The seller's last message arrived at 11:47 p.m. on a Tuesday. Philodendron spiritus-sancti, six-leaf plant, established in sphag, $1,400, Zelle only, ships tomorrow if you decide tonight. Three blurry photos: one of a leaf, one of the pot from above, one screenshot of what was supposedly the same plant six months ago. No grower tag in frame. No timestamp on the leaf shot. The account was nine weeks old and followed forty-two people, most of them other rare-plant accounts that had not followed back.
I read the thread twice and went to bed. By morning the listing was gone, the account was gone, and a friend in Atlanta was out $1,400. None of the warning signs were exotic. They were the same signs that have been there in every bad deal I have watched fall apart over the last decade. The trouble is they look, at the moment of decision, almost exactly like the texture of a good deal: a little urgency, a little informality, a price that requires nerve.