I am moving across the country, and the most economical way (if you have an SUV with a hitch) is to rent a trailer and haul it yourself. Those pods are expensive. But what if you could buy a cheap trailer on craigslist, move your stuff, then sell it for the same price at the other end? The only cost would be the title transfer and registration (about $120). I've gotten some neat stuff on craigslist recently, so it seemed like a plan worthy of a quick five minute search.
A 5x8, enclosed trailer (designed to haul motorcycles).
So I looked around Chicago and almost immedietely found a really cheap trailer. I contacted the seller, and quickly got a bunch of pictures. The trailer is in great condition! They even were willing to do free delivery (cause they were very firm on the price). I replied seeking information about the trailer's gross weight, because my SUV can only tow a certain amount; the higher the trailer weight, the less stuff I can bring. Another quick reply ... except they didn't answer my question. Instead, they sent a really long email about how we would have to use some eBay escrow, because they were at an air force base training for a deployment to Syria. Luckily, eBay could deliver the trailer anywhere, and "by dealing through eBay, we are both covered 100% and nothing wrong can happen." All I had to do was tell her my name and address and she would have eBay contact me to set up the sale. Right ... nothing wrong can happen.
So this email (immediate, very long, not even related to my question, no face-to-face meeting, dealing through third party, eBay on craiglist) set off all the alarm bells. And then I started thinking about the original listing. It was a picture of the trailer with the seller's email in the picture. Now, if you're going to expose your real email, why would you embed it in the picture, instead of in the details. To prevent that email to be text-searchable by fraud-detection bots? Bingo! Because in five minutes I found the same trailer for sale in:
New York!
Orlando!
And Palm Springs!
And always the same seller: our beloved Tracy, fighting overseas for our freedom at home. But first, she just needs to unload this one little trailer, so she decided to post it EVERYWHERE.
So remember folks. If your craigslist seller is putting their email in the picture, it's probably because they're trying to obfuscate their email address from a simple text search. Of course, the price was way too good to be true, which should have been my first hint that something was amiss. Oh well, I guess I'll have to rent from UHaul.