Should i buy an iphone on craigslist?

So i wanna get my mom an iphone 4 for xmas but I'm afraid she'll lose it so i wanna get her a cheap iphone worth $250 but I'm scared maybe its stolen or a scam. I have never bought anything for that site before n i don't wanna get her a new phone cuz she doesn't want a plan, we just do prepaid. So what do/can i do?

Just meet the person and test it out.

If it's cheap, it's probably stolen or has a bad ESN! Be careful.

Apparently 90% of used iPhones being sold online are stolen and worthless if you buy them. The ONLY way to buy safely is to offer to meet them at the store where they have their cell phone contract (Verizon, etc) then transfer the phone to your account right there in the store. If you can't do that, there's NOTHING that can let you know if the phone is stolen or not

No, it maybe much cheaper, but most of the mare reported stolen and you can't use it because it is locked by the store. What's more, they may have installed some anti-theft app like iKeymonitor which can help them track it back.

Learn more at: http://www.ikeymonitor.com

You'd better not to buy the iPhone on craigslist because the device might by tracked.
For example:
If the owner of the iPhone has set up Find My iPhone on his or her iPhone before it's lost or stolen. He/She can go to https://www.icloud.com/...cloud.com/ in their web browser. When he/she log in, Find My iPhone will immediately begin to locate the lost device.
Or if the owner applied some anti-thief app like iPhone spy on the iPhone. It will track all the activities on the phone, including SMS and call information. So it's not safe. Check it out, http://www.iphone-spy-software.com