Scam from a classified ad

[fcschoenthal]

I know there's not much activity here in the classified section, but I had a strange experience on another forum.

I responded to a classified ad yesterday for a local sale. I did what I thought was the appropriate thing, I responded to the ad, advising that I was sending a private message. I quickly received a response from the seller through private messages and he gave me his cell number, which was also a DFW local. We communicated back and forth to arrange a date and time to meet. Several hours later, I received the text below. It was from an area code in Arizona, not DFW Texas. While shocked, the weirder thing is that my wife got the same text on her phone. I'm assuming someone took my name from the post and did a search for associated phone numbers.
I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the forum, as my phone number is not associated with my profile. My assumption is that the sender was going to try and have me send the payment to them directly.
 

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

The link doesn't seem to open to an image(?) 

West did the text say?

[fcschoenthal]

On 5/23/2026 at 3:06 PM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

The link doesn't seem to open to an image

Sorry Doug, I replaced it with an image. 

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Yeah the verbiage there is suspect. 

I find it to be a red flag when they give the exact description used in the ad in their response. (I.e. My ad of "4'x6' Bora Centipede..."). Seems like that is a script pulling in the title from the ad. Most Woodworkers i know of would've just called it 'the centipede' or something similar. 

Also the 'text for faster response' and lack of punctuation don't exactly add to the credibility. 

Run!! 

 

[fcschoenthal]

I had done a private message with the seller and was in contact the whole way. We met and I walked away with the centipede with no issues and happy about it. I showed the text to the seller and he was as dumbfounded as I was. My wife and I immediately blocked the 520 area code text with no response.

I put a message on Sawmill Creek about it (basically a warning) and received a couple of responses like "area codes don't mean anything anymore". No one seemed concerned that someone was pulling information off the forum to send scam texts.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Glad it worked out! 

It's a brave new world out there, and one i seem to understand less and less every day. 

[Mark J]

While area codes are now all over the map ans whole phone numbers can be spoofed, it's alarming that the bad guys were able to glean enough info from the public areas of the forum site to send you a text.  I wonder if they were able to hack into the PM chain??

[Mark J]

27 minutes ago, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

It's a bad new world out there, and one i seem to understand less and less every day. 

Fixed it for you.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 5/24/2026 at 8:07 AM, Mark J said:

Fixed it for you.

My 83yr old mother got a call from someone claiming to be her granddaughter, who was in jail* and needed immediate money. The caller had an alarming amount of personal info about my niece and was apparently convincing enough to fool my mom for that one phone call. 

Thankfully, she hung up and contacted me and my sister, and we shut it down immediately, so no damage was done. 

But it made me so angry...  And there's zero recourse. There's absolutely nothing that can be done about it. 

---

*And the only way my niece would ever be anywhere near a jail is if she baked treats and was delivering them to the staff. She's a great young woman. Never in trouble a day in her life. 

 

[gee-dub]

My dad also almost fell for that one about 10 years ago.  His urgency was compounded by the fact that when he was calling my daughter to confirm, she was in the shower and not answering.  Fortunately she got out and returned his call in time to prevent him getting fleeced.  There is no punishment extreme enough for these scavengers IMHO.  We have to remeber that every piece of "junk" mail you have received since the 60s is the physical equivalent of SPAM.  We have had nearly my entire life to deal with this and have failed.  It is no surprise that it has morphed to use the digital era appliances.

[fcschoenthal]

On 5/24/2026 at 8:06 AM, Mark J said:

it's alarming that the bad guys were able to glean enough info from the public areas of the forum site to send you a text.  I wonder if they were able to hack into the PM chain

1. My phone number is nowhere on the forum and certainly not my wife's.
2. My first message to him was generic. His reply had his phone number. I trusted the security of the PM system, so I sent a text back to the number he provided. We corresponded via text from there on.
3. I still think the scoundrel saw the listing saying that I would send him a PM, took my user name (first and last), and searched for associated phone numbers. I've had the same one for over 35 years. That's probably where they got my wife's cell number as well.

I get enough spam calls that I'm careful where I list my number. I have a Google Voice number that I use when I'm selling something and don't know who I'm giving it to. I also use it on other instances where I don't know where it might go.

[fcschoenthal]

On 5/24/2026 at 8:27 AM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

My 83yr old mother got a call from someone claiming to be her granddaughter, who was in jail* and needed immediate money. The caller had an alarming amount of personal info about my niece and was apparently convincing enough to fool my mom for that one phone call. 

Someone tried that with my 90 yr old dad. He wasn't the nicest of men and told them my son could rot in there, wasn't his problem.

[gee-dub]

On 5/24/2026 at 1:56 PM, fcschoenthal said:

Someone tried that with my 90 yr old dad. He wasn't the nicest of men and told them my son could rot in there, wasn't his problem.

In the words of Butch Cassidy "Well, that oughta do it".

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 5/24/2026 at 3:56 PM, fcschoenthal said:

Someone tried that with my 90 yr old dad. He wasn't the nicest of men and told them my son could rot in there, wasn't his problem.

I respect this stance!!

[legenddc]

That would be my mom's response as well!

Had a scammer call my in-laws around 11 years ago at my father-in-law's mother's funeral. My mother-in-law was preoccupied with the funeral and starting to fall for the "IRS" calling her. Thankfully we were there and I was able to take the phone from her and hang it up. Almost had a second funeral that day!  Once I got my mother-in-law to calm down we searched the phone number and showed her it was spam.

[Beechwood Chip]

I did cyber security (among other things) for 30+ years, explaining this stuff to thousands of people, but I've been taken in by scammers.  Almost anyone is susceptible if they hit at a vulnerable moment.  Most of the scams are ridiculously obvious unless they hit the right person at just the right time, and they are just contacting people randomly hoping to get lucky.

For example, "Your Chase Bank mortgage application has been approved.  Click here."  Obvious scam, unless you recently applied for a Chase mortgage and are anxiously waiting for approval.

[Coop]

These a holes need to get a real job or sit their lives out on a bench inside a 5’x10’ cell.