So I posted an ad on Craigslist:

iPad 16G + Wifi + AT&T 3G with bonus leather case – $400

With pictures and descriptions and trying to put together a good reason why people should give me $400, et cetera. A surprising number of people contacted me almost immediately, and a surprising number of people somehow assumed a “2″ after “iPad”, including the guy who actually met me at a Starbucks and suddenly came to the realization that it’s not what he thought it was. That was embarrassing for both of us, but at least he had the comfort of walking away with four hundred dollars.

After that, I added an image next to the ipad images:

But it didn’t prevent this text conversation with a prospective buyer an hour after I posted it. Bold is his, italics mine:

: Ipad?

Yeah, just that. So:

: Ipad.

: Is to be reading image in ad which clearly answers that question

Somehow that was the conversation killer.

But I expect stupid; what really surprised me were the number of scam attempts I got. I mean, Craigslist warns about this plenty, but I was never exposed to it, possibly because I’d never tried selling anything on Craiglist over $200. One guy was, I dunno, he actually lives in Wisconsin! But he’s here until tomorrow morning and flying back from O’hare! And he really wants to see it right now but I need to bring it down to his friend’s house near the intersection of Shady and Scary in the next hour! If I don’t have a car he’d be glad to pay cab fare!

Another one, well…

: U still have the ipad forsale??

: Can u call or ...cause i am trying to make purchase right now.

I know it’s Christmas Eve and someone might be in a hurry for present reasons, but. I learned a long time ago that being pressured into fast money transactions doesn’t generally go well for me.

: On a phone call, can't right now, sorry

: Ok well ill jus buy someone elses thanx

I figure a guy in so much of a hurry that he has to go on to the next ad RIGHT NOW probably doesn’t really need to take the time to text a snarky reply, so. He probably was hoping I’d return with Sorry! I’ll bring it over right now if you’ll pay for my cab fare to the intersection of Creepy and Stabby! I mentally wished him well, since I didn’t want to spend a dime on the text message to do so directly.

But the most interesting was this one:

: iPad 16G + Wifi + AT&T 3G with bonus leather case - $400 What is your best offer?

: Good to read from you and i believe we can continue on this transaction because i don't like to beat around the bush and am not here for games, I am buying this item for my spouse located Colorado but on association and institution drive oversea i will be responsible for the shipping and handling cost, meanwhile i will offer you $640 USD, let me know if you are okay with my offer. Regards

Whoa, what? I mean, okay, obviously something scammy. Not only does Craigslist go through a lot of trouble telling you that a request to ship stuff is probably a scam, but I can’t imagine what Google Translate knockoff gave them “on association and institution drive oversea”. (Best I could guess, he meant he was on an overseas business retreat, maybe?) But the part I was really curious about…

: You're offering 640 for something I listed at 400?

: Yeah....just cover up the shipping and handling fees including tax and insurance if you think it's too much as i am not familiar with the USPS/EMS shipping issue you can just make the calculation your self let me know if you would be able to do that please get back to me

Okay, so the $640 is just the hook to make me greedy enough to not think about it too much. Greedy enough not to wonder why a guy overseas just for a business trip would think shipping an iPad costs over two hundred dollars.

Craigslist also says quite a lot about not trusting anyone who says they’ll send a money order or wire money or whatever. So I was curious further.

: And how would you send payment?

: Okay...Am gonna make the payment upfront kindly get back to me with your paypal verified email address so that i can arrange for the payment

Huh, Paypal. Interesting angle. I bet people probably inherently trust that receiving Paypal money is as good as getting money in the bank, but I’ve heard some stories about Paypal being really irritating lately.

I did a little research around the web, and came to the conclusion that what these scammers do is actually transfer the money, but after you send the item, they complain to Paypal that they never received it. It seems like Paypal generally just refunds the money, takes it back from the seller, ignores all seller protests to the contrary, and calls it a day. So if I were to actually fall into this, I’d get the $640, send the ipad, and then probably be forced into giving the $640 back in a week (either through my Paypal balance or my required-to-be-linked bank account).

Okay, so. I’m curious again…but this time I’m wondering how far I can push this.

: It turns out the USPS/EMS issue to Colorado is higher due to interstate shipping tarriffs, I need $980 USD (only)

He doesn’t reply until the next day. It was late, though I don’t know what time zone he was in. The texts were coming from a 213 number, but who knows where he actually was. Anyway, I got up the next morning, and there’s this message waiting:

: No.. you are shipping it to my friend in Africa and i will pay you that amount just get back to me with your paypal verified email address so that i can make payment asap

Man, this was less than 12 hours later and he already got his stories mixed up. Sloppy.

