Put an ad for my boat on Craigs list. I got this text response almost immediately.

Hello, I'm Mary and Mr. Smith, my boss is interested in buying your "1997 Champion 202 Bass & Bay" send your final price to his email

Here is his response to my email.

Thanks for your response, I am sorry I am not available to view due to the nature of my job, I am in the United States Army and serve as a CBRN Specialist (74D). I want to buy this for future use. I am currently deployed wont be back till September. We are not allowed to make or receive calls frequently for security reasons but we have internet access and that is our major means of communication to the outside world. I am OK with your asking price and if you don't mind, I can only pay through PayPal at the moment because its the most secure way to make or receive payment online this is why I'll prefer using PayPal to pay you, all I need is your PayPal email to make the payment and if you don't have a PayPal account, its pretty easy to set up at www.paypal.com. I also have a few questions for you.

Whats its condition, any damages? Are you the original owner and what is your reason for selling?and last asking price?

I hope you consider my offer. I am ready to buy, so you can take the add off Craigslist. I'll have a courier person come for pick up and storage after I make payment and money is in your hand. Thanks for understanding, hope to read from you soon.

Hmmmmmm, what say you?

Scam.

Standard CL scam.

Big time Scam. Run Away Quickly.

It looks like an automated text/email. Never even refers to "it" being a boat. Scam

Hmmmmmm. not looking good, me thinks. Thanks

I caught these types of folks before and reported them to fbi locally. I was able to get a phone number and contact them. I called them out and they got pretty pizzed that I saw through their scheme. I dragged them along enough for them to think I was going to drop some cash. That is where they start making mistakes, when they believe you are going to pay up.

I wonder if PayPal would cooperate and take a fake payment? I could call police and wait for "courier" to come over for pick up.

It's a scam!
See what their response is when you tell them to send the cash with their courier to a public place for the transaction. Tell them that you will get the courier's personal info for security purposes.They will give you another paypal excuse... Scam will be evident at that point

have the courier bring cash..

Scam that has been around before.

Yep, scam. They did the same thing to my brother. Like Jim said, have the courier bring the cash.

Do people seriously do business on Craigslist??

you can't post ANYTHING on craigslist these days without at least one or two of them types texting you or emailing you.

Was looking to buy a boat off of CL they wanted it done thru eBay and all looked legit with the eBay link until the only way to pay was with vanilla prepaid Visa cards. Yea eBay doesn't work that way.......... The person selling was also "in the military" and had the same excuses and could only respond via email. I've never heard of someone trying to buy something from a poster like yourself. Beware