Explain the Craig list scam where you list something with your phone number.

And you receive a text where someone request a code be typed in they send you.

What does this do for them?

I found the answer:

The scam:
You put your own personal telephone number (mobile or landline number) out in public somewhere (on a classified ad, or a dating website, or wherever).

Some scammer contacts you via text or email about your ad. They tell you a story about how they need you to prove you are real person, or a legitimate seller, not a bot, and, that they are using a special phone service that requires that you give them the six-digit code number that will be played to you by an automated verification call you will receive from Google, or via a text message.

The scammer is, in reality, going through the Google Voice setup process. They tell Google Voice to call your personal number, and then the call speaks the code, along with a warning to not share the code with anyone. Somehow, you ignore that explicit warning and give the scammer the code number. When you do that, THEY, not you, are issued a Google Voice number, using your personal number as the forwarding number for their account.

this :

The scam:
You put your own personal telephone number (mobile or landline number) out in public somewhere (on a classified ad, or a dating website, or wherever).
Some scammer contacts you via text or email about your ad. They tell you a story about how they need you to prove you are real person, or a legitimate seller, not a bot, and, that they are using a special phone service that requires that you give them the six-digit code number that will be played to you by an automated verification call you will receive from Google, or via a text message.
The scammer is, in reality, going through the Google Voice setup process. They tell Google Voice to call your personal number, and then the call speaks the code, along with a warning to not share the code with anyone. Somehow, you ignore that explicit warning and give the scammer the code number. When you do that, THEY, not you, are issued a Google Voice number, using your personal number as the forwarding number for their account.

Just don’t!

They are trying to get access to your phone number through Google. Once they have access/control, they can make calls and send texts from your phone number using a laptop and Google. They will use your phone number to do other scams which make them money.

When you place a car or boat ad on Craigslist, you usually get hit with this scam attempt once or twice within the first hour. So many people are doing the scam, they typically only try it on fresh ads.

I stopped using Craigslist when I was shopping for boats. Every one I was interested in was a scam. FB MarketPlace was where I found mine.