: Congrats on your wife's recent trip to africa. Owing to export tarriffs to africa that means it'll cost $1328.95

: Okay kindly get back to me with your paypal money request to my email at victormeires@gmaill.com

sk0re! Over three times my asking price! Okay, let’s seal the deal.

: Okay I will do that directly thank you for not beating around bushes and happy holidays to you and your wives in africa and colorado

Then I wait a half hour, ostensibly setting that up, but wouldn’t you know I hit a snag.

: Oh no... Owing to Paypal tarriffs and fees, the price for the 16G/3G ipad 1 would be $1548.63 USD only. Do you accept (Y/N)

: ok...keep me posted

Heh, much shorter response, this time. Maybe he’s all “Come on, you stupid fat American, send money already.”

At this point I’m almost actually wondering. What if I sent him a money request? Not that I would plan to keep the money, obviously — I’m just curious if I’d actually get a $1548.63 deposit in my Paypal account. But 1) I don’t know if Paypal sucks so hard that even if I returned the money right away, they’d have some way of making it unpleasant for me, and 2) for all I know the scam’s somewhere I can’t see, like maybe just the fact that he gets my Paypal-verified email address gives him something.

Still. I’d pretty much run out the escalating price path. If he said okay to $1500, he’d say okay to $650,000, so there’s no point taking that further. What else could I do?

At some point while all this was going on, I thought, hm this is costing me a couple bucks in texting fees, but it’s worth it for the entertainment. And as I was trying to work out next steps, I thought, how could you reverse a scam? Not like I’m Oceans 11 over here, but just a guy with a cellphone, in what way could I scam a scammer?

Then, oh, both thoughts at once gave me an idea.

: Thank you I have spent $3 in texting charges organizing this transaction, if you are agreeable I would like to send you a request for that amount as a sign of good faith that you are a trustworthy person, thank you and god bless

: Okay...let me know as soon as you send it

So that would be pretty awesome if that worked. Not only would I recoup my costs, but $3 would likely be under Paypal’s resource threshhold, and I’d have a great story. But I was worried…like I said, maybe the scam’s somewhere out of my view, and just the act of engaging him via Paypal at all puts me in harm’s way.

So I sleep on it, and the next morning I decide I gotta see this through. I go to Paypal and write up a carefully worded money request. Not “carefully worded” in any sense like protecting me from legal/TOU issues, but…well, with the assumption that if some grumpy Paypal agent is reading the transaction in the near future, I want it as clear as possible that I’m not receiving money for something that I was supposed to do in the future, I’m collecting money for something that happened in the past.

Even so, I stared at that and worried for ten minutes. No matter how well I worded it, some angry, indifferent Paypal dude could still zap me somehow. And I still might have been missing something. But I decided to wing it anyway. Just to be safe, I changed my password to a crazy-hard 19-character digital mess, and sent it off.

No response for much of the day, but finally about 8 hours later (hey, maybe I just figured out what timezone he’s in, come to think of it), I got this somewhat agitated response.

: WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SEND ME TO PAY FOR YOUR TEXTING AM GETTING CRAZY IT SEEMS YOU MAD OKAY

Whew. Okay that’s worlds better than “ha ha, fat Yankee dog, I now empty your bank account”. Or my bank sending me a letter saying “Dear Mr. Yankee Dog, you are now legally required to ship your house to Chechnya.”

I replied back saying “hey, you agreed, please owing to transaction and etc., god bless and regards” but that was the last I heard from him. I guess I was lucky enough to exactly hit his $1548.63 limit for my $400 ipad, but I got greedy. That extra three bucks was just too much of a risk for him and I was so close.

Rob Balder (erfworld): Man is he into his topic. Has a lot to say about art, story, audience, philosophy, combat, game theory, and the Dark Knight movie. I think this guy could possibly out-talk my father. I could’ve tested that theory but I finally decided to release him from the trap of my being willing to listen to him.*

David Malki (wondermark): To his credit, tolerated me.

Kris Straub (starslip): Whooo did not. I tried not to let this cow me for the rest of the show but unfortunately I let it set a cloud over my head.

Ryan Sohmer (least I could do): I recognized his comic and shook his hand and got out of there before awkward pauses.

