it's infested with roaches. Dead, alive, and everything inbetween. Smelled like hell. I shook and shook and shook it in the sink, roach bits would not stop coming out, even after an hour. Also, it was in my back seat, so roaches are now in my car. So eventually I saran wrapped the fuck out of it and threw it in the freezer to kill any leftover live roaches and figure out what I'd do with it later. Needless to say, it didn't work, and I was pretty stupid for buying it.

Other than that, I had an awesome score today with some really nice people. I love Craigslist.
 
[quote name='Cmosfm']I always make sure that if I'm buying a system, there's enough games to offset the cost of the system if it doesn't work. Other than that, I have a horror story.

About a year after the Wii came out, I found one on Craigslist for about 200 with a handful of games, this was when it was still kind of hard to find. Needless to say, I jumped on it with intentions of reselling it. The guy said it was in perfect, like new condition.

I meet the guy at Hooters (his call) and he hands me a box with the dirtiest system I've ever seen. Filthy. This thing is only a year old and it's fucking filthy. He says "it's like new, my wife forgot to wipe it down". I tell him he's crazy, in a few nice words, and I told him I'd still take it but I'd give no more than 100 bucks. We negotiate and settle on 120, I take it thinking I can clean it up and sell it, profit, and be done with it.

Then I get it home.

Not only is it filthy, it's infested with roaches. Dead, alive, and everything inbetween. Smelled like hell. I shook and shook and shook it in the sink, roach bits would not stop coming out, even after an hour. Also, it was in my back seat, so roaches are now in my car. So eventually I saran wrapped the fuck out of it and threw it in the freezer to kill any leftover live roaches and figure out what I'd do with it later. Needless to say, it didn't work, and I was pretty stupid for buying it.

Other than that, I had an awesome score today with some really nice people. I love Craigslist.[/QUOTE]

What do people do to their stuff lol. Whenever I list stuff on cl people always want to pay less so say the price is firm in your listings.
 
Had two guys almost come to blows over some free computer parts I gave away when I left Washington, D.C. The guys came at the same time and I thought they were together. It was quite awkward.

Lesson learned. Never bring people to your house for free shit.
 
Not my horror story but some little kids.

A while back I saw an XBOX 360 wireless adapter on Craigslist for $20, it was the old white one back when it was still around $100 in the store. Got to the meeting place and this older white lady rolls up in an Escalde with 22's, full tint.......all tricked out. Anyway, pulls up next to my car rolls down the window and holds up the adapter and says "Is this the thing you wanted?" (Kinda snotty). Trying to hold back my excitement I said yes and asked if she was sure $20 was OK. She said "Yeah that's fine, whatever. Do you want this thing too?" It was a chat pad. I said maybe and asked how much. She looked to the passenger seat and I noticed a pre-teen boy sitting there red faced with tears rolling down his cheeks and she replied, "Is 5 bucks alright?" Once again, holding back my excitement and coming to the realization that I was helping to teach this kid an important life lesson while getting one hell of a deal I said, "Yeah.......I guess I'll take it." We made the exchange, I gave the kid a wink, he started bawling a bit harder and I went home.

I kinda felt bad......like for a second, but being a parent it all made sense.
 
[quote name='XRAY 441']Not my horror story but some little kids.

A while back I saw an XBOX 360 wireless adapter on Craigslist for $20, it was the old white one back when it was still around $100 in the store. Got to the meeting place and this older white lady rolls up in an Escalde with 22's, full tint.......all tricked out. Anyway, pulls up next to my car rolls down the window and holds up the adapter and says "Is this the thing you wanted?" (Kinda snotty). Trying to hold back my excitement I said yes and asked if she was sure $20 was OK. She said "Yeah that's fine, whatever. Do you want this thing too?" It was a chat pad. I said maybe and asked how much. She looked to the passenger seat and I noticed a pre-teen boy sitting there red faced with tears rolling down his cheeks and she replied, "Is 5 bucks alright?" Once again, holding back my excitement and coming to the realization that I was helping to teach this kid an important life lesson while getting one hell of a deal I said, "Yeah.......I guess I'll take it." We made the exchange, I gave the kid a wink, he started bawling a bit harder and I went home.

I kinda felt bad......like for a second, but being a parent it all made sense.[/QUOTE]
That reminds me of the one woman around here who was selling her ex bf's PS2 and game collection(40-50 games, almost no sports) with 5-6 controllers and a half dozen memory cards for about $100 maybe 2-3 years ago round here on CL.

Thank God I was never stupid enough to leave anything of value at a gf's house cuz I've had some vindictive ex's.:lol:
 
I stumbled upon this gem... and all I can say is wow. Not sure if it's legit... but regardless, it's quite the read.

