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Advice on how to handle awkward Craigslist encounter?
I am trying to do some work on my car myself to avoid taking it into the shop and it costing $300, so I put a Craigslist ad in the “labor” section asking if anyone would able to help me do the work on the car for $40. I received a ton of responses. I responded to the best response, which was thorough (several paragraphs), very well-written and the guy seemed very eager and interested in helping me. I suggested we meet yesterday at 6:30, and he didn’t respond until the next day. However I didn’t see his response until much later. In his response he said he would go ahead and meet me at 6:30, which seemed strange to me as I had never confirmed the meeting. I e-mailed him at 6:15 asking him to call me, so we could work out the details (perhaps re: meeting at 6:30) but he didn’t call until 10:15, which also seemed inappropriately late to make a phone call. He left a voice mail (calling from an anonymous number—which is also sketchy) asking “what happened?” as he had apparently waited for me for an hour, which seemed quite strange as I had never confirmed the arrangement. He then called me again at 7 am this morning, which seemed very intrusive, and asked where I was. I blew him off gently, being caught off guard with his voice mail at 10pm and phone call at 7am) saying I would give him a call later regarding rescheduling, but at this point I don’t feel comfortable; this guy seems creepy and way too overzealous about helping me, and I don’t like the fact that it’s apparently his policy to use an anonymous number. The only problem is, I told him in my e-mail that I wanted to meet up with him, and so I am worried he is going to flip out on me and potentially become dangerous or do something strange, as perhaps this could be viewed as “rescinding” my acceptance of his offer. I also feel very stupid because I responded to his email with my normal email address, which has my full name and phone number, as I had forgotten to forward his email to my “Craigslist e-mail account” which only has my first name. Any thoughts on how to handle this? I want to tell him it’s not going to work out, but he seems way too eager and industrious to let this one go; I am also concerned (and have learned my lesson) about the fact that he now has my name and phone number.
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