Craigslist Fraud

Craigslist scam with happy ending:  I live a little north of Fort Lauderdale. One day, I saw some B&W 803's (One missing tweeter) with an opening bid of $400 requested.  I was certain it was a scam, but it was close enough to go there to pick up the speakers.  I won the auction for that price, and tried to make an appointment to go get the speakers.  After repeated emails were always answered with, "Just send the damned money, and I will ship them", I gave up.  IA few weeks later, they were on ebay, again, but from a different seller.  I called and discovered he had bought them off of Craigslist for the same price, from a guy moving to CA.  Two other people sent the guy money, maybe more.  Now the good part of the story.  The buyer felt sorry for me, did not like the holes drilled to hang the speakers (Sacreledge), and had already ordered a pair of tweeters for $300 from a pal in the business.  I took all of it, and had an extra tweeter.  Next, I bought a single 805, with a tweeter, and a few months later, found one sans tweeter.  I sold these for $740 and now have some of the the best free speakers I have ever heard.  They even worked with my subs, and still do.  .

Ok, so what the deal/harm when you get a response asking “is the item still available?”
this, after you clearly state in the ad “ do not ask it it’s still available “.

I've made  some damn good friends for life from CL, buying and selling anything in your hobby you'll meet plenty of nice folks.  Have yet to meet a crook or a killer. Remember the CL killer! 

I have made a number of successful transactions on CL for all sorts of stuff and met some very nice people. In my ads I state that I am hip to all of the scams so it isn’t worth wasting time for either of us. Of course some people try but I ridicule them and move on.

I am sure that there are scamming on all different sites, some sites more prone that others, but they are all out there prying on people. This is the reason I always sell or buy where there will be face to face contact and a cash transaction or a known bank check is used. This then means that most of my sales or purchases will be fairly local, within an easy days ride both back and forth. I do this because I am a worrier and this removes most of it for me. Others are better at rooting out the scams and are comfortable buying or selling long distance. I could never do this. Maybe you should rethink how you buy or sell. I just used Craig's list to sell two high end bikes with no problems. I did have a few scammers approach me. All the scammers wanted to transfer through shipping arrangements and not willing to come and meet face to face. Those emails were just deleted by me.