Scammers are as old as time. Sadly, they’re increasingly commonplace on Craigslist, a site that has great intentions for classified ads yet enables parasitic criminal fraud. This Bro’s horror story about replying to a Craigslist tutor job scam is an eye-opener, especially if you’re a broke college student trying to scrap together easy jobs.
I actually almost got ripped off myself on Craigslist last week, though for something completely different: I hit a person up in NYC for Phish tickets to a show in Hartford, Connecticut. Ticket scams on Craigslist in New York City are rampant, though I’ve have some very positive experiences using it to gobble up last minute Phish tickets in the past. The seats were surprisingly good and relatively affordable — Just a little to the left of the pit inside the Xfinity Center’s pavilion and only $100, which is marginally over face for that location. Here’s the pic he sent me:
I was automatically suspicious about the whole thing from the guy’s texts messages, but I did the logical next step anyway: Arrange to meet the guy in midtown Manhattan and check out if it’s legit or not. I showed up, asked to see the tickets, and the instant he showed them to me I could tell they were fake — The ticket stock it was printed on was terrible quality. In the middle of inspecting the tickets, I said “these are fake.” Upon saying that, he immediately snatched them out of my hands and started running down the street. A few minutes later, he hit up my buddy who responded to the same ad saying that the tickets were still available.
Lol. Yeah, buddy. ‘Cause you’re a fraud.
So, yeah — Be careful on Craigslist. Hemingway once said to “develop a built-in bullshit detector.” Craigslist is a damn good place to make sure it’s finely-tuned.
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