Scam? I think so.

[Hoho223]

If it sounds to good to be true, it is. There are multiple clues…
Dead relative. Lawyer will transact purchase. Almost free give away price. Any sob story. 3rd party will deliver the goods.
I sold a couple dozen guns my bil inherited. I got several scam offers that included a fake FFL document. Also “my lawyer will send you the money“ and “a friend of mine will pick up the gun”. I strung one along to the point where the fake FFL license came out. Did a little googling and found the fake license.
Be aware and alert and treat everything as a scam until you can verify fully.

 

[Edstir]

In another thread I was complaining about a listing on Craig's list that sounded too good to be true and that the person who listed it replied back to me once and then not again.

Well, today I got a reply with a name and the pictures I requested. The tractor looks fantastic. The location of the tractor, according to Craig's list is about 2 hours from me. I sent the seller, who says she is selling her recently deceased husband's tractor, a list of dates that I could come and pay cash for the tractor. This is the reply I got:

As I mentioned before, I'm a widow and now I'm here in *******, ** staying with my parents. [That is not the location listed on Craig's list].
The tractor is already at the shipping company in Roanoke sealed and ready for shipping. My presence won't be necessary because I prearranged the deal with Continental Freight Shippers. The deal includes free delivery and it will arrive at your address in 3-4 days. You will have 5 days to try out prior to making any purchase and if by any reason you find something you don't like about it you can send it back at my expense. If you are interested in knowing more info about how it works, I can ask Continental Freight Shippers to send you an email with more information on how to purchase it. Continental Freight Shippers will contact you shortly after they have the details with all the confirmation that you need to complete this deal and you will also have proof that I am covered by them and a legitimate seller.
If you would like to receive the email from Continental Freight Shippers with all the transaction information please reply with your full name, shipping address and phone # and they will call you right away.
Hope to hear from you soon.

So, this obviously looks fishy. I cannot find a company with the exact name of Continental Freight Shippers but there are a few with very similar names. My wife, who is an excellent researcher, could not find a person by the name the seller gave me in the area that the Craig's list posting originated from except for someone who is deceased. Craig's list also says only to buy face-to-face. The part about trying it for 5 days and sending it back at the seller's expense sounds ridiculous too.

I sent her my work number and address. I'll play along and try to be an optimist just because I want it to be real (the pictures show a sweet tractor!). I'm normally a realist....pessimist according to my wife.

It makes me sad and angry that we live in this kind of world. It also makes me disappointed in myself that I'm still hoping this might be legit.

Curious if others have seen this sort of thing?

The few times I sold used lawn equipment on Craig's list I got a crazy contact saying they will send someone to pick up the item and odd ways to pay for it. I always say I just sold it. There usually the first one to make contact like they watch for new listing. I know it's a scam and dangerous to deal with these crooks. If I'm buying something I'm cautious when people want to meet in strange places. It's a sorry world we live in today. There's all kinds of warnings on the internet and tv that educate one to these scams.

 

[Edstir]

There are tons just like this on craigslist. Here's how it works..
1) somebody died, and somebody else is in posession.
2) it's an unbelievably good price (typically $1000-$3000)
3) the location that they say that the tractor is at is very different from the location where the post came from. (I had one tell me it was at an airforce base in AZ.. yeah right)
4) they want to put you in contact with the "shipping company"
5) they want you to pay in store gift cards (like lowes, home depot, Target, amazon, etc.) And they want you to send you a picture of the cards as proof before they ship it.
6) the numbers in the pictures are all they need to claim the gift card value, and then they are gone like the wind.

I used to report them at about 10/month. They tend to target Kubota and John Deere because there are plenty of pictures of these.
Another way you can typically tell is that the picture clearly doesn't match the forsale location listed. Like, I saw one that was supposed to be in Kearny, NJ, which is super urban. It had trees in the background and was on about 10 acres of land.. Yeah right.
Another said east coast location but was clearly taken from an arrid climate zone.
(Sometimes you can also download the pictures and look at the geographic tagging information in the picture that was left by the camera that took it, Lat/Lon to corroborate things.

I was in a new General Dollar store a few years ago and in line to pay. The guy in front of me said I could go ahead of him. We talked and it turns out he was buying $1500 dollars of gift cards. He was getting a fancy golf cart from a female soldier who was being sent overseas. She had free shipping as part of the move. I'm thinking now this was a scam. At the time I knew nothing about these dishonest deals. Today I could have warned him. This post brought up the old memory.

