Thank goodness for two things:
First, for the sake of the house & bills, I'm thankful that it's another slow day behind the desk at work. I've spent nearly an hour with Steve on the phone, trying to prepare one of his laptop computers to be sold on Craigslist. It's my first venture into trying to sell something there, and I hope it turns out better than my eBay debacle of 2005.
But also, I'm thankful that Steve does security screening. His questions & directives over the phone have given me a slight headache, but better slight than stifling.
The laptop needs to be sold so Steve can help on the bills. The housing situation is crazy right now, with all sorts of possibilities popping up. He claims the laptop is worth $400, but no one around here wants to offer more than half that. Rather than chance eBay again, I tried Craigslist.
It seems to be a pretty good site, although its had rough news lately with one of its personal sections. There's plenty of options to flag suspicious ads, for instance. And I have found through user feedback that a lot of them in the job classification are shallow; trying to gyp honest job seekers by promising them good pay, and not delivering.
But a decent laptop should be sellable in an honest way, on the surface. Not so.
I received nine emails about it since yesterday. One offered to ante up and pay $550 provided it is shipped. Steve immediately said "Sold!" I was rather surprised at his instantaneous response, but he backed it up as he wanted a Google search done on the prospective buyer. The first entry landed me on another Craigslist response, highlighting the guy, Nelson Cruz, as one of the most notorious spammers with regard to electronics.
On the surface, it looks like we lost a seller and kissed away a potential $550. But all the problems with shipping "overseas", extra costs, providing required codes to a PayPal account and more have Mr. Cruz on notice with several sellers on Craigslist. Thank goodness for what I call the "dummy check", which would have made ALL of us dummies had we not checked.
Why spammers like Mr. Cruz delight in promoting bad PR on viable sites, and causing stress, headaches and more to innocent sellers like us is beyond me. He might know the guy recently busted for being the spam king of email. People who delight on others' discomfort are uncomfortable themselves, and should be prosecuted if found.
The internet, while a good thing, has to be watched. Good thing all four eyes (in this case) were open and alert.
