How to avoid getting scammed on Craigslist

How to avoid getting scammed on Craigslist

Posted by Maxwell T. Manatee on Mar 25, 2021

If you're on Craigslist, Odd of hitting a scam are high: Be on the alert and don't get taken

If the price is too good to be true it probably is.
If you see the same ad over and over, you have to wonder.

If it's a potential employer, why can't they retain staff?

If it's a service provider, is their service so bad that they must rely on overposting to draw in customers?

If it's an item for sale, Why hasn't it been scarffed up already? Why can't the seller seem to get rid of his item[s]? He's overvalued his junk. It's obviously worth more to him than to the rest of the world. Don't waste your money. Let him keep the junk he loves so much.

Check the (location) field. Only do business with those who put the name of a local town in that field. If the (location) field is left blank, or contains some other nebulous verbiage -- (Great Deals) (Easy Finance) (We Deliver) (Low Mileage) or some place outside your Craiglist area, avoid them like the plague.

Avoid Posts that have ###rEaLly StRaNgE ### CaPiAlIzAtIon and unnecessary punctuation. I don't know why, but scammers love that stuff.

Posts that contain text in the images. This is hit or miss. A lot of legitimate businesses include text in their images. However, a lot of scammers will include bogus phone numbers and/or Hotmail or Gmail addresses. Those are huge red flags. These are information harvesters and you don't want them selling yours. In the Real Estate section there are ads with (855) phone numbers, these are also thieves. As are the scammers with the image of a drivers license with green text over it.

Businesses who post as owner. They've already proven to you their lack of business ethics by posting in violation.  Pass these liars by.

The local Fred Sanford wannabes. These are the folks who have a junk business and post the same junk several times a day, every day.

Flagging seems to have an undeserved stigma. It's okay to flag those who cannot abide by the terms of use. Help your friends and neighbors by flagging the offending posts. This clears CL up for the legitimate users and eventually sends a signal to the inconsiderate overposters. There are some specific offenders which should just instantly and automatically get flagged. In my area, these include some of the most egregious offenders:

Carvana -- I'm sure you've seen 'em. I know they ain't from around here, but 100s of out of are Spam posts every week.

Load Runner Trailers -- Give 'em a post and they'll take a page.

DoorDash __ We get it, really. You need drivers.

The "We buy junk cars" folks.

If you're concerned that you might accidentally flag a legitimate post, don't worry about it. It takes multiple flags for a post to get removed. Other people have to agree and flag that ad.

There are a few tricks to flagging efficiently in ways that are productive and make a difference.

Many overposters will place the same ad repetitively in multiple categories.Instead of searching sub categories like Cars+Trucks or Appliances. Search using the main headings like "For Sale" "Community" "Housing" "Services" or "Jobs". Use the search field on the CL home page for your area. Most overposters use boilerplate information like their business name, address are web address. Putting that information into the main search field makes it easy to round up all of the posts.

As for the out of area posters who just keep filling Craigslist up, I find them using the main search field. I flag all of their ads in this area, and all the others they're Spamming. They usually give up once they realize the futility of overposting.

Craigslist is a wonderful resource. All it really needs if a few people who care and want to keep it that way.

Are your posts consistently getting flagged off?

There are three main reasons why this happens.

1. You are just not smart enough to use Craigslist correctly.

2. You are unethical.

3. You're both.

Play nice. Post a conservative number of ads and only in the category they fit in the best. If you post the same ad in General, Furniture, and Household Items, you're just an inconsiderate asshole.

Count the number of postings you make. If you're posting more than 30 ads a month, you're taking up too much space. Take up a different hobby.