 

[Edmiester]

It IS a SCAM. It almost sounds like the one I was interested in. The widow wanted me to send her payment through Ebay gift cards. So many scams today.

 

[wploetz]

In another thread I was complaining about a listing on Craig's list that sounded too good to be true and that the person who listed it replied back to me once and then not again.

Well, today I got a reply with a name and the pictures I requested. The tractor looks fantastic. The location of the tractor, according to Craig's list is about 2 hours from me. I sent the seller, who says she is selling her recently deceased husband's tractor, a list of dates that I could come and pay cash for the tractor. This is the reply I got:

As I mentioned before, I'm a widow and now I'm here in *******, ** staying with my parents. [That is not the location listed on Craig's list].
The tractor is already at the shipping company in Roanoke sealed and ready for shipping. My presence won't be necessary because I prearranged the deal with Continental Freight Shippers. The deal includes free delivery and it will arrive at your address in 3-4 days. You will have 5 days to try out prior to making any purchase and if by any reason you find something you don't like about it you can send it back at my expense. If you are interested in knowing more info about how it works, I can ask Continental Freight Shippers to send you an email with more information on how to purchase it. Continental Freight Shippers will contact you shortly after they have the details with all the confirmation that you need to complete this deal and you will also have proof that I am covered by them and a legitimate seller.
If you would like to receive the email from Continental Freight Shippers with all the transaction information please reply with your full name, shipping address and phone # and they will call you right away.
Hope to hear from you soon.

So, this obviously looks fishy. I cannot find a company with the exact name of Continental Freight Shippers but there are a few with very similar names. My wife, who is an excellent researcher, could not find a person by the name the seller gave me in the area that the Craig's list posting originated from except for someone who is deceased. Craig's list also says only to buy face-to-face. The part about trying it for 5 days and sending it back at the seller's expense sounds ridiculous too.

I sent her my work number and address. I'll play along and try to be an optimist just because I want it to be real (the pictures show a sweet tractor!). I'm normally a realist....pessimist according to my wife.

It makes me sad and angry that we live in this kind of world. It also makes me disappointed in myself that I'm still hoping this might be legit.

Curious if others have seen this sort of thing?

This is the typical ruse used to hijack your info. Don’t be surprised if you pop up as a seller on Facebook or Craigslist of all kinds of desirable items at ridiculously low prices.

 

[Williy]

My question is: Since when do you
register a tractor???? car or truck yes
but a tractor???

willy

 

[California]

My question is: Since when do you
register a tractor???? car or truck yes
but a tractor???

willy

When you are going to drive it job to job, on the road.

Guy who dug a septic tank excavation for me said he had to add turn signals, brake lights, etc to his backhoe then license it and put plates on it when he didn't want to trailer it around a medium-size town. Around 1970, I assume that's still the case.

 

[Scottkozak]

In another thread I was complaining about a listing on Craig's list that sounded too good to be true and that the person who listed it replied back to me once and then not again.

Well, today I got a reply with a name and the pictures I requested. The tractor looks fantastic. The location of the tractor, according to Craig's list is about 2 hours from me. I sent the seller, who says she is selling her recently deceased husband's tractor, a list of dates that I could come and pay cash for the tractor. This is the reply I got:

As I mentioned before, I'm a widow and now I'm here in *******, ** staying with my parents. [That is not the location listed on Craig's list].
The tractor is already at the shipping company in Roanoke sealed and ready for shipping. My presence won't be necessary because I prearranged the deal with Continental Freight Shippers. The deal includes free delivery and it will arrive at your address in 3-4 days. You will have 5 days to try out prior to making any purchase and if by any reason you find something you don't like about it you can send it back at my expense. If you are interested in knowing more info about how it works, I can ask Continental Freight Shippers to send you an email with more information on how to purchase it. Continental Freight Shippers will contact you shortly after they have the details with all the confirmation that you need to complete this deal and you will also have proof that I am covered by them and a legitimate seller.
If you would like to receive the email from Continental Freight Shippers with all the transaction information please reply with your full name, shipping address and phone # and they will call you right away.
Hope to hear from you soon.

