Five Money Scams to Watch Out for on Craigslist Detroit

The Craigslist Detroit advertisements are a place where honest people can post their rentals, goods for sale and services to people in the area. While many of these listings are legitimate, there are also hundreds of scams out there that can make it difficult to know which ads you can trust and which are out to trick you into parting with your hard earned cash. Here are five money scams that have appeared on Craigslist Detroit that you need to watch out for.

1. 2015 Car for Sale Scam

A resident of Livonia, Michigan was deprived of $4,000 in a vile scam that involved a transaction made on Craigslist. In May of 2015, a man found an ad for a vehicle that he wanted to purchase on Craigslist. When he contacted the seller, he was told that the vehicle was physically stored in Montana. The seller agreed to ship the vehicle if the buyer would pay $2,500 for the vehicle and an extra $1,500 to insure ship it to Michigan. He was further instructed to purchase the amount dude in Amazon gift cards. After the buyer did so, he notified the seller of the purchase and emailed the CVS numbers as proof. Several days later, he realized that he had been scammed when he attempted to get his money back from Amazon. There was no record of the transaction in the Amazon system. The seller had directed him to a fake site in order to get the CVS numbers and steal $4,000 from him.

2. 67 Year old scammed out of $1,100 from a fake buyer

This victim had posted a gas tank for sale in the amount of $275. A buyer approached him and made arrangements to purchase the gas tank. When the scammer sent the seller a certified check in the amount of $1,500, it resulted in an overpayment. When the seller contacted him to let him know that he had sent too much, he was instructed to send the amount of the overpayment to a location in North Dakota. He sent the $1,100 as instructed in the form of a money order. When he attempted to call the two telephone numbers he had for the buyer, he discovered that both were disconnected. The certified check was a fake and the victim was out $1,100.

3. Detroit area PayPal Con Scam

In January of 2016, there was a new scam reported involving fake emails that are phony PayPal confirmation messages. When sellers advertise an item that is expensive on Craigslist, eBay or some other auction site, A scammer that is posing as an interested buyer makes contact, claiming that they don’t have the cash to make the purchase, but would like to purchase the item immediately. They make arrangements to meet to make the exchange. When you get at the agreed upon location, the con artist claims to have made the payment already through PayPal and when you check your email account, the fake notification is there as proof. By the time you realize that the email is a fake, the scammer is long gone and you’ve become their latest victim.

4. Craigslist Detroit Renting Scam

In September of 2015, a scam was reported involving the advertisement of a home in Roya Oak being offered for a ridiculously low rental price of just $900 per month. The person listing the rental is not the actual owner of the property. It was actually taken by a scammer from an actual property that was listed for sale on the site by a legitimate client. The posting was only on the site for two days before he received an offer and removed the ad, but by this time, the scammer had all the information needed to set up a fake rental that was based on a property that actually exists. The owner only found out about the scam when a potential renter showed up and presented a copy of the Craigslist Ad. Police and local real estate professionals are seeing this scam more and more and it’s cost hundreds of innocent victims money that they cannot get back.

5. Thief steals $4,000 from mother in Craigslist Detroit Scam

In 2016, Batina Jackson was looking for a car to purchase. The single mother was in need of reliable transportation when she came across an ad for a Honda Accord. The female seller informed the buyer that she was in the military and would have the vehicle shipped from North Carolina to Michigan. Jackson started getting emails that appeared to be sent from eBay Motors. It looked legitimate and so she followed the seller’s instructions to purchase a total of 8 iTunes cards that were loaded with $500 apiece. She was to send pictures of the backs of the cards to the seller. She lost the $4,000 she had sent to the scammer and there is little hope that the money can be recovered.