http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2012/may/23/robbers-targeting-would-be-craigslist-buyers/ BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore police say robbers have been preying on Craigslist users looking to buy coins, jewelry and dirt bikes. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says investigators have linked four cases dating back to August. He says robbers posing as a seller lured would-be buyers to the same spot in northwest Baltimore, the 3500 block of Callaway Avenue, displayed a gun and stole up to $2,700 in cash from them.
Wait, what? Meeting random people off the internet while carrying large amounts of cash carries certain inherent risks? Who knew?!?!?
Indeed. With the time saved, you could start linking fear-mongering news articles from some Ric Romero wanna-be that just learned that there might be bad people on craigslist.
I have bought and sold stuff on craigslist many times without incident. For high dollar value items like bullion, I meet the person at my bank. We sit down in comfy chairs and I examine the coins and we come to an agreement on price. Then I go to a teller and withdraw the amount and pay the person. I figure that's safe enough for Montana...
See? Simple, basic, common sense steps to mitigate the risk involved, and everyone's happy. I guess the tens of thousands of safe craigslist transactions that happen every week aren't newsworthy...
But I thought meeting people at a dark alley with a pocket full of cash was safe. Seriously, people need to have some common sense.
This certainly is nothing new, but is a good reminder. Meeting in your local police department parking lot helps deter this as well.
If there have been multiple cases of this with all the robberies taking place at the same location.....Why aren't the crooks in jail? Seems like an obvious place to stake out. I wonder if all the sale ads are similar in listing or form? Would it be possible to look at the ads from known robberies and find similar ones possibly from the same person and do a sting?
Maybe it's a location the police don't want to be in either. There are locations in cities where firefighters and ambulances and other services really don't go to, as they have a tendency of being shot at if they do. Police can't even protect those people there, so maybe this might be one of those locations.
Maryland is one of those states where people do not carry guns on a daily basis (due to their laws). In gun friendly states I doubt that this sort of thing happens much if at all.
I guess that could be a possibility, but in a case like that why would you go to one of those locations to make the transaction?
i have sold literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of coins in the last two months on chicagos craigslist. before that i have sold everything from a CRV to a baby stroller on CL. i have never had the slightest hint of an issue other then the occasional spam email and scammers wanting to send a fake cashiers check. use common sense, meet in a police station parking lot, or a very public place, and do not get into anyone's or allow anyone into your car. avoiding craigslist for fear of the boogi-man is really limiting yourself to a smaller potential audience. coin shops get robbed too, im not going to stop going to my LCS.
Nothing new, this happens all the time because people are ignorant. If you're gonna make a sale off the internet that requires meeting in person, meet in a public place. The best places are banks, there are usually security guards and most/all have cameras. Robbers would be dumb to try and pull off something at that place. If you are arranging the meet and suggest a bank or very public place and the other party declines, then I'd say void it all, that's not a good sign. Better safe than sorry.
