That all sounds strange and I think I would not go forward with it. However, you asked for those with experience selling and I don't have that. Just a bad feeling.

Good luck with selling your equipment!

Yes I had a similar experience, and after an email that I didn't feel good about, just emailed the person and said "sorry...that I'd rather sell locally."

I'd cancel. I'm a big believer in listening to my gut.

Have you tried Nextdoor.com? I think it's a great way to sell locally.

It is a scam. Fake check. Block their phone numbers. Google Craigslist Scam and you'll see. You should edit your ad to read that sales will take place at the local police station parking lot. Never have someone come to your home.

What you describe sounds like the classic Craigslist scam. I'm sure there are others, but the one involving a cashier's check has been well publicized. I hope you didn't agree to sell her your items. If you did, back out of it. That's my advice, anyway.

Thanks everyone. I am going to tell her that I will only sell locally.

Good!!

Always trust your gut instinct!

You might even add that you've sent copies of their emails to the authorities. ;-)

"... I asked her if she was from Kansas and she said she is from Oregon. The phone number from the text is from Minnesota."

I've never advertised anything on Craigslist, nor have I ever purchased anything that was advertised on Craigslist, so I am not familiar with common (or uncommon) Craigslist scams. However, I wanted to make a comment about the phone number area code "giving away the location of the caller."

Back about 20 to 25 years ago (or thereabouts) the cellular companies required that your billing address be located within the same geographical area as the area code of your mobile number. And, folks were billed varying amounts for long distance mobile calls. If you moved out of the area, you had to change your mobile number.

After a while, more and more mobile companies included "free long distance" within specific areas that you signed up for (e.g., if you lived in Los Angeles County, you could pay a minor amount to have free long distance anywhere within the 7 southern counties, but you still paid by the minute for calls to northern California or out of state). Eventually, free nationwide long distance became the norm.

Also, number portability laws were passed. This was originally to benefit folks with land lines who wanted to change service providers. This was after a big shift in the status quo when more than one land line service provider was allowed to serve an area. Anyone remember MCI WorldCom? It's now a subsidiary of Verizon, but back in the mid-to-late 1990s, they were "on their own," so to speak, and it was a huge deal when they came into the Sacramento area and were allowed to provide landline service in what was then Pacific Bell territory. Existing telcos were forced to lease their numbers to any new telco that wanted to provide service in that area. So, for example, if you had a Pacific Bell number of 324-1234 and you wanted to keep that number but have MCI provide your service, Pacific Bell had to port the number to MCI. (As an aside, this was a big deal because the State of California was Pacific Bell's largest customer, and MCI wanted agencies to switch to them. Because of the way the State has to go to bid for services, what ended up happening was that Pacific Bell remained the local provider and MCI became the long distance provider. [And phone numbers with prefixes 322, 323, 324, 327, and 445 are all state agency numbers in Sacramento.])

This then became a benefit to folks who wanted to change mobile carriers, because each mobile carrier was assigned a specific range of prefixes within each area code (if your mobile service was provided by AT&T and you wanted to change to Verizon, you had to change your mobile number).

Another result of the combination of free long distance and number portability was that mobile carriers no longer require their customers to have a billing number in the same geographical area as the area code of their mobile number. (Land lines still have an area code that is geographically correct for the physical location.) So, you cannot be certain where a call originates or where the caller resides by looking at the area code of the mobile number. One of my nieces has a mobile number with a 949 area code (south Orange County, CA) and her husband's mobile number has a 714 area code (anywhere in Orange County, CA, before the new area code took effect). They lived in Newport Beach, but moved to Sacramento a couple of years ago and kept their mobile numbers. Another niece lives in Oregon, but her mobile number has a 415 (San Francisco) area code.

All of this rambling is just to say that, yes, folks need to be aware of and leery of scams and need to "listen to their gut" when dealing with strangers. But don't be mislead by thinking that someone isn't local just because their mobile phone area code isn't local.

Have you given them your physical address yet?

I would tell people "cash only".

https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/consumer-advisories/2007/consumer-advisory-2007-1.html

I agree. Cash only.

I would listen to your gut. That's why it's there.

'I will send you check then when it clears we'll pick it up'.

How does this scam work?

It works because the banks will clear the checks but then once they realize it's not good, they will deduct THEIR money out of YOUR checking account. So you are out money and whatever it was that you sold. Often times they will have the cashiers checks made out for more than the amount and ask if you could just give them back the difference. People put trust in a cashiers check.

Yes, like the others have said, this is a typical craigslist scam. I have had the exact same messages from people when I had a fairly high priced items for sale. Now, when I put something on craigslist I put a note in there that I will only take cash and I will only deal locally and not to even bother sending me the scam messages. That did help a lot.

No experience with Craig's List, but have a healthy sense of suspicion with scams popping up every other day, it seems. Didn't read every word of every post, but I'm seeing an entire marching band coming down you street waving RED FLAGS!! Sounds like somebody may have stolen someones checks and wants to see how much they can write on for and get away with it.. maybe? I wouldn't want to have a stranger come to my house to pick up an item, though gym equipment would entail need for a truck?

I thought banks only cleared checks when the funds were released. This is such an old scam it's amazing people are still working it successfully.

Fake cashiers' checks that look very good and bank honors them.

Fake checks and how it works

I like Craigslist and in fact just sold a lawnmower on it last week. But it really brings bad guys out of the woodwork, and scams abound. Jewels, ignore all emails that avoid mentioning the name of your item. For example:

"Where is your item located?"

