A man told police he was trying to make a post-Christmas iPhone sale when he was jumped and possibly pepper sprayed by the potential buyer in a Broadway parking lot Monday night.
According to SPD, the victim said he arranged to meet a man who said he was interested in buying his iPhone at Broadway and Thomas late Monday night. The victim said the man told him he needed to go to his car during the transaction so the victim followed him to a parking lot just west of Broadway. In the parking lot, the buyer called out and the victim said he was suddenly jumped by a group of two to four people. Despite having something burning sprayed in his eyes and being punched, the man managed to hang onto his phone but lost his wallet to the thieves who fled the area.
The man went to a nearby location to call police and report the crime but a search of the area did not turn up the suspects. The fake buyer was described only as a black male, 5’11”, in his twenties.
The victim suffered cuts on his forehead and two black eyes but declined medical attention.
Thomas and Harvard…
Who would go to a parking lot on a “late Monday night” to do any kind of transaction with someone they didn’t know? I’m sorry the seller got attacked, but where was his common sense?
Do not let strangers from Craigslist into your house or meet them anywhere unsafe. If I sell furniture, I drag it out into the hall. Always take someone with you if possible!
If they didn’t get his phone why did he go to a nearby location to the call police? Craigslist is sketchy and I hope these scumbags get caught.
I wouldn’t sell my old phone with my SIM card still activated.
I don’t trust CL for anything that requires face to face of expensive items. Small items should always go via ebay, i’ve sold all my old cell phones, tablets, etc. and have had no problems.
Face to face in a sketchy parking lot? Uh, no. Not saying he deserved anything bad to happen, but come on, have a little common sense.
If you’re going to do a serious transaction for a serious piece of merchandise you need to do it in some place with people around, a Starbucks or some such. Doing it on the street in a parking lot is an invitation to be mugged.
There would have been a phone or email exchange before they met, so it’s seems like it would be fairly easy to track these losers down, no?
An IP address at best, with no link to a real identity.
Aren’t we seeing a definite pattern, with all these recent muggings?….same object of theft (I-whatever) and same race of perpetrator. The latter is the “elephant in the room.” And now, by pointing out the obvious, I fully expect to be accused of racism.
“It ain’t racist if it’s true.”