Texting question

[kenny]

I'm selling something on Craigslist, aka CL.
CL has a system that allows a buyer to email a seller, but the emails go through CL.
That way the buyers never see the seller's email address, nice for privacy reasons.

I got an email from a buyer asking me to text him at [email protected]

Uhm, I thought texts can only be sent to a phone number, not to an email address.

Please educate me.

 

[MeowMeow]

Hmm I tried it out on my phone but to my husband. When I select new message it offers his phone numbers (all of them) and the choice to send an email. If you choose email it will make it a multimedia message. I don't use this function but depending on your phone it is possible

 

[kenny]

Hmm I tried it out on my phone but to my husband. When I select new message it offers his phone numbers (all of them) and the choice to send an email. If you choose email it will make it a multimedia message. I don't use this function but depending on your phone it is possible

Thanks.
My phone is a cheapo $49 Nokia 3310, not even a smartphone.
My plan is talk and text only, no data, no internet access; I can't even send a picture.

 

[MeowMeow]

Ah tho

Thanks.
My phone is a cheapo $49 Nokia 3310, not even a smartphone.
My plan is talk and text only, no data, no internet access; I can't even send a picture.

Ah those are awesome phones. I miss my old Nokia. Those phones like that are such tanks compared to phones now.

 

[kenny]

Meow Meow, I'm sure my phone/plan can't do that advanced function.

But the question remains, why would he tell me to text him at an email address?
Did he make a mistake by:
1. giving his email address instead of his cellphone number?
2. using the term 'text' instead of email?

Or, is this just the latest terminology that I have to learn?

Next, if yours can move the words of an outgoing text into email format and send that, does the recipient get a text on their phone or an email that they can access on their phone or their computer?

If so, then I should be able to just reply to his email on my computer, right?

 

[Tekate]

some computers allow texting to an email account.

Meow Meow, I'm sure my phone/plan can't do that advanced function.

But the question remains, why would he tell me to text him at an email address?
Did he make a mistake by:
1. giving his email address instead of his cellphone number?
2. using the term 'text' instead of email?

Or, is this just the latest terminology that I have to learn?

Next, if yours can move the words of an outgoing text into email format and send that, does the recipient get a text on their phone or an email that they can access on their phone or their computer?

If so, then I should be able to just reply to his email on my computer, right?

 

[kenny]

some computers allow texting to an email account.

Thanks.

So am I correct in assuming if I use a computer (instead of texting them on a high end smartphone's email feature) to email them at the given email address it will reach them?

Or might there be something about the email address he gave me that makes it only accept email sent from a smartphone as "text".

It's all so f-ing complicated and confusing.
Someone just shoot me, please.

 

[Tekate]

My friend has a supersonic unbelievable Iphone (we are android people and our phones are 3 years old).. I can text to her email and she get's it.. but it doesn't work on my old phone. I think it's te phone not the email address, probably an app. Her phone was like 1.2K forget that ugh. Wish my husband were up - he's a king at selling on Craigs list, it's like betting to him (he's a potential gambler anonymous if not for me). He dealt with emails and texts, he got so good he could tell on the first text who was a real potential buyer. Sorry I am of no further help.

Thanks.

So am I correct in assuming if I email their given email address from a computer it will also reach them?
Or might there be something about the email address he gave me that makes it accept email only sent from a smartphone as "text".

It's all so confusing.

 

[kindred]

If someone wants you to bypass the CL relay system and contact them through an outside e-mail address like Gmail, they're usually a scammer.

I sometimes text from my cell phone to my husband's work e-mail address because I don't have e-mail set up on my cell. I can do this with my Verizon MNVO but I could not when I used an AT&T MNVO.

 

[kenny]

Thanks for the heads up, kindred.
I'll stay extra on-guard with this guy.

FWIW, the email address I used to contact him has none of my correct personal info on it.

 

[dk168]

I have not used CL so I cannot comment.

However I use eBay a lot, and if someone asks me to communicate or conduct the transactions privately then I would say no.

DK

 

[missy]

I have never used Craigslist but would advise you not to text or communicate outside of CL for your safety. To answer your question some computers/phones can text to email addresses.