So, this obviously looks fishy. I cannot find a company with the exact name of Continental Freight Shippers but there are a few with very similar names. My wife, who is an excellent researcher, could not find a person by the name the seller gave me in the area that the Craig's list posting originated from except for someone who is deceased. Craig's list also says only to buy face-to-face. The part about trying it for 5 days and sending it back at the seller's expense sounds ridiculous too.

I sent her my work number and address. I'll play along and try to be an optimist just because I want it to be real (the pictures show a sweet tractor!). I'm normally a realist....pessimist according to my wife.

It makes me sad and angry that we live in this kind of world. It also makes me disappointed in myself that I'm still hoping this might be legit.

Curious if others have seen this sort of thing?

This is 100% total scam I saw this one almost Word for Word a year and a half ago. I tried to play with them but they wouldn’t reply after the second email

 

[N80]

This is the typical ruse used to hijack your info. Don’t be surprised if you pop up as a seller on Facebook or Craigslist of all kinds of desirable items at ridiculously low prices.

Again, the only info I gave them is readily available without having exchanged emails with me. But if I pop up on CL with a great tractor at low low prices I'll just keep it. Problem solved.

 

[TimberFarm]

Strongly disagree with the last statement.

Craigslist, for all of its flaws, could have cashed in and morphed into something like FB. Craig Newmark purposely avoided pretty much every negative thing about social media, foregoing billions. He kept it simple. It remains what it always has been: Classified ads. Scammable? Of course. So are newspaper classifieds.

FB marketplace carries the negative debris of all things FB: Next time you look at a bogus ad, look at the seller's profile. I just looked at a FB marketplace ad for a utility sized Kubota that looked brand new, and listed at $2000. The seller was an upstate NY restaurant, located more than 1000 miles from me. Bogus, of course. Another series of bogus tractor equipment ads, the seller's FB account was named "Unicornity." Thought that was pretty funny. In these cases, the accounts are fake, hacked, or used for other FB purposes.

That's exactly what I was getting at.
Both sites full of scammers. No difference.

 

[coast40]

You will NEVER meet a scam seller of a $1200 Kubota or Toyota. These are what I see on CL and FB Marketplace most often. Both have ways to report scams. Scam reporting works well on CL and FB.

 

[pattycake]

In another thread I was complaining about a listing on Craig's list that sounded too good to be true and that the person who listed it replied back to me once and then not again.

Well, today I got a reply with a name and the pictures I requested. The tractor looks fantastic. The location of the tractor, according to Craig's list is about 2 hours from me. I sent the seller, who says she is selling her recently deceased husband's tractor, a list of dates that I could come and pay cash for the tractor. This is the reply I got:

As I mentioned before, I'm a widow and now I'm here in *******, ** staying with my parents. [That is not the location listed on Craig's list].
The tractor is already at the shipping company in Roanoke sealed and ready for shipping. My presence won't be necessary because I prearranged the deal with Continental Freight Shippers. The deal includes free delivery and it will arrive at your address in 3-4 days. You will have 5 days to try out prior to making any purchase and if by any reason you find something you don't like about it you can send it back at my expense. If you are interested in knowing more info about how it works, I can ask Continental Freight Shippers to send you an email with more information on how to purchase it. Continental Freight Shippers will contact you shortly after they have the details with all the confirmation that you need to complete this deal and you will also have proof that I am covered by them and a legitimate seller.
If you would like to receive the email from Continental Freight Shippers with all the transaction information please reply with your full name, shipping address and phone # and they will call you right away.
Hope to hear from you soon.

So, this obviously looks fishy. I cannot find a company with the exact name of Continental Freight Shippers but there are a few with very similar names. My wife, who is an excellent researcher, could not find a person by the name the seller gave me in the area that the Craig's list posting originated from except for someone who is deceased. Craig's list also says only to buy face-to-face. The part about trying it for 5 days and sending it back at the seller's expense sounds ridiculous too.

I sent her my work number and address. I'll play along and try to be an optimist just because I want it to be real (the pictures show a sweet tractor!). I'm normally a realist....pessimist according to my wife.

It makes me sad and angry that we live in this kind of world. It also makes me disappointed in myself that I'm still hoping this might be legit.

Curious if others have seen this sort of thing?

