Craigslist Thieves Stealing Cars on Test Drives

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You might want to use a little added caution if you are selling your car on Craigslist. Thieves are arranging test drives and then never coming back with the car.

A police memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal says that car thieves across the five boroughs are scamming sellers on Craigslist by stealing their vehicles during test drives.
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Eh, craigslist has become a safehaven for thieves. If you want to steal from someone on craigslist, here is the formula:

1) find an recent ebay auction, snag all the photos, description, and vin #
2) advertise it on craigslist for a cheap price
3) link it to an email address like [email protected]
4) tell people that it was your husbands car that died in iraq, or son's who was had an accidental death
5) pass out the vin # so people can do the carfax
6) tell them it is at a "shipping company" and ebay will guarantee the transaction

actually that's as far as I got. just surprising how much total bullshit is out there on craigslist.
also surprising that people fall for this shit, but if it wasn't effective they would stop doing it.
 
Agreed there is so much BS spammers, scammers, and phishing on craigslist that I am surprised people still bother.
 
I just got an awesome deal on a GTX 285 on craigslist yesterday. Running it now... I'm surprisingly happy at how well it all worked out.
 
jiminator said:
Eh, craigslist has become a safehaven for thieves. If you want to steal from someone on craigslist, here is the formula:

1) find an recent ebay auction, snag all the photos, description, and vin #
2) advertise it on craigslist for a cheap price
3) link it to an email address like [email protected]
4) tell people that it was your husbands car that died in iraq, or son's who was had an accidental death
5) pass out the vin # so people can do the carfax
6) tell them it is at a "shipping company" and ebay will guarantee the transaction

actually that's as far as I got. just surprising how much total bullshit is out there on craigslist.
also surprising that people fall for this shit, but if it wasn't effective they would stop doing it.
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My dad emailed a guy with an ad like that (without telling me, of course). Guy was going overseas and needed to sell his Toyota Highlander, etc. They agreed on a price and the guy sent a (fake) ebay billing request. When my dad told me about it, I just about went through the roof. Showed him all the parts of the email that were fake and pointed out PAYPAL sends billing info, not ebay. Luckily he hadn't sent anything (or filled out any forms) and would have done it in cash anyway.

It's very effective, probably even more than spam, and is free. I can see someone doing this over spam to harvest CC/Bank info.
 
srangara said:
GPS tracker with your cop buddy on speed-dial?
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DealExtreme has magnetic cellular gps trackers for around $60. As long as you can hide it where the person won't spot when they're looking at the car, it would be a good investment.
 
az_max said:
DealExtreme has magnetic cellular gps trackers for around $60. As long as you can hide it where the person won't spot when they're looking at the car, it would be a good investment.
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that or..... a remotely activated MagnaVolt system. ;)
 
Man I test drive usually 3 to 6 cars a week and guess what? over 60% let me take the car on a test drive alone without asking me for anything just let me do my thing in it and thats all there is quite sad if you ask me.
 
dbu8554 said:
Man I test drive usually 3 to 6 cars a week and guess what? over 60% let me take the car on a test drive alone without asking me for anything just let me do my thing in it and thats all there is quite sad if you ask me.
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Dealer or private?
 
When i bought my car, the guy just let me take it. It was from craigslist too :p
 
Did anyone else think of GTA:IV's "I'll take her" mission, where the main character finds a used car online, contacts the owner for a test drive, then takes the car and her along with it?
 
Smasherbasher said:
Please steal my car. Its insured for 3x its value
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It doesn't matter what it is insured for. If you're paying a premium that amounts to 3x what's your car worth, you're an idiot, sorry. You will only get what's it worth on free market, period.
 
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