"Do you still have this? Give me your phone number so I can arrange to pick it up."

"I really want your item. I can pay even more for it."

Although our inclination might be to respond politely, squelch it and simply delete. Many of them want your email address. I set up a separate Gmail account for Craigslist transactions.

GW'ers to the rescue again!

Stay safe out there ;-)

I had one guy send me a check. I looked at is and it appeared to be OK. However, when I did a search for the address on line, I discovered that was a motel. I contacted them - nope, not them. I sent a response to the person who sent the money and related that it had been sold by the time the check arrived and that I would tear up the check. However, I sent the check to the motel owner so that they could see what someone was doing to them. I never got that book sold, I was asking a chunk of money for this extremely old, first edition text book.

The scam relies on the perception that banks carefully screen checks and can somehow determine a completely fake check. I'm sure they make some nominal effort, but since they've crafted the rules such that they're not of the hook for the loss, they'll accept it, hold it, release the funds, and when it turns out to be a bad check , it too bad, so sad for you.

They'd probably accept a check drawn on a bank with an obvious made up name, like the 5/3 Bank. I mean c'mon 5/3 is not even a proper number. :-)

I recently sold a removable seat from my old van to a guy in Texas. He sent me a check (Bank of America) and said I could cash it at any Bank of America, which I did, with no problems. I only had to put it in a box and he had FedEx pick it up. You just never know.

Now you remind me that last year I sold a dinning room table & 6 chairs....took a $500. 00 check. from Salt Lake City bank...threw in a set of 110 piece Noritake China (used perhaps 6 times in 50 years), to an older couple with pregnant DD accompanied by a 3 year old child. BTW it was the weekend before Thanksgiving and the set was very large with two extension leaves, in perfect shape...no stains or chips solid light Oak. Yes, I did hesitate for a few seconds, but I had a good feeling and kind of believed they were Mom and Dad, here visiting DD and most likely Mormons at that. No problem.....so you just never really know....and, I trust my instincts. I do realize it could have been a great "con".....but....so far in my long life, being "conned" has not happened to me. And...other times, I have just not responded to those responses that Allisande mentioned, and the first time I used Craig's list, I got really scared by the people that responded so I immediately pulled my ad for a mobility scooter and found another way to sell it. It can be a scary place out there!

Only sell to someone who is paying cash, face-to-face

Jewels, I don't do Craigs List, there's never anything interesting in my immediate vicinity!

But did you know from their own FAQs and how to avoid being scammed:

"Don't accept cashier/certified checks or money orders - banks cash fakes, then hold you responsible. "

Well I will have to read the FAQs. I guess you learn something every day.

I would listen to your gut. The Tim Bosma case comes to mind as I am sure it has to other posters living in Ontario, Canada. I have never shopped or sold anything on CraigsList and am unlikely to. However, I do understand that not everyone selling/buying items is a serial killer, but it still pays to listen to your gut - better safe than sorry.

Good that you stopped the transaction, Jewels.

Listening to one's gut can be a very good thing.

I've bought and sold a lot of things via CL. They now have an anonymous email option. Buyer and seller can continue to communicate through this so that your email and their remain private.

I've met only very decent people and one has become a good friend. I always say cash only. Often I state that the must put a certain word in the subject field. I state that I will promptly remove ad when item is no longer available. I delete responses that don't follow my protocol or just ask if something is still available with no key word in subject header.

When I got to PU an item, I am sure to let others know the details and keep them informed. Since I live a bit out yonder, I sometime deal with people traveling a distance. Sometimes I take a jaunt -sometimes with a friend, sometimes solo.

I think some athletic or fitness equipment can be tough to sell. I see a lot of offers for Free Treadmills and such. I know someone who had a metal scrapper come to get one bulky piece of equipment.

When I read these I always can't believe that people are still falling for this.... however, just this weekend it took me multiple emails on a CL item before I realized it was a scammer -

My DH and I were looking at something this weekend and thought it was local, went back and forth with a few emails and the poster would never give the details of when we could look at the item. She did have a good sob story of how her husband had passed and she needed quick cash. She finally said that the shipping was included in the sales price and we could pay thru Amazon, that was a red flag for me since I just lost a few bucks from a real amazon seller that went out of business so I looked it up and sure enough even paying thru amazon can be a scam now https://canadianfinanceblog.com/amazon-payments-car-scam/

The poster later that day sent me another email that had a link in it that she said was a link to better pictures of the item, there was absolutely NO WAY i was going to click on that link. The link can be used to get your login/password info from your computer.. another scam... https://www.yahoo.com/tech/scammers-are-using-google-drive-to-steal-your-125186285634.html.

I did not open the link, I did respond just for fun that it just so happens that we have no problem picking up from 5 states away since we have family in that area and surprise,, no response since....

I did noticed someone posted that she was a scammer on cl.

My response would have been to send the person to pick it up and have them bring the cash. Then meet at a neutral location (police station is good) and it's a good idea to have a friend come with you too.

Living in Oregon, with a Minnesota number and buying something on Craigslist in Kansas? Yeah, that's pretty strange! There can be reasons for someone having a different number (recently moved, work phone or whatever) but it warrants suspicion.

The check scam is an old one and still works so they still try them. Gullible people think a cashiers check is good, but they're likely to be the same ones who think travelers checks are the "same" as cash! LOL