SCAM, these deals always involve cash up front and you never see a bike. The scam artists prey on unsuspecting people who give them either cash or information. Do not fall into their trap. These are all over craigslist. FLAG the SOB's.

Here's a sample but there are literally thousands of variations.


Classified Ad Scams
http://www.craigslist.org/ and http://london.craigslist.org/

Scams selling a car, such as a 2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER, 2003 HONDA PILOT, allegedly in Canada, while the seller is in Scotland

Are you looking to buy or sell a car?? Did you respond to an ad from someone claiming to be (at the moment) in Scotland, and the car is in Canada? Newspapers, their online classifieds, Craig's list and other online classified advertising websites, from E-Bay to Yahoo Stores have made it much easier to sell and buy articles from exercise equipment, jewelry, to automobiles and even houses. But sometimes the buyer is more interested in passing a bad check than buying your articles!

Here's how this scam works:

An seller says he'll sell a fantastic car in great shape (he even has photos) at an absurdly low price, but he is temporarily "out of the country", such as in Scotland, London, Nigeria, or another country. Note that the names of legitimate people, vehicles and businesses are often used. Sometimes he claims it is a business trip, other times, he is in the military, deployed overseas. Or he may say he (or she) is a student overseas, or traveling to visit a sick relative. Being unreachable and unable to come buy the car in person is key to this scam. That enables the scam to agree to sell the car cheap and pay for shipping. But he wants you to send him the money, or at least a deposit, via Western Union.

Why Western Union?

When you send money by Western Union to the "shipper" (who is actually the scammer), the money will be paid in cash by Western Union to whomever picks it up using the numbers you provided. That money is untraceable and irretrievable. Once you send money by Western Union to someone, after they pick it up, it is gone forever.

Whatever money you send by Western Union will be gone. You will NOT get it back.

What are the clues that this is a scam?

First, you will notice the syntax and grammar. Often, is it not pathetically bad, it's just plain strange. It looks like it was written by someone who is not a native English-speaker, and writes very rarely in English. This is very typical of scammers, who largely are in Nigeria and have little formal education and probably none in English.
The scammer wants the any money to be sent by Western Union or Money Gram! Alarm bells should be going off by now. Western Union wires and Moneygrams are not only untraceable, they're irretrievable. Once the recipient picks them up (which can be done at ANY Western Union office in the world), the money is gone, gone, gone!
And then there are the little clues; signs like strange name changes, or using words, grammar or spelling that is uncommon from his country, or strange locations (he's away in Scotland, but lives in Canada, and the car is in the U.S.)..
Look at the huge number of misspellings, poor punctuation and made-up words. Again, this is typical of the scammer filth who live and operate in Nigeria.
An actual email that illustrate this type of CraigsList scam:

We may highlight passages that illustrate typical scam clues:

Example 1:

Hello,

Sorry for the delayed response, but I'm in Scotland (United Kingdom) right now and I have been very busy. Anyway, thank you for your interest in buying the 2005 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER .The car is located in Canada right now. Why is the price so low?I am going trough a divorce, and I had to move out of Canada.So all that I want to do now is to sell the car at this price, because I need to sell it fast.The title is clean. The car has 33,764 miles.It is in immaculate condition, rust free, no scratch at all and hasn't been involved in any accident. The motor runs very well. The interior looks great. This car needs nothing. I want this transaction to go smoothly enough as I am caught in the middle of some very important events and have little time to my disposal. I already have tones of emails so I hope you understand that I need to sort them out. The price is C$4,000.00. THIS IS MY LAST PRICE.I will not negotiate the price. Also, I take in consideration only those buyers who are really interested in buying the car, to be sure that I don't waste my time with endless discussions. This way, I shall be assured of the serious intentions.

Thanks

Example 2:

Hello,

Sorry for the delayed response, but I'm in Scotland (United Kingdom) right now and I have been very busy. Anyway, thank you for your interest in buying the 2003 HONDA PILOT .The car is located in Canada right now. Why is the price so low?I am going trough a divorce, and I had to move out of Canada.So all that I want to do now is to sell the car at this price, because I need to sell it fast.The title is clean. The car has 48,000 miles.It is in immaculate condition, rust free, no scratch at all and hasn't been involved in any accident. The motor runs very well. The interior looks great. This car needs nothing. I want this transaction to go smoothly enough as I am caught in the middle of some very important events and have little time to my disposal. I already have tones of emails so I hope you understand that I need to sort them out. The price is C$2,999.00. THIS IS MY LAST PRICE.I will not negotiate the price. Also, I take in consideration only those buyers who are really interested in buying the car, to be sure that I don't waste my time with endless discussions. This way, I shall be assured of the serious intentions.

Thanks!

 

I guess there's a sucker born every minute, but I sure would go over the bike and paperwork with a fine tooth comb if I was interested.

 

Odd... Ad says stage II and dual exhaust... Looks like stock exhaust to me...
The ad is placed in Syracuse, NY. I've never seen that many palm trees that far north.

 

Could be a florida snowbird from NY and took the picks while in florida but that is strange.

 

It's a trap!

 

The thing is there is no bike. The scammer doesn't have any inventory to sell so there is nothing to go over. Like the previous poster said the scammer is usually some other place and the bike is at a shippers ready to go. all you have to do is send the money. He/she doesn't give you the luxury of actually seeing the bike because they don't have one to sell.

 

If you check, I think you will find the sellers name is P.T. Barum

 

If I saw something like "angry wife in the middle of bitter divorce has title and is selling out from under husband to **** him off" I might entertain it being real.

 

I saw this same exact bike posted on Sacramento Craigslist last week. It was posted for $3200. I thought either Scam or $32000. 32000 for an 05 would be ridiculous but i've seen it before.

 

You got it!