Say you've got something for sale on Craigslist. You will inevitably get emails or FB messages with one sentence which you may reply to with a very simple answer. Craigslist is anonymous when using their email service. So what do the scammers/spammers expect to get from these types of communication? I just don't understand what sensitive information is being transferred.
-Easy, they're fishing.
As noted above, this kind of thing is done with an automated program, a "bot". The program is crawling the CL ads looking for contact information- which is why CL tries to mask it behind a link.
When it finds a contact number or address, it fires off one of a handful of generic questions- "is this still available?", "will you hold it for me?", and so forth.
This is all done automatically, with no human intervention, and hundreds of thousands of times a day.
When you reply to it, the "bot" relays your reply to one of the scammers, so they can answer you directly and start "reeling you in". In some cases even the first response just gets a second automated reply- "will you hold it for me if I add $50", and so on. Only when you've proven yourself to be a "live catch" is your email relayed to a live person.
Basically, if/when I sell on CL, if the person doesn't demonstrate at least a passing knowledge of the item in question (IE, if they call it an "item", or use your exact description of it- "do you still have this Brand New Burnmaster 9000 Super Deluxe Range With Broiler Attachment, Must See!?", they obviously don't) I delete the email and just go on with my life.
The sad fact is that such scamming is part of life now, and we have to deal with it the same way we have to lock the front door at night, lock the car at the mall, and not walk around certain parts of town wearing a big gold Rolex.
Doc.
