Five Money Scams to Watch out for on Craigslist Ocala

Ocala

No one likes the idea of being the victim of a Craigslist scam. After all, when you work hard for your money you don’t exactly want to find out that someone is scamming you out of it. If you live in or around Ocala, Florida, you might want to read through the five scams that are listed below. They’ve been showing up a lot lately in the area. Paying attention to them could save you a lot of money.

1. Internet Scams via Craigslist

There’s certainly no shortage of internet scams, whether you’re looking on Craigslist or somewhere else. The problem is that while this is a great place to go for enterprising entrepreneurs or people that really want to sell something for a little extra cash, it’s also the go-to place for people that are trying to scam everyone else out of their money. Since it’s harder to police the internet, people are more comfortable scamming others by using it. In this particular instance, it involved a home that had been up for sale for years and years. There hadn’t really been that much interest in it and then all of a sudden, multiple people started showing up expecting to move in. You guessed it, some Craigslist scammer had found it for sale and listed it as their rental property, insisting on getting all the money up front.

2. Scams Targeting Senior Citizens

One of the more disgusting types of scams involving Craigslist is those targeting senior citizens. These individuals are usually on a fixed income and they might already be struggling financially, so the last thing they need is to be the victim of some scam. The scammers are counting on them being less mentally sharp than they used to be, thinking that they can offer goods and services targeted at this particular group and then get away with the money before anyone realizes what happened. Fortunately, the local police department is aware of the issue and they’re working diligently to make sure that it doesn’t happen to anyone in the future.

3. The Real Estate Scam Strikes Again

For whatever reason, people keep using Craigslist to find property and that’s a risky proposition, to say the least. This is the second real estate scam listed in this article alone. That should serve as a red flag to anyone that’s thinking about looking for a place to buy or rent on Craigslist, as well as those that are considering posting their properties on the site. The overwhelming majority of property that shows up on the site is not legitimate, designed specifically to con people out of their money and then allow the person who posted the ad to make a quick getaway without anyone ever being able to find them. That means that if you do business like this on Craigslist, you’re at serious risk of losing your money permanently.

4. It’s a Problem with Cars, Too

If you think the only type of scams going on with Craigslist in the Ocala, Florida area involves real estate, you are sorely mistaken. There is a rampant problem linked to automobiles and virtually everything else as well. As far as this example is concerned, it deals with selling cars that the so-called seller doesn’t actually have the title to to begin with. What does that mean for you as the buyer? Basically, it means that you just spent all of your cash that you’d saved up for buying a car and you won’t be getting it back. It also means that at the very least, someone else is probably going to come repossess the car. In a worst case scenario, you might find yourself in trouble for driving around in a stolen car.

5. Don’t Take a Check

When you sell an item on Craigslist, don’t accept a check for payment. That really should be rule number one. People in and around Ocala, Florida have been creating fake checks to pay for items they purchase. Obviously, they don’t leave any legitimate personal information and by the time you find out that the check is no good, it’s too late to do anything about it.

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