Just a follow up to close out this thread: Trying to raise funds for the "Guzzi purchase" fund, I placed a Craigslist ad (in RI) for an old Suzuki I wasn't using (much). Within an hour, I received a reply asking/begging why I hadn't replied to, allegedly, multiple previous inquiries and offering me more than my asking price and imploring me to call him. His number was from California...This all seemed a bit odd to me (hence my post here asking if anyone knew of this outfit).
Then he sent another message with the name and contact of someone in the same town in RI who he had previously purchased a bike from and suggested I contact this person for a reference. Soon after this, I received a message from this person vouching for the guy in CA, followed by another message (from the same local guy):offering to buy the bike that day, cash, for slightly less than my asking price... At this point I called both the local guy and the guy in CA and together we mutually settled on the following: the guy in CA wired me the full amount he had offered (a small bump above my asking price), and I rode the bike over to the local guy's house where it could sit in his garage until the CA guy arranged shipping (this was necessary because I was leaving RI before shipping could be arranged).
Apparently, Classic Runners specializes in classic Japanese bikes that they resell in Japan... I'm still amazed by this- I was pretty sure it was a scam, but it all worked out just fine (I even found five pleading messages from the CA guy in the "promotions" folder of my email account...)