 

[MeowMeow]

Meow Meow, I'm sure my phone/plan can't do that advanced function.

But the question remains, why would he tell me to text him at an email address?
Did he make a mistake by:
1. giving his email address instead of his cellphone number?
2. using the term 'text' instead of email?

Or, is this just the latest terminology that I have to learn?

Next, if yours can move the words of an outgoing text into email format and send that, does the recipient get a text on their phone or an email that they can access on their phone or their computer?

If so, then I should be able to just reply to his email on my computer, right?

Okay so assuming it's not a scam to try and get you to share personal information by sending him an email from your phone. It may just be a misuse of terminology. He could be like me and primarily use a smart phone for everything and therefore texting him an email would potentially make sense to him. I only have time to get on my actual computer for like a couple hours at night and that's it. So I use my phone like a mini laptop during the day. I just don't use that terminology. I say sending an email.

However!! It sounds scammy to me and I wouldn't want to extend the benefit of the doubt and email him just because I don't know exactly how much personal information can be transmitted in an email besides name and email. I know you've said you removed as much as you possibly can from your personal email. I'm just kinda paranoid about strangers somehow figuring out how to get my location or IP or something so I keep my email addresses to myself as much as I possibly can.

For your last question. I believe they would get an email. I just tried it out on myself. The email I got shows my phone number and asks me to download the message to read it. Now my phone is only about a year old Android so it has many functions that older phones do not. I am admittedly over paranoid though and disable many because of heartworm or heartbeat or whatever it was awhile back. I made the setting choice have to choose to download certain things like pictures and videos or other multimedia so I didn't try to go any further other than opening the mail since I sent it from me to myself. Someone else's phone would possibly just let them read the message straight away.

If I were you I would skip this guy and stick to any messaging system craigslist provides. (If they have any?) But again I'm pretty paranoid so yeah.

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

We do this at work. You can send an email from text. It will show the phone number it was sent from.

 

[kenny]

You guys were right.
It was a scam.

I know because this morning there was an incoming email from this scammer.
It asked for all my personal info, and added $50 to my asking price for my trouble.
Pfffff!

Next, there was another identical email, again asking me to text to a gmail address but this time the address was totally different.

I'm just glad I didn't use my main email account, rather I used one I set up under a fake name for this purpose.

Thanks agin.
Live and learn.

 

[OoohShiny]

Thanks for the heads up, kindred.
I'll stay extra on-guard with this guy.

FWIW, the email address I used to contact him has none of my correct personal info on it.

Kenny - look at Protonmail if you would like more security for your email. They are based in Switzerland so have stricter privacy laws, and (IIRC) if you choose an email address with a protonmail.ch ending (rather than protonmail.com) the US can't access it at all.

 

[kenny]

Thank you, I'll check it out.

 

[arkieb1]

If you have no luck maybe try Ebay instead although they charge pretty decent fees these days for the listing and a % of the sale.

Just make sure that you get paid for the item before you send it or allow someone to collect it. If it's not large ie you can post it or meet someone somewhere to sell it then I'd never give out a personal address sometimes people are scammers (trying to get your personal information so they can either scam you out of money or use your identity for fraud) sometimes they just want to find out your address so they can rob you, so do be careful!!!

My husband has just experienced a case of identity theft. He had his BMW X5 listed for sale on the largest used car site in Australia. The police contacted him, turns out some people stole a different BMW but made fake plates the same as my husband's car and have been carrying out robberies all over the city I live in, in the stolen car with the fake plates. They have speed cameras, red light cameras and so on with photos of a car that is the same colour and make of BMW (so it looks like my husband's car) with the fake plates (the same as his car) on it all over the city where we live.

The police took photos of my husbands car and the real plates and my husband was so disgusted he put his old personalised number plates back on the car. I'm glad he took his personalised number plates off and bought a new set of generic plates which are the ones that were copied, when he decided to sell the car. So we are lucky the plates they copied are the cheap generic ones, not his expensive personalised plates which he was keeping to put on a new car.

 

[kenny]

Thanks ark.
I'll be careful.