A friend and I were approached with a VERY similar posting, including a couple pickups and lots of other attractive stuff at a-little-too-good prices.
Started to stink when they wanted down payment before we could see anything besides pictures, and couldn't get a location we could lay hands on the merch.
Advanced scam story. Does that make it scam 102, or 202?
Yep it checks a lot of scam boxes:
-very nice merch at excellent price (-60%)
-selling for friend/relative.
-sexy photo of female seller.
-seller not home/out of town/not at location of merch.
-and of course, the ultimate deal breaker, deposit required to hold item/hold place/mark pending.
-sympathetic story about family member/friend.
Full disclosure, I did message them, because in my haste (greed) I did not see the bit about the deposit. They instantly messaged me back with full details of 2 cars I inquired about. Another odd thing.
When I asked for photos I got a bunch of garbage. When I asked when I could see them I was told I would have to leave a deposit first.
At that point I reported it to FB as a scam. Today the listing is gone, for whatever reason. Maybe FB took it down, maybe the scammer made some dough and moved on.
The thing that seems unusual for a scammer is that they stated right on the ad that they require an upfront deposit. That takes balls
My point is that if you intend to do business on the internet, you better have your head on a swivel.