I'm a bit late on answering, not sure what others have said but, this absolutely, definitely a scam - I had almost the exact same emails on a tractor I found - Do what I did - grab the name of one of the pics she posted, then do a google search for the name of the picture - you'll find it on the REAL for sale ad - this one is absolutely a scam

 

[N80]

I'm a bit late on answering, not sure what others have said but, this absolutely, definitely a scam - I had almost the exact same emails on a tractor I found - Do what I did - grab the name of one of the pics she posted, then do a google search for the name of the picture - you'll find it on the REAL for sale ad - this one is absolutely a scam

I actually did do a picture search on the original one on Craig’s List and the pictures they sent me. No hits. I was surprised. If nothing else that was a rare M7040. Low hours. Minimal wear. Dealer plumbed third function on the joystick/ loader. I wish I could find where that tractor actually is.

 

[jeff3590]

In another thread I was complaining about a listing on Craig's list that sounded too good to be true and that the person who listed it replied back to me once and then not again.

Well, today I got a reply with a name and the pictures I requested. The tractor looks fantastic. The location of the tractor, according to Craig's list is about 2 hours from me. I sent the seller, who says she is selling her recently deceased husband's tractor, a list of dates that I could come and pay cash for the tractor. This is the reply I got:

As I mentioned before, I'm a widow and now I'm here in *******, ** staying with my parents. [That is not the location listed on Craig's list].
The tractor is already at the shipping company in Roanoke sealed and ready for shipping. My presence won't be necessary because I prearranged the deal with Continental Freight Shippers. The deal includes free delivery and it will arrive at your address in 3-4 days. You will have 5 days to try out prior to making any purchase and if by any reason you find something you don't like about it you can send it back at my expense. If you are interested in knowing more info about how it works, I can ask Continental Freight Shippers to send you an email with more information on how to purchase it. Continental Freight Shippers will contact you shortly after they have the details with all the confirmation that you need to complete this deal and you will also have proof that I am covered by them and a legitimate seller.
If you would like to receive the email from Continental Freight Shippers with all the transaction information please reply with your full name, shipping address and phone # and they will call you right away.
Hope to hear from you soon.

So, this obviously looks fishy. I cannot find a company with the exact name of Continental Freight Shippers but there are a few with very similar names. My wife, who is an excellent researcher, could not find a person by the name the seller gave me in the area that the Craig's list posting originated from except for someone who is deceased. Craig's list also says only to buy face-to-face. The part about trying it for 5 days and sending it back at the seller's expense sounds ridiculous too.

I sent her my work number and address. I'll play along and try to be an optimist just because I want it to be real (the pictures show a sweet tractor!). I'm normally a realist....pessimist according to my wife.

It makes me sad and angry that we live in this kind of world. It also makes me disappointed in myself that I'm still hoping this might be legit.

Curious if others have seen this sort of thing?

Send her a message and tell her, "Good grief!! I'm going to be in Roanoke on business/family/vacation (doesn't matter) and can inspect it then and pay with cash. Just let me know when and where". Or something along those lines and it either moved, or you won't get a reply. But it's definitely a scam.

 

[Surshot]

“It was the observation of one of the tribe of Levi, to whom some person had expressed his astonishment at his being able to sell his damaged and worthless commodities, “That there vash von [= was one] fool born every minute.”
London Review 1806

This quote predates the birth of P.T. Barnum by 4 years.

Just chalk it up to a cheap, so far, experience….. Sometimes the scammers actually want a usable US email address to scam others, in Europe with, by spoofing your address. A form of identity theft.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

Hmm...I purchased a new tractor from a dealer. It was a "sealed limited edition numbered". I'm going to keep it sealed and un-opened to preserve it's value... Seriously, I've heard of sealed coins, limited edition fountain pens, and new watches, but never a tractor or even a car...at any price. Seems the seller doesn't know much about tractors...

This struck me as odd as well. I've seen many tractor being delivered to dealers and I've never seen one that was crated. Even when broken down without wheels they were naked in the breeze.

And what's with the registered stuff. A farm tractor you use around your property will not have a title. You’ll just have a receipt or invoice as proof of ownership. Part of the reason mine is kept in a locked shipping container since I don't reside on the property where it's kept.

Only farm tractors used as road tractors to mow the right-of-way or used-for-hire to move commodities over the highway are required to be registered and titled

 

[pattycake]

I actually did do a picture search on the original one on Craig’s List and the pictures they sent me. No hits. I was surprised. If nothing else that was a rare M7040. Low hours. Minimal wear. Dealer plumbed third function on the joystick/ loader. I wish I could find where that tractor actually is.

