opinion on replying to scammers fishing for personal info?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 19 Dec 2013 Posts: 12

Hey guys. So I bait/reply to a lot of scammers via Craigslist. And one fake post I see a lot is one that asks you to send them a resume. (Obviously fishing for personal info...) What's your guy's opinion on sending a fake resume or trying to engage them?

I feel like it is pointless to engage these scammers. Once the post is seen, damage is done. Unwitting victims send in their legit resumes! Crying or Very sad

I just flag these posts as soon as I see them.

Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 9:36 am

Welcome prettylittleliarxo,

Scammers of all sorts ask for personal information, but for reasons that vary across scams. The ones asking for a resume, presumably they are "work from home" or "apply for a job" scams? In those cases the resume is probably just filler material necessary to build a convincing scam story - if you send them a fake resume full of made-up information there will probably be little harm in that. If so, I would suggest not spending much time at all on it, and in fact you could just type a "resume" into the body of your email rather than preparing one separately.

Other times they may ask for your bank details, for example scams where victims expect to receive some kind of payout. Again they are not usually likely to use this info but instead use it to develop the story (it makes sense to give your bank details in order to "receive a transfer").

Trying to engage them - to me that's one of the biggest parts of what scam baiting is all about. Yes definitely report their ads when you see them..... but that doesn't help with the hundreds of ads put up by the same scammer that you may not come across (although you can find them once you recognise patterns in their ads).

So trying to get individually involved with the scammer and waste their time, report any bank accounts or fake sites they might be using, etc, can prove more effective than just reporting their ads when you see them. It's also a good way to get a better understanding how different kinds of scams work, to help raise awareness about how to avoid them. So I disagree that engaging them is pointless (although depending on the scammer it may be hard to get them off track).

That is not to discourage you from reporting fake ads - I agree the damage is done as soon as an ad has been seen.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 19 Dec 2013 Posts: 12

Thanks for the input!

It didn't cross my mind that the resume might be just filler material...

Hmmm, well, I'm going to try to bait one of these such CL ads and see what happens. I have issues with a lot of these lads not even replying to my bait. Confused

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