Please explain this scam to me
 

We saw a car on Craig's list this morning and sent an email - 2001 Toyota Highlander for $1000. This morning the car was listed as located in Cincinnati. We got a reply this afternoon explaining yep still have the car, the price was so low because of a divorce. Tried to look the ad up again this afternoon and the ad was gone. But when we expanded our search to 100 miles, there it was, 100 miles away in Indianapolis. We obviously aren't going to pursue this, but I'm wondering what the deal is. It must be some kind of scam.

Harvesting email addresses and phone numbers. Occasionally someone will want to buy the thing so they tell them some grand story about how the car is in storage and they need to get it out and you need to send them $1K via paypal so they can pay the fees to get it out or something. There are always people willing to do stupid things when the possible reward is worth it to them.

There is a Miller Trailblazer welder for sale all over the place on CL for $1000. Looks new in pics. The actual value is over 3K. Phone number was in San Diego for an ad in WY CL and the map shows outside Las Vegas. It's in the NE CL too with a phone number in Missouri. Every state I checked had the same welder FS.

Ah, more information. The seller emailed back again. The car is in a shipping container, ready to be shipped! Yayyy! And they want me to pay through ebay. They'll ship me the car and I have 5 days to evaluate it before I even have to pay for it! Wow!
I'm not sure how they're working it, but they've figured out some way they'll get the $1000 and I'll never get the car.

Ran across one of these a few years ago. Honda S2000 in mint condition a few thousand below market price. I wanted to see it.

Guy wanted me to send him money ASAP and claimed the car would be shipped to me. I asked where the car was. He told me in a shipping container ready to go (no red flags there). I asked again, he told me it was in Omaha, Nebraska (400 miles away--why was it listed here!?). I told him that I would be in Omaha the next day and would gladly inspect the vehicle. He told me the shipping container was locked. I told him no problem, I have an acetylene torch. He stopped responding.

Just had a similar experience.

Deposit scams are plentiful on CL>

I posted pictures of that recently. It’s always less than $1500 and the wording is awkward. Post enough of them and someone will send the money.

I regularly click “prohibited”.

they are usually "military" and over seas.

what I tell them is I haul cars for a living and can come pick it up in person.
you will never hear from them again.

jackasses like that make it impossible for honest people to sell on CL. I had a machine listed on a machinery website. Someone took my pictures and listed the machine all over the country. My legit listing was for 33K and their fake was for 8K. I can't believe how many people contacted me to ask about the machine for 8K!