listed my dslr on craigslist got an email. how to tell if legit?

[jamesbjenkins]

Perhaps I am far too trusting in the inherent goodness of people. I would be happy to ship it, providing I had the money in hand first.

But the money isn't really in hand. It can look like it's sitting in your account, and then the transaction gets voided, sometimes weeks later, and the money goes bye-bye. All types of checks are obviously capable of being forged.

The only thing that would even potentially be acceptable is cold hard cash. And even then I'm marking every single bill with a counterfeit detector pen.

Unfortunately, in today's world, if you trust ANYONE you meet on the internet, you're a damn fool.

 

[480sparky]

In every single CL post, I explicitly state:

"Dear scammer a$$holes, please note that I will never, ever, under any circumstances, ship this item. I don't care if you're U.S. military stationed overseas. I don't care if you're buying it for your brother who lives in London. And if you're a Nigerian prince, I won't even reply to your email."

Given that most scammers use 'bots to reply to CL ads en masse, that will never be seen by the scammers.

 

[dennybeall]

Sure, there are scammers that work Craigslist and eBay and other places like that. There are also a lot of people buying legitimate stuff from real sellers. Personally I've bought stuff in both places and never had a problem. The key is not to take any chances, never, ever!

 

[Tailgunner]

Unusually replays that want you to ship it are a scam.

This^

It's been my experience that 100% of the people asking if I ship, are in fact scammers.