Craigslist robbery...

[PepperElf]

22 You Could Be Giving You Address To A Bugler.

As I said on the CS thread about that one... it's more of something that happens on craigslist than ebay.



I know... because someone I know actually did it. (I'll explain how I know him later)

He contacted a seller and made arrangements to met at the seller's house to buy the item. But once there, instead of buying the item, he pulled out a gun and forced them to hand it over.

I'm not sure if he took more than the item but that's not the worse part of it... the worst part of it was...

Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.


Yes. He did it FIVE times. And he called the victims up after the fact and "warned" them against pressing charges against him.


His prison term has been reduced to 33 years... but originally it was 5 life sentences plus 50 odd years on top of that.




as for how i know him... here's a bit of irony.

He use to be in my division/workshop on my second ship, but when I arrived on board (early 2005) he was already out of the division.

He'd been kicked out of our division for... you guessed it: stealing.

[Whiskey]

I always meet somewhere HIGHLY public if I'm selling something online.

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

I always meet somewhere HIGHLY public if I'm selling something online.

Seconded.
I bought a major box of DVDs (the complete Shakespeare Plays made by BBC in the 1970s) on eBay. The shipping costs were, of course, quite high. But the guy who was selling them realised that... well, he lives in Glasgow - I live 20 miles away from Glasgow (and work in Glasgow)... I could pick up. And he asked me to meet in George Square, that - for those who don't know Glasgow - is THE central square of the city.
Good thinking.

[Chromatix]

Yeah, especially for Glasgow.

[blas]

I'm terrified of craigslist.

My bf's father is trying to sell his boat, and local advertising isn't getting him any bites, so bf's lunatic brother decided that he'd personally place the ad on his craigslist account and for sure someone would want it and he'd help his dad sell the boat.

Sure enough, right away, some guy on the other side of Wisconsin was interested. But the catch? He was already trying to haggle with my bf's father, said he had x amount in cash, and if bf's dad DROVE to the halfway point between here and where this guy lives, it's a deal.

Myself and my bf are going "NO, don't do it! This guy is out to scam you, or at the very least make you drive halfway across Wisconsin to not even have the cash or intend to buy it!" and bf's crazy brother "Oh no no, it's legit! He's trying to make a deal with you! This is how stuff on craigslist works all the time!"

Between that and the casual encounters my friend's coworker indluges in off that site, I won't use craigslist. Too afraid I'll end up dead by the river or held at gunpoint for my stuff.

Not saying it's evil or anything, I'd just never use it.

[Flying Grype]

I bought a major box of DVDs (the complete Shakespeare Plays made by BBC in the 1970s) on eBay.

Eeeeee. Do you have the Hamlet one with Derek Jacobi and Lalla Ward?

[SansDoute]

I had to advertise for a roommate on Craigslist (I was really desperate!).

But, I know enough that I'm meeting the potential person at a Starbucks a couple of blocks away from where I live. I know quite a few people who are working at this Starbucks. If I don't like them, they don't know where I live and I have people who would look out for me.
If I do like them, my neighbours are all home and they know I'm meeting up with someone to show them. If anything goes wrong, they're there to back me up.

Anything on-line is risky, you just have to know how to protect yourself.
(I really hope this person works out, my rent isn't cheap ).

[EvilEmpryss]

I sell on Craigslist all the time. Depending on what I'm selling, I'll decide whether I will have them come to my home or not. Sewing materials? A little kid's bicycle? Canning supplies? A mattress? These things people can come to my house to pick up. Not too many criminals are going to hold someone up for a bunch of quilting scraps.

Almost anything electronic and they have to meet at the local Apple store. The only two exceptions were a *huge* old projection TV and a refrigerator. I was *not* going to lug those things out of the house myself. I do make sure my kids stay out of sight and I have other people at the house when they come over, though. Never had a problem.

I am also rather... discriminatory... when it comes to the emails I'll respond to. If the person can't spell even the name of the item I'm selling (which is spelled correctly in the title) or use basic capitalization and punctuation, I don't respond. Petty thugs that haunt Craigslist seem to lack an education in anything, especially basic English. I don't need the money enough to want to deal with people too lazy or stupid to capitalize the pronoun "I".

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I don't really understand how that scam works. I mean, I know it happens, but why does the robber have to go through all that to get an address? It's not like the homes of random strangers are hard to find.

If I were an armed robber, what is to keep me from simply driving up to someone's house at random, pulling a gun on the homeowner, and robbing him then? I would think a house where you knew nobody was home would make a much better target.

[Flying Grype]

Also, uh... yeah, never give your address to a bugler, because he'll stand outside your window at 5 o'clock every morning and play Reveille. HE KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I don't really understand how that scam works. I mean, I know it happens, but why does the robber have to go through all that to get an address? It's not like the homes of random strangers are hard to find.

If I were an armed robber, what is to keep me from simply driving up to someone's house at random, pulling a gun on the homeowner, and robbing him then? I would think a house where you knew nobody was home would make a much better target.

Put it like this. The seller is putting some electronic item up for sale on Craigslist. The buyer (robber) interprets this to mean the seller may have other electronic items worth stealing in their home. Or, barring that, other stuff at least worth stealing.

[Mr. Anubite]

You guys seem to know your stuff about robbing Craigslist sellers. Should we be worried?

[boringscreenname]

I usually meet people in a public location and I make my husband go with me. Or if they want to come to my house they have to do it when my husband is home. I figure he looks big and mean enough to scare off any potential robbers.

[SecurityWench]

I have used Craigslist only once, and that was to buy a Christmas gift for my boyfriend. He wanted an original XBOX, and I found a guy who was selling not only the XBOX, but at least 15 games, some peripherals, and manuals for $100. Not bad, right?

We met in the parking lot of the same grocery store I work at, and I had my family with me. He showed up with his family as well. He handed me the box, I gave him cash, we said Merry Christmas, all was well.

BF loved the gift, BTW.

[EvilEmpryss]

The vast majority of Craisglist sales go off without a hitch. It's the one-in-a-million, high profile, if it bleeds it leads nightly news stories that make everyone worried.

People get robbed when selling cars on car sale websites, too, but you don't hear about them because it's not a popular site with lots of controversy attached to it.