Comments From catchbot.com:
Will my servers or site be affected by CatchBot?
It is unlikely that your servers or site will be affected by CatchBot. As Catchbot typically only crawls a few pages of any website slowly, CatchBot has no material negative impact on the load on your servers or the availability of your website.
…and by slowly they mean only 2 requests per second, even if the target URL is a 404 every time.
Comments This week I sold a motorcycle on craigslist without receiving a single email from a scammer. I would like to show you the screen shot of my ad and explain how two simple steps will force scammers to leave you alone.
Here are the secrets. Including two simple statements in your craigslist ads makes it nearly impossible for a scammer to start a conversation with you.
Email conversations create the opportunity for someone to negotiate terms without talking face to face. If you eliminate the email offers, you are forcing the craigslist ad to become a method of meeting in person instead of a method of negotiating sale terms. If you eliminate email communications entirely, you would force a scammer to call you, which is highly unlikely. No email is largely inconvenient, however, and I recommend just rejecting email offers. Other language that promotes direct communication is “call me for details,” “make an appointment to come see my [item],” “let’s schedule a test drive.” This technique also cuts out all the low baller offers that will waste your time and get on your nerves.
The most popular type of scam on craigslist right now is the too much money scam, a rip off that relies on a shipping fairy tale to coerce sellers to commit fraud. By offering no shipping, you are forcing buyers to use craigslist only as a tool to find out that you have the item for sale. The goal is to conduct the sale and transaction face to face in the open. If a scammer knows that there is no way he can close the deal via email, he will not waste his time. Even if you are willing to ship your item, state in your ad that you will not. If a buyer really wants what you have he will contact you anyways to say something like, “It is too bad you are in Pennsylvania. I have cash in hand.”
Here is a screen shot of the craigslist ad I posted Thursday, July 3rd, 2008. I got eleven responses and sold the bike to the second person that came for a look. None of the emails I got were auto-responding email accounts or attempted to initiate a scam dialog.
Scammers are usually not interested in the item you have up for sale. Their business model is to send emails all day, rip people off and steal money. If you eliminate the possibility for a scammer to negotiate a situation via emails, you are protecting yourself from 99% of all craigslist scams.
Comments 1 Comment The most popular scam on craigslist is what I call the Too Much Money Scam. A too much money scammer will email you ready to buy whatever you have listed. He will explain how sure he is that he wants to buy your item, and frequently he will ask you to take down your advertisement and consider the item sold.
The price will never be a problem for a scammer, and he will offer too much or explain that he will send more than enough money to cover the cost of shipping or even ask for a refund on his payment. I published an example email of this scam last year, but the nature and details of the situation the buyer presents are always changing.
The trick to the scam is once money is accepted from this stranger, any transaction made after is the account holder’s choice and your responsibility. The scammer delivers money that does not exist in an attempt to get some of it re-routed or cashed and handed to him or a low life associate.
This week a coworker is selling a dirt bike and the first email he got was a too much money scammer wanting him to take down the craigslist ad because he was going to UPS a check right away.
Another coworker was skeptical when a buyer wanted to send him too much money to cover the cost of a “friend coming to pick up the item.” This specific case was not an automotive sale but a pet prop.
The one signal that remains constant in this scam is too much money.
Comments The <label> element will not accept a width value in FireFox, and I just spent way too long finding a workaround. The label element is used to associate a text label to a form control that does not automatically have a label.
Short answer: float left makes width work on label elements.
When assigning a width to the label tag, the width value worked in Internet Explorer. FireFox disregarded the width in pixels that I assigned to the label HTML tag in my CSS file.
Label elements are in-line style elements, so technically FireFox is interpreting the CSS properly by not obeying my width declaration. In-line elements do not accept width attributes. The workaround is to force the label element to become a block level element by floating it.
Why float it when you could just declare it a block element with display: block, you ask? Because block elements will stack on top of each other without being floated, and if my original intent was to give a label a width I might be trying to distance it from something beside and not below it. You can do display: block; float: left; and achieve the same result, but if you are going to float it the display attribute is not required.
