Craigslist MH for sale - is this common?

Actually on C/L all you really must do is call/e-mail to see the unit, if for any reason they say no. walk.

What all these people have said, but there are deals out there on CL also, it is where I found the ad for my current motorhome

bdpreece wrote:
Send them an e-mail saying that you are out of the country but you are sending them a check for more than the purchase price. They need to refund you the extra and you will have someone come by to pick up the motor home immediately on receiving their monies.

X2

:B:B

One trick I noticed on CL when looking was an ad that had the right price, but it looked like they forgot a zero. You think "Oh, that's a typo" and respond. Then you get the story. Divorce, wife gets half of everything. I don't care how much she gets. Friend will deliver to you to look at (even though they have no idea where you are), just PayPal $300 for gas.

jplante4 wrote:
One trick I noticed on CL when looking was an ad that had the right price, but it looked like they forgot a zero. You think "Oh, that's a typo" and respond. Then you get the story. Divorce, wife gets half of everything. I don't care how much she gets. Friend will deliver to you to look at (even though they have no idea where you are), just PayPal $300 for gas.

This is a new one....

I bought mine from CL and saw quite a few in my price range. Just stay local (local is relative I know) and respond to realistic ads and you will be fine. I sell everything that I want out of my garage and even some larger toys on CL and have had good luck

grey2112 wrote:
Been searching and noticing a LOT of ads on CL that show the same pics but the MHs are different, described slightly differently each time, and always for a LOT less than any others out there.

Scam? Sure seems like it, and I see it a lot.

It is a fairly common SCAM.. One word of caution on Craig's list

View it with FULL SCAM detectors operational.. If they ask you for money to "Hold" the product ... SUSPECT

IN fact.. Any thing other than cash IN PERSON where you get to look at and inspect the goods before you lay your money down.. SUSPECT.

My problem with C/L is there is no protection from buying stolen goods. and selling dogs with a Re-homing fee.
The rules for the safe use of C/L are posted up front on the list.

I'm always watching the ads
I do it to keep up, and to advise people who ask questions

I see enough scams to know the obvious signs
Only one picture, exterior, impossibly low price aka $4008 for 2004 with slide
Picture with email address in the picture
Short description, that really says nothing but sounds pretty, like describing art, never mentioned drive train, generator, inverter etc..
Saw one that said it had a heated steering wheel... Really ?
And i often see the same picture in another adv, slightly different price. Same word type description
The scammer will put it up 3 or 4 times, hoping one gets by the watchers and doesn't get flagged, i see los Angeles listings with Texas, Mississippi, etc.. phone numbers,
I know people move, but when the phone number isn't local and there is no mention of travel or relocation, it's suspect

It not just CL, but some more mainstream automotive/RV sites can also be suspect.

A couple of years ago I listed a MH for sale on autotrader. I paid for a premium ad that would show first on search results on the site.

In a few days I got some emails asking why I had it listed twice and why one price was nearly $15K lower.

I checked and found someone had take three or four of my pictures, part of my description and had listed it on the free ads section on autotrader (same site).

I contacted autotrader and it did take some time for them (3 or 4 days) to remove the other ad. I complained that it sort of ruined my chance to sell and they did extend my ad for free for another 30 days and I eventually sold the MH.

Later I even found my MH listed on some other sites after I sold it.
So even sellers have to be aware of scams that can affect their ability to sell.

Usually you can find things like this if you use a very specific search term including the make model and year. The results will usually find if the same MH is listed differently or on other web sites.Same pics, vastly different prices are a warning.



Chris

Scamming is not isolated to CL by any means and pretty easy to investigate, with any of them.
With most all of the ones you see or get with tele calls, a red flag is immediately apparent and some so ridiculous, that it's almost impossible to believe that anyone would fall for them, but evidently they do, or they wouldn't be in business. In fact, I'm beginning to change my opinion of who's most at fault here and betting that if we started arresting the victims, that we'd put them out of business a lot quicker. Yes, a pretty radical approach I know and worthy of a lol.............but, isn't that close to what they started doing with the oldest profession problem and arresting the John's for the most part? Since the supply never seems to run out, maybe we need to start removing the demand.
Thanks for the rant....