Send me the exact wording of the entire email, or send me the link to the ad - I'll find it for you but i can tell you now frpm the numerous ones that I've seen in the past, the REAL tractor will be as stated in the fake listing, the only thing different will be the price - the real one will have a more realistic price.

 

[Daver1963]

Back in 2013 when I was looking for a tractor to buy I saw a decked out Kubota B3200 on Craigslist for $4500 when they were selling for $15-20K. The ad said it was in Memphis and gave an address, but the images of the address (which was in the hood) didn't match the images in the ad when pulled up on Google maps.
I sent some emails inquiring about it and got the same response as the original poster almost to the letter with the exception that the tractor was somewhere in Nebraska. They wanted the payment to come through Google Wallet. I sent a question to Google Wallet and they said their services were NOT for handling car/truck sales and a tractor fell into that category.
That was the end of that for me.

 

[clay4700]

In another thread I was complaining about a listing on Craig's list that sounded too good to be true and that the person who listed it replied back to me once and then not again.

Well, today I got a reply with a name and the pictures I requested. The tractor looks fantastic. The location of the tractor, according to Craig's list is about 2 hours from me. I sent the seller, who says she is selling her recently deceased husband's tractor, a list of dates that I could come and pay cash for the tractor. This is the reply I got:

As I mentioned before, I'm a widow and now I'm here in *******, ** staying with my parents. [That is not the location listed on Craig's list].
The tractor is already at the shipping company in Roanoke sealed and ready for shipping. My presence won't be necessary because I prearranged the deal with Continental Freight Shippers. The deal includes free delivery and it will arrive at your address in 3-4 days. You will have 5 days to try out prior to making any purchase and if by any reason you find something you don't like about it you can send it back at my expense. If you are interested in knowing more info about how it works, I can ask Continental Freight Shippers to send you an email with more information on how to purchase it. Continental Freight Shippers will contact you shortly after they have the details with all the confirmation that you need to complete this deal and you will also have proof that I am covered by them and a legitimate seller.
If you would like to receive the email from Continental Freight Shippers with all the transaction information please reply with your full name, shipping address and phone # and they will call you right away.
Hope to hear from you soon.

So, this obviously looks fishy. I cannot find a company with the exact name of Continental Freight Shippers but there are a few with very similar names. My wife, who is an excellent researcher, could not find a person by the name the seller gave me in the area that the Craig's list posting originated from except for someone who is deceased. Craig's list also says only to buy face-to-face. The part about trying it for 5 days and sending it back at the seller's expense sounds ridiculous too.

I sent her my work number and address. I'll play along and try to be an optimist just because I want it to be real (the pictures show a sweet tractor!). I'm normally a realist....pessimist according to my wife.

It makes me sad and angry that we live in this kind of world. It also makes me disappointed in myself that I'm still hoping this might be legit.

Curious if others have seen this sort of thing?

100% total scam add . I see those all the time word for word about being sealed and ready to go at the shipping dock . If it sounds too good to be true then it is . This scam has been going around for years I don’t understand how people keep thinking it just might be true when they see these adds . Lots of dumb people out there.

 

[Richard]

Funny, I sold thousands of dollars of super high end stereo equipment for a cousin from a different state who had passed away. At great prices too. Craig's List and eBay.

I've not yet completed the threads, I'm still on first page.

None the less, this caught my eye. A number of years ago, I saw a listing for a McIntosh MC-2102 tube amp that caught my eye. Corresponded with the seller (who happened to be a physician) and I bought it.

For clarity, the amp in factory box was now in my hands. On the box (or was it the inner box?) was the model number AND as I recall, a serial number which were also shown in the pictures.

Right after I bought it, there was a scammer who stole those pictures and put it up for sale, much like this tractor. Knowing that someone might get burned on it, I put a bid on it for something like $100,000. I was advised to NOT do that as I was dealing with scammers and the like.

My response back was... I own the amp listed. I have the BOX in my hands, with THEIR pictured serial number on it... Let them cry wolf. If they cry fowl somehow, and black helicopters show up at my place, I'd ask how can I be scamming their listing when I've got the very unit they have pictured?

I figured that I was the only person who could screw around with them like that since I DID have the goods in my hands. By making my bid absurd, anytime someone unwittingly bid on it, their bid was squashed by mine until the value got absurd and they gave up trying to buy it.

My goal of protecting any potential buyer from being scammed worked like a charm.