Gumtree is a city based classified advertisement website. It is free for everyone to use. All you have to do is go to Gumtree.com and it will automatically take you to your city's page in gumtree. If it gets it wrong for some reason, you can change the city you want.

Then you can browse from thousands of things available for sale, or you can sell something you have instead for free.

Things to watch out for in gumtree.

Practically anyone can make an advertisement in Gumtree, and no identification is kept, but just an email verification. This means that there are lot of dishonest things happening there.

Specially if you are looking for a used car. There are many genuine good cars there, but so many fake ones too.

What to do?

Safety first – never hand over any of your details, like credit cards, or paymate account or any thing connecting you to your finances. As for your address, be very careful.

Normally cheaters will not have any phone number for you to ring, they will be communicating by email. A genuine seller will generally agree to talk to you, and when there is a potential for sale, they will agree to meet in some public place or even at their premise.

Spot a Con – Is the seller trying to appeal to your emotions too much? Child is ill, wife has cancer, mother needs treatment, these are all from the book of tricks. People are often soft when approached emotionally and cons take advantage of that.

Another trick is that they wants to deal with a genuine buyer, so wants some verification information like Escrew account details, or home address and so forth. When there is no need for you to give these details away, dont.

Example – There was once a person who was selling an X-box 360 in gumtree. X-box 360 was new at the time and was a high demand item. The advertisement said that the man was selling it very cheap because he needed the money to buy christmas presents for his children. We emailed each other several times. He seemed like a nice guy except I can not do pick up. He lives about 300KMs away from whereI live. The mode of payment that he suggeted was bank deposit, and once the funds clear he will post the X-box 360 to me.

Guess what, he would not give me his phone number nor would he call me!

Please note – what I have said so far is only to raise some awareness. There are still many genuine items for sale on Gumtree, and is often worth a look.