To the guy in my closet, you don’t have AIDS – m4w – 30 (Lakewood)
First off I want to relieve your fears that you probably don’t or at least I hope you don’t have AIDS.
When I came home 3 days ago I heard what was obviously mediocre sex going on in my bedroom. Since I quickly made the deduction that someone had probably not broken into my apartment for some quick copulation I figured I had just caught my wife cheating on me which I had long suspected. Your ofish grunts were so loud that I actually had to reopen the door and slam it again for you two to hear me. I stood in the entry for a while as I heard you both scramble before calling out that I was home.
When I walked into the bedroom my wife had some excuse about having a headache and when asked about the nighty she was wearing she said it was the most comfortable thing she could find. Oh…and btw, I don’t know how many affairs that you participate in but a word of advice is that when you hide in the closest from an angry husbands you shouldn’t leave a few toes hanging out from under the door. At this point I am in a bit of a predicament…. I could have the typical masculine response and open the door and beat the piss out of you but then you might file charges and quite frankly I just don’t really care enough. Not to mention I don’t know how big you are and I couldn’t think of anything much worse than finding your wife cheating on you and then get pummeled by her new lover. It entered my mind to have some marathon sex and make you stand and watch the whole thing but seeing how she is a dirty whore the idea grossed me out a little. I came pretty close to just hanging out and masterbating but I am glad I went the direction I did.
So in liue of those options I thought of the funniest thing I could do for my own personal amusement. I sat her down on the bed and looked deeply in her eyes and told her that I had been diagnosed with early stages of AIDS. Recently I have had a series of colds and went to the doctor who told me it was probably just a string of bad luck and it was going around a little bit. The whole thing took about 2 hours and involved a lot of yelling, accusing and crying.
I felt like I hadn’t punished you quite enough, even though I fully acknowledge that it really isn’t your fault at all, so I told her that the illness was making me tired so I needed to lay down. I could hear her on the phone making an appointment with the doctor and I could hear you rustling around in the closest. You did a great job holding still seeing how you probably aren’t used to standing in a 3′x4′ closest for hours and hours on end but if I hadn’t already known you were there you would have been caught for sure.
After about another hour of laying in bed thinking of what I was going to do I felt sorry for you to be mixed up in this crazy thing so I said I was going to go fill the prescriptions the doctor gave me and left the apartment so you could leave. I hope that you weren’t too uncomfortable in there and actually felt a little guilty about it later.
Anyways, I put this in missed connections because I actually wouldn’t mind taking you out and buying you a drink. After all that is some funny stuff to laugh about and you are saving me thousands in alimony since my wife cheated and the least I can do is repay you for a $4.00 beer.
Again no hard feelings and best of luck!
BTW, you might still want to get your self tested since my wife is a dirty whore.
​
 
I once was selling a modded XBox 360 and this is the sole reason I use Google Voice now. Even if I was giving away a damn envelope for free.

So I try and meet up with this kid from a grimy town nearby. This doesn't bother me or surprise me since frankly I make all my sales there. The only problem is that EVERYONE is a hustler. Again, I don't mind since I am one too and expect it, but at times it gets ridiculous like in this instance. I am selling it for $150 and he tells me he'll give me $200 if I can bring it to him. He tells me to meet him around 6 pm. He no shows. He then tells me to meet him later and asks if I'll sell it for $80 cheaper because he spent the other money on LQ (liquor). I tell him I'm just gonna sell it to someone else. We settle on the original price of $150 and I honestly I don't care because I used bargain basement media and that was the original price to begin with. I give it to him and I'm gone.

I wake up the next morning to no lie, 23 missed calls and 47 texts. "How do you burn the games?", "How much is an HDMI cable?", "Do you know how to beat this part?", "What if my TV doesn't have the red plug?" (Yeah because if that's the case, HDMI is so in your future). I send a text and tell him that as long as it works, he needs to figure stuff out like the rest of us. He then says it's not working and wants his money back. I change my number on Friday. On Monday I change it back. As soon as it's provisioned, he is calling. He seriously called a dead number for three days straight.

The same thing more or less happened with this rich kid EXCEPT he wants me to come inside and set it up for him. Never in my life would I invite someone dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants up to my $1500/mo rent downtown luxury apartment. I go up there and do it for him. He wants to test it out and I let him. Except that involves sitting there for a while watching him play NBA Live. After an entire quarter passes, I'm like "I need to go. I'm glad you got a chance to test it. That's smart."

The guy calls me back literally after I get downstairs and says, "I pulled out the piece on this side since it didn't look right in my entertainment center and now it won't work." I tell him to turn everything off and put the hard drive back on. He calls me back and says that it keeps flashing red and he just wants his money back. Since when the hell does CL have a money back guarantee? You borked this in under a minute and now it's my fault? Since it's an easy thing, I go back upstairs, take everything, give him back his money minus $40, and split. I tell him it's to get my system fixed. I pop the hard drive back on at home and it's good.

Moral of the story: Don't sell anything that requires explanation.
 
I give full disclosures about anything I sell on Craigslist. I have sold two motorcycles and plenty of other things. It always has worked out. If something sounds even slightly shady, I walk away. I don't get involved with anything that looks messy. To test consoles and such, I actually just used my car stereo/tv. Hook it up, try it out, if it works, I'm good to go. I suppose if someone buys a lot of systems, you could probably invest in a cheap monitor. That would save you a big headache.

