Breaking Scam News

We've been seeing quite a few scams recently featuring "tricked out" motorcycles that are selling for a fraction of their blue-book price. These are scam listings.

One of the most basic rules of online classifieds that we like to prescribe is that if a listing seems too good to be true, it probably is. Remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

If you notice a listing like these, you should definitely alert us. One of the most helpful things you can also do is to mark the listing as "fraud" -- you can find the flagging tool in the listing's extended details. Our anti-scam technology changes daily and adapts to new scam trends; with the help of users flagging fraudulent listings, the technology can be more accurate and remove even more scams before they hit our listings.

For quite some time now, we have been compiling a list of known email addresses used by scammers. To keep scammers from changing their emails, this list is not public.

While our list is by no means comprehensive, it is one of many ways that we use user-supplied information to filter and remove scam listings from our database.

If you know of any known scammers or have seen scam listings, please tell us.

There are many words within listings that should raise red flags as to whether a listing is a scam or not. Here is a list of some of those "trigger words." It should be noted that there are some perfectly legitimate listings that have these terms; that, if you do see one of these words, you should always remember to tread carefully -- there is a chance that it is a scam.

• "Western Union," "escrow," or "Moneygram"
• Free (but must pay shipping)
• Any large sum of money being left to you by a foreign prince or king
• A need for a "secure deposit" before seeing the item
• Any African country

Here is the word-for-word text of a pet scam we found and removed today. The bold text indicates trigger words that allow us to easily identify scams.

YORKSHIRE TERRIER MALE FOR FREE Please we are looking for a home for our yorkie male.Our landlord is not approving of pets.Shipping would be involved.Puppy is not registered but is sound and upto date on shots and vaccines (name, phone number and email redacted)
Price: $0

This listing falls into the most common scam category: free item, but the buyer must pay shipping. Often, these scams are accompanied with the text "Our landlord..." or "I am relocating..."

If you flip through a newspaper, you're bound to read news about someone getting scammed online. We've done lots of research about these scams, and found that it's easier than you would imagine to avoid these types of situations. So spend some time on Oodle's Safety Center and familiarize yourself with simple steps to protect yourself, and read our breaking scam news regularly for up-to-the-minute scam findings updated the moment we learn about them.