Here We Go Again With Craig's List Bushwa

Bushwa is what my stepfather said when he actually wanted to say "BULLSHIT" but was afraid he would offend the virgin ears of his wife (my mother) and his stepdaughter (yours truly). He might have offended the maternal parental unit's sensibilities but fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your point of view) my father had unwittingly taught me nearly every bad word in the book (and maybe a few new ones to boot).

I now have co-opted the Bushwa word to deal with most of the Craig's List male bovine fecal material (another nice euphemism there, don't you think?) that I receive when posting ads.

I posted several quilts for sale, and haven't had any nibbles until I got this email (emails, actually, because I received the email 4 times on 4 separate items):

Hello,I will to come over and take a look at it,Please let me know if i could meet you around 6:30pm tomorrow.Where are you located?what is your contact Phone # to reach you? or email works fine - contact me at my email address below (elinaqwa@gmail.com). - Thanks

There are several reasons that I thought this was not a legitimate nibble. One of the things that Craig's List scammers are likely to do is to not mention the exact item in their email. Another thing is that very often the spelling, grammar, and punctuation is just slightly off.

My first reaction was that this was bushwa, bullshit, male bovine fecal material, a large steaming pile of what the bull left behind, but for shits and giggles I decided to play along.

Thank you for your interest in the quilts that I posted on Craigs List. I would be interested in showing them to you

I only replied to one of the emails, since they were all the same. Almost immediately I received this reply:

Hello Thanks for the swift response to my email... I am currently on a tight working schedule so I may not be able to come over to you..
I will be buying from you so please kindly withdraw the advert from so as not have people disturbing over the item and I will be giving you an additional $50 for keeping the item for me...
Please due my very busy working schedule , I will be paying with a Us Certified Check OR Cashiers Check from my Bank..
I will need the following details to mail the payment as soon as possible...

Name to be on the payment Check---------
Home address___
City____
State____
Zip Code_____
Cell phone #______
final price____

I will make arrangements for the pick up as soon as you have your money.. I am completely satisfied with the Item as posted in the advert and the payment will be delivered within 2-3 working days. I am an Hard of Hearing so I only take calls on an hearing impaired device or text messages ** N.B UPS does not deliver to a P.O box addresses.Thanks

Yes, certainly she is going to pay $150.00 per quilt (a total of $600.00) plus another $200.00 for 'keeping the item for her.' I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, so I take this with a grain of salt.

Again the language in her email is off. And in the first email she is all hot to come over and see the item, but in the reply she is all of a sudden 'on a tight working schedule' and 'may not be able to come over to you.'

'Please kindly withdraw the advert from' (from what?) 'so as not have people disturbing over the item.'

'Thanks for the swift response to my email' I took 4 full days to reply. LOL.

Again, she only refers to 'item' not the actual item. This is another clue that there's an attempted scam in the making.

'I will make arrangements for the pick up" -- why couldn't she pick the quilts up when she came over to see them as referenced in the first email?'

The final tip off to the scam is the request for all the details. The scammers do not use this information to actually issue a check but to try to steal your identity.

If a check is actually ever sent it will be either a stolen or forged money order/cashiers' check or will be stolen from someone else.