Shady Craigslist Sale - Server Sold October 20, 2010 01:29:53 PM
After many months of posting and countless price reductions, I finally sold my old rack mount server. It's aged but works great, has decent stats, and runs stable, it just takes up lots of space and plenty of electricity. It wasn't worth me keeping around. Anyway, this whole sale was shady from the beginning. When the buyer initially contacted me, he gave me a disconnected phone number, his email address had the word SCAM in it, he never once asked to see the server operate, he never even asked a single question about it or it's functionality, he just wanted my address to meet so he could pick it up right away.
Anxious to finally get this out of my closet, I agreed to sell it to him, but I wanted to meet in public, so I had him meet me at Publix, front and center before work. When I get there, we see each other from our car and wave. Neither of us get out. I get out and stand by my car cautiously, he starts signaling me to come over. I hold my ground. Eventually he gets out and moves toward me. I meet him half way and all seems ok so far. He spoke very little English, only Spanish. He was in his late 30s and had a rough face, like he lived a very hard life. He was wearing shorts down around his knees and a cammo tank top. We both head to my car and I get the server out of the back seat, hand him the box of accessories, and then we head to his car. He opens his trunk, I look around, in his car and in his trunk for someone who might try to jump me. I even hand the server to him to put into his own trunk so he can't try to push me inside. When it was time to pay me, he had to get back into his own car, I thought he was just going to drive away, then I thought, maybe he's getting a gun! But luckily he just pulls out a wet crinkled ball of cash and pays me my dues. Feeling a little better, I asked him again, what he plans on doing with it, he only says, 'Church'. I'm like OK, well good luck with that, I hope you know how to use it. Then we drove off in different directions. So all turned out ok I guess, but man was that the shadiest legit transaction ever! And church my butt, he probably found buyers for 10 times the amount I sold it for.
User:
Anonymous
COMMENT: If only you had his contacts to sell it at 10x the price. But, you must be glad just to get it out of your closet. And phew, thank god that transaction went well.