Comments Google Blogoscoped has a screen shot of a new Google feature that allows users to skip flash intro pages. This is cool because flash intro pages are useless time wasting pieces of crap.
The point of an intro page is to mesmerize website visitors with a flashy cover page so they become impressed with your website and your business. This makes little sense to me because regardless of how fancy your intro page may be, the underlying website still either has what the user wants or it does not. If a website is a piece of crap, it is still a piece of crap with an intro page.
Give users the information they are looking for. There is no need to waste someone’s time when they have given you the opportunity to inform, market and sell them something on your website.
2 Comments AutoExtra is putting an end to their free basic listing service on June 1st. Their reasoning behind this decision is that the percentage of dealers using free listings that converted to paying customers was low.
If any affected dealers would like to advertise their inventory for free on my sites instead, please contact me. I feel the more cars I have the better user experience I can provide to shoppers. Perhaps I am crazy.
67 Comments A new type of escrow scam is showing up on most of the east coast craigslist motorcycle boards. This scheme will advertise a great deal to elicit lots of responses, and each responder gets a few bait emails explaining that the item is “in eBay’s hands” because a previous sale there was not completed.
Lately, scammers are posting with gmail addresses that almost always contain a first name. After a potential target responds to the ad, the gmail address is abandoned. I have seen this trend in real estate as well. This particular scammer used cametamegastore1@cametastock.com to send these emails to me in an auto-responder fashion after I contacted him. No matter what my emails contained, these three messages came from the scammer as immediate responses in this order:
First of all, please DO NOT REPLY at this e-Mail if you don’t have the amount available, or if you don’t intend to be serious.
I’m from Orlando, Florida.
This is the second time when I try to sell the motorcycle. First time I tried eBay.
Because all the time I use only 100% safe methods I sent the motorcycle through eBay Vehicle Protection Program to a buyer from Alaska.
I paid all the shipping fees from my money and when the eBay have requested the payment the seller have refused to pay because he don’t have the full amount.
Now I have the motorcycle in the eBay hands and is ready to be delivered to the next buyer.
If you want to purchase it and only if you are a serious buyer then send me your complete name and address for shipping.
The time delivery will be only 3 days and the motorcycle will be delivered at your home address full registered in your state and under your name.
This scam appears to be sophisticated for a few reasons. Above all, eBay does have a Vehicle Protection Program that was designed to shield buyers from scam artists on eBay Motors. After some quick searches, a shopper could be falsely convinced that this program exists as a transaction escrow service instead of just a monetary guarantee. Also, the ad text itself plays on a buyer’s emotions. This seller appears to be frustrated with dead-beat buyers and tire kickers, which is a typical grief that one-time sellers profess in their listings.
The second email…
The bike is in perfect condition. Full working. The technical inspection has been made 3 weeks ago.
Now the motorcycle is in the eBay hands and not in my possession it. If you will not like it and you will decide to return it then you will receive the full refund. If you will decide to buy it then eBay will release the funds to me.
If you agree with the terms then send me your complete name, address FAX number and I’ll redirect the motorcycle to you.
I’ll wait for your reply!Regards!
…and the third email…
eBay Protection Program help the sellers and buyers to stay safe with all the transactions.
How it works:
1. The seller ships the goods to eBay. They will inspect the goods and will contact you through email with the payment details.
2. You will send the payment to eBay.
3. After eBay will confirm your payment they will delivery you the goods in 3 days.
4. As soon as you will receive and you will inspect it if all will be ok and if you will decide to keep it then eBay will release the funds to me. If not you will receive the full refunds and the goods will be returned to me.
Comments A new fefo on cl was started to gather responses to the proposed limits to the HTML tags that can be used in cl postings. Like most other forums, it has been taken over by trolls, spammers and perverts. I left a response yesterday that is fourth paging now, so I thought I would point it out here.
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