Just a heads up that after having posted a classified for my Sisson Racing kayak, within minutes I was contacted by a Curtis Joyner who quickly offered to buy the kayak at full price sight unseen with an echeck and he would arrange shipping. Reason he is located in another state.
For anyone with a passing familiarity with scams this one is classic. As soon as I said I would only sell for cash he ceased communication.
Just a warning to be careful out there.
I’ve not been bothered by scammers. Maybe because I make it clear in the listing that it’s a cash transaction with full payment due on delivery.
Me too. Price non-negotiable, cash only, face-to-face transaction at a local safe transaction zone.
Good advice! I will modify my listing accordingly.
~A
Good advice! Thanks!
~A
Funny… I just listed my Northstar canoe today and minutes later Curtis Joyner is reaching out asking for my personal email address so he can buy it. I said we can communicate via the Paddling forums just fine and he said his job does not always permit him to be ‘on here’.
Be vigilant everyone! Appreciate this post as well, as it validates my initial suspicions.
Hahaha…just posted my kayak for sale and sure enough CurtisJoyner99 is the first to message me and is trying to pull the same scam.
That Curtis, what a guy!
I’d like to pull his wisdom teeth out through hos nose.
Well, here we go again… I just posted my kayak for sale and sure enough CurtisJoyner99 sent me a message and is trying to pull the same scam. I will add the comments that you all suggested. Much appreciated. Can this site ban people like this?
Scammer has been silenced. But that doesn’t mean he/she won’t rejoin under a different name.
So now I’m worried about listing some paddling books I want to sell. I’ve never sold anything on line before as I’m a bit of a techno-nudge.
I read the FAQ… I know, how many actually DO that?…and had planned on using PayPal for payment. The FAQ says not to give out your account info, but they need the email address to make payment. Apparently scammers will sell your email? Use it to phish?
The advice to deal only in-person and in cash seems limiting for something as small as a book. I’d spend more than the $9 shipping in gas just meeting someone to make the sale.
Is Paddling Classifieds really that risky?
I haven’t used the Paddling.com classifieds but eBay is fairly secure for an online transaction as they are an intermediary such that none of your personal information is directly exposed to the buyer. In fact, since they take a small percentage of each transaction, they discourage people from attempting to contact the buyer directly. They also offer some degree of financial protection to both buyers and sellers.
This would work for items like books that can be shipped at a reasonable cost, but I have no experience with selling larger items where you might not want to deal with shipping costs if it could be sold locally in person. Sites like Craigslist seem to be the venue for that.
Then again, if you have used an email address for any length of time, I wonder what the chances are that your mail address has not been compromised at some point. For people to use PayPal to receive money from you, you have to authorize it. I have received a few attempts of people attempting to request money from me over the years. I just ignore the requests and report them to PayPal. The fact that I have received so few requests over the years is probably a sign that scammers don’t consider this to be a very successful scam. PayPal also offers some protections to buyers and sellers. Details can be found on their website.
I’m not an expert for online sales. I’m sure that others might have better information.
Thanks! I’ve purchased on eBay before without any problems and have often used PayPal to pay others, again without problems. That’s partly why I was curious about the FAQ that advised against giving out your PayPal account information.
My hope was to tap into a more targeted audience and sell the books at reasonable prices rather than have to jack up the price to cover site fees. Oh well, life is full of risks, right? That’s why the wise wear a PFD!