Some folks have a very sick sense of humor.

When my girlfriend and I went out bar hopping, in our 30's, we gave the guys our phone number - to the police station. We thought it was funny - it was dangerous and dumb, but we were naive.

Never heard of that one before. You might do a reverse phone lookup and see if maybe there's a resemblance between his actual address and the address he gave you.

It's probably common for a CL lister to give the item to the first person who shows up. So many people call and say they're coming, but never arrive. It's possible someone called right after you (free items are so very popular!), and lived closer to his address. But it still sounds strange.

I think that some people who do that are mentally ill. :p My really bad experience turned into a hassle for my sister and BIL and I still feel awful about it! A woman had listed one of those kid's jumping horses for free. I envisioned repainting one to look like a carousel horse. lol! She gave me her address and basic directions -- less than 5 miles away -- and I asked my sis/BIL to pick it up with their truck. All totally bogus and when my sister couldn't find the address, the woman gave her other bogus directions that drove her around the area... twice more. After three attempts my sister decided the woman was very sick. I'll never again ask my sister to pick up anything from a craigslist post.

nicole, thinking about it, I have both given and received some great FREE things off of craigslist! We should start a thread about cool free things we got -- and probably what we did with them. I have some good contenders for "way cool". lol!

BTW, one possibility for the con: depending on what info you give him on yourself (phone # and ???), he might be able to locate you via internet search and try to ransack your house while you're trying to locate him. Don't want to suggest anything worse! :(

Oh, gee, PartyMusic may be onto something. I've had good experiences on CL, but it's getting quite a reputation for deals going wrong.

I know, Susan.... the world would be in trouble if I decided to go to the dark side. lol!

If he could locate your address through the phone on which you called him, he could guess that the house would be vacant while you went to the fake address.

I've never dealt with CL.....but is there an "administrator" to report such things to?

But she did go to the location, and he didn't go rob her house, so it's likely not that. I'm going with just a weird individual that gets a kick out of what happened.

Kinda a weird thing to advertise, shower door???, in order to just string someone along, or play games? I could see that ad being on there aong time with little/no response. But then maybe I am all wet & there is is booming demand for this sort of thing?

Regardless, it seems very weird... Fake address & removing the ad...

Any chance it was legit, maybe a teacher who didn't want the item collected direct from his home for whatever reason?

I agree with Lucille. We always arrange for pick up of items in a shopping center parking lot.

Chances are another caller got to the location for pick up before the OP.

ML

That was what I was thinking....I have sold some things on CL and I always give my friend's shop as the address and take the item there. I live out in the country....too far for most people to drive...and I am home alone 95% of the time, and I don't want people to just show up out here, if I don't already know them.

The whole thing just seems totally bizarre to me....

And.....I have gotton some EXCELLENT items off the free list! :0)