I have had plenty of shady offers to bring it somewhere (usually an apartment building) for extra cash, do installment payments, had an offer for layaway (almost bit on that telling the guy that I would take the payments, but if he flaked on payments or decided against the purchase I was keeping the money. He agreed, but I ended up needing all of the money up front for another purchase that came up.). Craigslist is only as shady as you make it.

I always meet in the public, never at my house, and set up a separate email for communication. When times are set up, I give the person 10 minutes (no matter how far they're driving). I give them my cell # and tell them if they're running late, early, lost, etc, that they need to call me and let me know, otherwise I'm continuing on with my day.

Craigslist is the bomb though.
 
[quote name='XRAY 441']Not my horror story but some little kids.

A while back I saw an XBOX 360 wireless adapter on Craigslist for $20, it was the old white one back when it was still around $100 in the store. Got to the meeting place and this older white lady rolls up in an Escalde with 22's, full tint.......all tricked out. Anyway, pulls up next to my car rolls down the window and holds up the adapter and says "Is this the thing you wanted?" (Kinda snotty). Trying to hold back my excitement I said yes and asked if she was sure $20 was OK. She said "Yeah that's fine, whatever. Do you want this thing too?" It was a chat pad. I said maybe and asked how much. She looked to the passenger seat and I noticed a pre-teen boy sitting there red faced with tears rolling down his cheeks and she replied, "Is 5 bucks alright?" Once again, holding back my excitement and coming to the realization that I was helping to teach this kid an important life lesson while getting one hell of a deal I said, "Yeah.......I guess I'll take it." We made the exchange, I gave the kid a wink, he started bawling a bit harder and I went home.

I kinda felt bad......like for a second, but being a parent it all made sense.[/QUOTE]

Parent was definitely trying to teach kid a lesson, this reminds me of the time I bought a bunch of games from a kid at a yard sale who was forced by the parents to sell whatever he could in order to pay his fees for summer school. The parents were more than glad to see the games gone. Though it was just a turquoise N64 with a N64 wresting game and a few PSX games. Guessing the kid had more games in the house which were more problematic then the ones I bought.

By the looks of your story though it looks like the kid got to keep the Xbox but he got his online access taken away. Surprised the mom knew to pull the wireless adapter and chat pad and leave everything else. If the kid was smart he could just run a big ethernet cable to the router however the parents would probably notice it. Or feign that the Xbox was broken and get the new one with wireless built in.
 
hmm i gotta start using google voice and start meeting people halfway...too bad i dont have a smartphone/android/iphone when i actually need it on the go.
 
I was selling a Guitar Hero bundle when it was still pretty new out, it was still brand new and sealed. It was still retailing for $90 and I put out a price of $60 for it. A few days later I get a call from some guy saying that he just bought this bundle from Walmart but the game will not work for his Xbox 360 (can't read the disc). He wants to buy my bundle but only if:

-He can come to my house
-He can open up the sealed box
-He can put the game in my Xbox 360 and play the guitar to test

The kicker? Dude lowballs me and offers me $40 for everything...after he opens it and thinks he wants it. What a douche.


Needless to say, I told him no thanks, I don't want him knowing where I live, don't want him anywhere near my Xbox 360, and I don't want him opening up a sealed box for his 'testing'. Nor do I want his lowball $40. Told him to go back to Walmart and get a refund. ALWAYS.
 
[quote name='rexflexall']I was selling a Guitar Hero bundle when it was still pretty new out, it was still brand new and sealed. It was still retailing for $90 and I put out a price of $60 for it. A few days later I get a call from some guy saying that he just bought this bundle from Walmart but the game will not work for his Xbox 360 (can't read the disc). He wants to buy my bundle but only if:

-He can come to my house
-He can open up the sealed box
-He can put the game in my Xbox 360 and play the guitar to test

The kicker? Dude lowballs me and offers me $40 for everything...after he opens it and thinks he wants it. What a douche.


Needless to say, I told him no thanks, I don't want him knowing where I live, don't want him anywhere near my Xbox 360, and I don't want him opening up a sealed box for his 'testing'. Nor do I want his lowball $40. Told him to go back to Walmart and get a refund. ALWAYS.[/QUOTE]
:rofl: That sounds like the one fuckwad who replied to my ad for $225 in Gamestop credit for $175-ish with an offer of $40.

I told him I'd rather melt the card till it was ashes n snort the ashes than sell to him.:lol: He told me 'good luck selling it' in a not so nice way when he replied.

Funny thing is about 2 weeks later I sold it for exactly $175 to the one guy from the next big city from me.:booty:
 
sometimes, i wonder if people call for the lulz. they ask me the same thing over and over when its on my ad. like "where are you at?" "how much?" etc.


also OT here but do you guys think a nintendo wii (white) with 2 wii controllers (non-motion plus), 2 nunchucks, box (manual, stand, etc), and 2 BRAND new games of new super mario bros and wii sports for $160 is a good price to sell @?
 
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