Audiogon sellers, please stop and read this thread

I would avoid sending a direct email to these criminals. Depending on the email service that you are using, your IP address will often be embedded in the message properties. Someone who knows how will often be able to determine your town or city from that, with just a few mouse clicks (although they can also determine that from the zip code in your listing, of course). If your email address and your name both happen to appear on a web page somewhere, Googling the email address will reveal your name. Having all of that information will often allow your address and phone number to be determined.

Regards,
-- Al

From my experiences listing on C'list over the years (non-audio) these types of emails are all too common: it doesn't matter what you're offering, they follow the same pattern of misspellings, vagueness/lack of specificity relative to one's offering, punctuation gaffs, that over-funded cashier's check, etc. They often outnumber the legitimate contacts... more of an annoyance than anything else.

But why is this happening here now? The interesting thing to note from some of the previous posters is the appearance and increase in these scamming contacts subsequent to the change in this website's interface... is it something in the programming code that now allows automated "bots" to crawl the site, harvesting information in the ads and then generating the emails. Can anyone with an IT background here comment on this conjecture, or is this all done via direct, manual entry?

Here is the typical response one gets when you open the door for these guys:

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:11:46 +0100
Subject: Re: Rega Tone Arm
From: ongadegodson@gmail.com

Thanks for your corporation in this transaction, According to my financier, the check has already been mailed out by US postal service.I guess you know how to handle the check when it delivered to you.
But there was a lil mistake which I guess we can handle with honesty and trustworthiness.When i contacted my financier to know if the check have been sent, I got to know that there was a misinterpretation while sending the check. The problem occurred due to my tight schedule. Innitialy, I told him to issue out a check in your name for the actual amount of what I bought from you and have the rest written in the name of my shipping Agent, but in the process he made a mistake by sending all the money in your name. He claimed that I asked him to send the check to your name only, But that should not disturb our own transaction and I'm sure we would both handle this amicably.

Once you receive the check, Kindly deposit it into your account for appropriate verification as require by your financial institution, it will clear within 48hrs.
Then get the cash withdrawn from you account, deduct your money + $50 for yourself as run around expenses and forward the difference to my shipping agent via Western Union Money Transfer. The agent information will be sent along with the tracking number soon.
NB:

Please email at once to let me know if I can trust you to have the excess funds expedited to my mover upon the receipt of delivery of payment**
Thanks for the understanding and I will be waiting to read from you as soon as possible.
Warmest Regards,

James

I sent him the local FBI mailing address along with their phone number. Wish I could follow the trail on this one.

The responses all have a similar flavor and verbiage to them, and always feel suspect (esp if they are suggesting payment in any form of check). I have noticed too that I never got these with the old Audiogon, now it seems like I get at least one for every item I put up for sale. Audiogon must have somehow opened themselves up to the internet at large with the changes.

I have complained to Agon about this through their blog and directly via email -- they need to create an easy way through the interface for the seller to flag and report any suspicious offers as spam. Even Craigslist has this type of thing in place.

Al is also right -- never email them back.

Great response Operatenore. I hope someone can explain what is going on here. I kind of wish A'gon addressed this issue and then did something about it. They did want more ads to appear throughout the site with the upgrade.

THolt also brings up some good points about reporting this kind of acitivity for A'gon a lot easier. It should be easier and hopefully with more reporting A'gon can fix the problem.

Sad Craigslist has something better in place than A'gon for reporting.