You're Lazy. Get A Job.

We got an awesome free leather couch from our upstairs neighbor. Here it is:


It looks saggy, but it's not. Ian loves it, and we think we're going to have the baby sleep in the living room until our lease is up and we can get a bigger apartment, so it was perfect for us to get that for free right now.

Now we can sell these beauties:

and put our new free couch in their place. It should open up quite a bit of space.

I decided that four days of having three couches in our living room was enough so I posted them on craigslist.com. We've had great success with Craigslist (like buying our whole entire living room setup for about $500) so imagine how annoyed I was when I got three emails (so far) from scammers. Here's the first example, from a guy named "Henry Parker":

Email one: is it available ?

Odd that he wrote it in all lowercase, with an inappropriately placed space before the question mark and in a gray font, but I responded in the affirmative and this is what he wrote back:

Thanks for the prompt response. I have instructed my
account officer to mail a certified
check (overnight), while you hold this item for me. Let me know
when you receive the check and I will have my mover
will come pick up at your place. Please forward me
the following info so I can issue your check . . .
1.Your full name
2.Your mailing address(Physical as Ups does not deliver to P.O.Box}
3.Your phone number.
** Please note that I will overnight the payment,and
you should receive it tomorrow. I appreciate you
holding this for me. Please delete the posting as I
am definitely buying it from you and it would be sad
for me to have the payment in the mail only to be
informed of the its sale,also am deaf and will like to be contacted via email**

First off, deaf people can communicate over the phone, Henry, by using a service. Second of all, don't you know that everyone selling things on Craigslist is told not to accept certified cheques or money orders or anything like that? The problem with them is that you can actually issue a bad cheque, have the person cash it, come pick up whatever item they're selling, and then they find out that the check bounced or was issued against a fake account, or was a counterfeit money order or whatever. Then the seller is down two couches and $300.

The next email was from a guy called "David Harry". Sounds fake.

Email one: Do you still have it available for sale?

Not bad--poor grammar, when you consider I'm selling two items, but he used correct spacing and a capitol letter, so he gets five stars.

Email two:

Hi,
Thanks for the response.I am willing to pay your asking price.I will pay by money order as its the only way i can pay you at the moment.I would have loved to come take a look but i am presently out of town on an assignment.I will not be back in town soon. I dont mind adding an extra twenty dollars so you can keep it in my favor,Please send me some pictures.I hope it is in good condition.Reply with your full name,cell phone number,and address where payment should be sent.I will let you know how i intend to go about the pick-up.Please take the posting off craigslist today and consider it sold to me.
Expecting to hear from you soon.

All right, David. First of all, I already posted pictures online. In the ad you responded to. Second, you only get one star for this email because your spacing is off and so is your punctuation. Finally, I'm not stupid, but apparently you are. Oh, and I would have loved for you to be able to come take a look at the couches, so I could see who on earth writes like that.

The third person to try to half-heartedly scam me was a man named "Pastor Ken". Way to try to establish some legitimacy to your name by tacking on the word "pastor", Pastor.

Email one:

Hello, its still available.I Want to know the current condition

Thanks

Stop using grey writing, please. And use correct spacing. And punctuation. And I stated the current condition in my ad.

Email two:

Thanks for your quick reply.Am much satisfied with the condition and price and everything sound good to me.It's Beautiful and exactly my taste and choice.It's my pleasure to buy the unit from you.Are you the owner of the unit?I want you to consider it sold and withdraw the advert from craigslist to avoid disturbance.Because i think this particular unit is exactly what have been searching and looking for some days now and I'm so sorry as i won't be able to come for a look as I'm the busy type.It's my pleasure to buy the unit.So, i will order my financier to arrange for the check and the shipping company will come for the pick up at your location when the check has been clears in your Bank.

If this arrangement is acceptable.Kindly mail me your full Name and your contact information to facilitate the mailing of the check..for the arrangement of the check and i need the picture of the unit.Well,I stay in Colorado...And if you have any more information to know....kindly don't hesitate to ask


Thanks
Pastor Ken.

Pastor Ken, I do "have any more information to know". Are you from Mars? Because you sound like it. But apparently you also have someone to arrange financial matters for you, just like the first guy, so you must not be trying to scam me, either. One more "information to know": Why are you shopping for couches in DC when you "stay in Colorado"? I know they have couches in Colorado, and someone must need to sell theirs. It might not be "exactly what [you] have been searching and looking for some days now", but I'm sure a Colorado "unit" will do just fine.

Oh, and fix your space bar, all of you. Maybe after you get off your lazy behinds and get a job, and stop trying to steal things from people. Or maybe before, if getting a job doesn't appeal to you, so then the next time you try to scam someone you might actually sound humanoid.

It's possible they weren't trying to steal my couches with a fake form of payment. Another Craigslist favorite is getting people's contact information and selling it to junk mail companies. I'm not sure which is worse.

I'm sorry if I sound bitter, but the guy who responded first made a big deal out of wanting to come look at them last night, was half an hour late, and when he did get here he didn't even look at them. He told us some story about how he works for a construction company who buys used furniture and pays to ship it to poor countries as a charity. Why on earth would someone in some developing country want couches like these? To rip apart and sew clothes out of the upholstry? That has to be the least effective charitable action I have ever heard of. Send clothes and hygiene kits.

Am I getting paranoid, or was he possibly trying to see if we had anything valuable to steal? I dislike living in suspicion, and I dislike being hounded by dishonest people.