Lots of all Craigslist ads are scams now

[dontwalkhand]

This stuff is all I see, and when you attempt to reply to it, you get nothing but some automated reply back to go buy your new item from some scam site or whatever. Is there even a good alternative anymore? Are we stuck using the Flea Bay again?

[thejadedmonkey]

It's 50 miles, hardly far for some people.

[SkyBell]

There's a decent amount of them out there these days for certain, but I'd say at least 90% of those scam ads are painfully transparent.

Or at least, I would really hope that the average person would know better than to trust this-


And that these scammers are just really persistent.

I mean, good lord, "swag" in the email address?!

[dontwalkhand]

Originally Posted by thejadedmonkey

It's 50 miles, hardly far for some people.

747.5 miles, not exactly what I call close, they used a bot to put up these scam ads in multiple city listings.

[SnowLeopard OSX]

I try to avoid Craigslist as much as I can. Usually nothing good comes from there.

[Plutonius]

Originally Posted by dontwalkhand

This stuff is all I see, and when you attempt to reply to it, you get nothing but some automated reply back to go buy your new item from some scam site or whatever. Is there even a good alternative anymore? Are we stuck using the Flea Bay again?

90% sounds excessive to me. Could you please link the study showing it's 90% ?

[stroked]

Originally Posted by Plutonius

90% sounds excessive to me. Could you please link the study showing it's 90% ?

90% might be an exaggeration, but I don't believe he meant it literally.

[Illuminated]

I still use CL to sell stuff. A lot of the replies I get are obvious scammers. They say they'll wire me the money (more than I ask for), in return if I could ship to an undisclosed location in Africa because there son is working in Africa.


But I am successful in selling stuff. Sold a bunch of my old Macs and other Apple products for cash.

[Plutonius]

Originally Posted by stroked

90% might be an exaggeration, but I don't believe he meant it literally.

Reading it again, I think you are correct. If it's not based on a study, the poster probably should have said "I believe xxx" in their post instead of stating it as a fact.

[63dot]

There are much more deceptive scams, in the job search business, with Intellius and even the EDD. The ones on CL are easier to spot.

If you are an employer, and you put stuff on CL you will get a lot of fake hits.

But the "more respected" sites like an Intellius (and many others) ask for personal information and it's places like this when I and friends and family have had my identity stolen and charges rung up. It finally took Wells Fargo Identity Theft to clear up the Intellius debacle with me.

The HR staffing field has taken too much to stealing people's info for their own purposes and charging up your credit card for "fees" and "memberships" and when they get slapped with class action by those fees or people who have their entire life savings emptied, then it's just a small cost of doing business. CL may have scams and more of them but the more dangerous ones go for your personal information where they can really stick it to you.

[stroked]

Originally Posted by Plutonius

Reading it again, I think you are correct. If it's not based on a study, the poster probably should have said "I believe xxx" in their post instead of stating it as a fact.

90% of statistics are made up.

[63dot]

Less than 90% percent of the time a team other than the Yankees win the World Series.

[malman89]

Originally Posted by 63dot

There are much more deceptive scams, in the job search business, with Intellius and even the EDD. The ones on CL are easier to spot.

If you are an employer, and you put stuff on CL you will get a lot of fake hits.

But the "more respected" sites like an Intellius (and many others) ask for personal information and it's places like this when I and friends and family have had my identity stolen and charges rung up. It finally took Wells Fargo Identity Theft to clear up the Intellius debacle with me.

The HR staffing field has taken too much to stealing people's info for their own purposes and charging up your credit card for "fees" and "memberships" and when they get slapped with class action by those fees or people who have their entire life savings emptied, then it's just a small cost of doing business. CL may have scams and more of them but the more dangerous ones go for your personal information where they can really stick it to you.

For many of the large metro areas (NYC, Chicago, Detroit, probably a bunch more but those are the only ones I can think of now) now charge for job postings (as of end of November, I think), so postings fell significantly overnight. Now I don't see any junk in those sections of CL.

That being said, while Detroit is $/post, Ann Arbor is still free, so now everyone just posts all their jobs (real or spam) in there for the entire Detroit Metro area, heh.

[HectorBrower85]

90% is an exaggerated percentage, but it's true that there are many worthless and scam listings these days.

[leftywamumonkey]

.

[adk]

I've had nothing but success lately buying and selling furniture on Craigslist this year. I've sold several large, heavy items (like air conditioners) and haven't received any scam messages.

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
I changed the title so as not to distract from the topic

[sk24iam]

I recently sold my iphone online so I wouldn't have to deal with all the scammers on craigslist. I avoided ebay and still made a great sale without being scammed.