Joel Watson (hijinks ensue): Didn’t know the comic beforehand, but I saw this shirt the day before, and the memory of it kept making me giggle after I went home, so I decided it was too goddamn awesome to leave behind. Talked to him for a little while and continued about 15 seconds after I started making it weird, and then had the good sense to get out of there.

Shannon Saar (wighthouse): draws a ghost comic which may, someday, contain a ghost.

Chris Hallbeck (the book of biff): Cheerful, friendly! Bought a book. Could only afford one, and I decided to ask, which should I buy if I were getting one? Wasn’t sure if that was going to be awkward (like why do people ask waitresses, “what is good?”), but he pointed right to one and I grabbed it.

Zach Weiner (SMBC): Fuckin’ awesome! Man he was cheerful and friendly and excited and I felt comfortable being an idiot in front of him and he high-fived me and drew me a sketch of a brain in a jar wearing a top hat. Really wish I could’ve spent time with him, we would’ve had fun. He was with the Cyanide and Happiness booth, but I didn’t feel right going over there because I haven’t read enough of it.

David Willis (shortpacked): Was also friendly. I miscalculated by trying to get him to make a cynical comment about the guy in the next booth over, but he was too polite to partake. On sunday I noticed the shirt he was selling (no direct link to the shirt, it’s the green one lower left), and experience with the previous shirt told me I would wind up giggling at it that night when I got home, so decided I’d better buy it.

*Did this come across as snarky? I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that he’s really willing to talk and I’m an attentive listener.

NOT PICTURED:

Jeph Jacques (unquestionable thingy): spent as much time managing his sketch-selling line as thinking about storming up and saying christ man what’s so wrong with Scribs that you don’t wanna take my money for ads.

KC Green (gunshow ‘n stuff): oh I saw him, he looked fun, but I didn’t really have anything useful to say to him and he was too close to the (entirely internal and not really Malki’s fault) Malki Tolerance Zone to be comfortable enough to go all “hey man, like your work” on him. Though right now I’m wishing I had told him how excellent Ghost Ship was, but eh I’m sure he was hearing that all weekend anyway.

Though I’m trying out drawing teeth in my cartoon mouths, which I don’t typically do, and it feels weird. I feel like I drew dentures on myself.

It wasn’t until after #249 went live that I realized I’ve probably been staring at these ads for too long. I wonder if the next Scribs in that series is going to be about a magical fuzzhat, or something.

I got a few entries for that non-contest I started last week! Which is cool, though I will tell you that if it was a contest, I’d totally be winning.

Debb and I went to Costco a few weeks ago and bought a box of Chex Mix bars to have as snacks; we’re both working on losing weight, and keeping bad stuff out of the house, but these were 130 calories each and we’re not anti-snack-food commies. But we weren’t enjoying them, they’re too salty and generally unpleasant, but we’re also cheap and have difficulty not eating something we’ve bought. But in the end we decided to eat the loss instead, and I took the box to work to let the locust swarm take them.

And take them they did…there were about 30 in the box and they lasted for just over 24 hours. But just before they all went, I put up a sign. Sorry about the crappy pic, I had to borrow someone’s cellphone.

<spinn> I’m pretty sure if obama made them all magically shit money they’d complain it itches

I’ve been using the phrase “Geek wins!” a lot recently. It’s my summarized victory speech after I puzzle out a particularly tricky computer problem, or get around someone else’s technology road blocks to get what I want. The latter category’s generally petty and nearly more a testament to my stubbornness rather than my brain, but life’s just a set of word problems to me anyway, so I’ll still add it to the big board.

Here’s an example. Today, Greg posts a link to a Tom the Dancing Bug comic.

I click. There’s a comic. A fun time for all.

I say hey, you know what, I haven’t seen TtDB comics in a while, I wonder what’s been happ’nin’.

I click and the page starts loading.

Then suddenly, the page goes black.

I hear the primal screech of a 300 baud modem: this has offended my geek ancestors. I can’t explain why the extra O in “Ooops!” irritated me exactly; probably invoked the sarcastic, drawn-out version. “OoooOOooops! Did *I* accidentally pour Tabasco in your soda when you weren’t looking?? I am SO sorry!” *tee hee, giggle-run to daddy’s Porsche*

That, and the basic premise that you’re not a Genius until you sign up on their site. Yeah, bitch, it’s go time.

Let’s see what you got, exactly.

Oh say what’s this here?

Oh ooops, what did I do?? Oh, yeah, I reached into your brain and made you forget the number twelve. Please sign up here to give me your lunch money.

Geek wins.