In an attempt to cut down on back alley Craigslist deals gone awry, Milwaukee cops are opening the doors of one police station to quell the surge of recent robberies by having transactions go down under the station’s roof. Better there than behind the dumpster at the gas station, right? [More]
craigslist
Craig Newmark Talks To Us About SOPA: "Things Can Go Bad Real Fast"
By 1.18.12
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has been a vocal opponent of SOPA and PIPA with good reason: According to Newmark, if the bills as currently written were passed into law, “any site with any kind of user provided content could be shut down easily. For example, Wikipedia, Amazon, craigslist. Any media site with commenting.” In an email interview with Consumerist, Newmark (who is also a member of the Board of Directors of our parent company) warned that, despite White House opposition, and recent changes to the bills to limit DNS filtering, consumers should still be concerned. [More]
Friends Of Rental Scam Victims Go Undercover To Nab Scammer
By 12.7.11
A couple in California recently got taken for several hundred dollars by a woman pretending to be a landlord. So to help catch the baddy, a pair of friends went undercover to help police nab the alleged scammer. Thankfully, a news crew was also there to get it on videotape. [More]
Southwest Passenger Uses Craigslist To Track Down Stolen Laptop
By 11.3.11
This story is useful in two ways. First, as an example of how you can utilize freely available online tools to help yourself when others won’t. And second, as yet another example of why you should never, ever check your laptop on a flight. [More]
Man Finds Parts Of His Stolen 1949 Ford Shoebox On Craigslist
By 10.21.11
Craigslist is a great place to find stuff. Like parts from the 1949 Ford Shoebox that was stolen from your driveway. [More]
Photographer Looking For People To Do Their Jobs For Free
By 10.11.11
Deciding to turn the tables, one Atlanta photographer has posted an ad to the talent gigs section of Craigslist looking for people to do their jobs for him for free. “I am a photographer and since people are always looking for free shoots I assume that they must also do their job, or provide their services, for free,” the post reads. “Just think, you will gain more experience, and I will put the word out for you and let everyone know what wonderful work you do.” Here’s the full ad. [More]
If Your Craigslist Ad Says "Everything's Free," Don't Be Shocked When People Start Stealing Your Stuff
By 6.10.11
A woman in Boulder, CO, has learned a tough lesson about being more precise with the wording of her Craigslist ads… and about locking her house, after her plan to give away some unwanted items devolved into looting. [More]
Craigslist Isn't Giving Away $1000 Apple Gift Cards, Either
By 3.2.11
We’ve already established that Craigslist isn’t giving away free iPads to randomly selected people who post ads. But the weird scam just keeps going. Uyen first received the “Free iPad” e-mail after posting an ad on Craigslist, but realized that it was clearly too good to be true, did some research, and found Consumerist. Yay! Then someone–no one is quite sure who–sent a follow-up e-mail with a different, but inexplicably more lucrative deal. Sorry, kids, but cynical Uyen is right: this one’s too good to be true, too. [More]
Craigslist Says "Cesspool" Study Is "False And Defamatory"
By 2.25.11
A new study calls Craigslist a “cesspool” of crime — a study that Craiglist says was paid for by the competition and which it calls “false and defamatory.” [More]
Ignore People On Craigslist Asking You To Halve Your Prices
By 2.17.11
One of the first annoying things you figure out when you try to sell a few things on Craigslist is that there’s these people who just seem to go around asking you to halve your price. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling or what the price is, invariably someone pops up and says “How about half? I’ll pick it up tonight.” Over at Blogging Away Debt she talks about how she said no to one of these price choppers, even though her husband got angry. Then she ended up relisting at a higher price and selling it. Win! [More]
Craig Newmark Isn't Giving You A Free iPad, Either
By 2.3.11
Well, darn. It looks like the Craigslist iPad scammers took our advice. These enterprising folks would pose as the company CEO, e-mail Craiglist posters, informing them that they had won a free iPad. Of course, the name they used wasn’t even the CEO of Craigslist, and free iPad might arrive only when the “winner” completes a bunch of affiliate-payout offers. Now the scamsters are using the name of Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. He’s not giving you an iPad, either. [More]
Build Your Own Home Gym For Cheap With Craigslist
By 1.25.11
Getting in shape this year needn’t require a gym membership. A reader over at the New York Times Bucks Blog sent in info and pictures about the home gym he built almost entirely from equipment scavenged off Craigslist. [More]
This Used Car Ad Is Totally Tubular
By 12.1.10
Madison Ave, take some copywriting lessons from this radical used car ad: “Looking for a car with a sweet tape deck and a radio with five pre-sets? A car that needs new brakes and maybe some action under the hood?…Than this is the car for you! [sic]” [More]
No, The Craigslist CEO Is Not Sending You A Free iPad
By 11.17.10
A. is selling a washer/dryer on Craigslist, and received an amazing e-mail from the CEO himself. They’re doing a drawing to choose random users to send free iPads to–no strings attached! Well, except that you have to complete a bunch of affiliate offers to get the “free” iPad. And for some reason the CEO of Craigslist uses a Hotmail address. And has changed his name from Jim Buckmaster to Herman Fischer.
Hmm. Maybe something is wrong here.
What A Work At Home Job Scam Looks Like
By 11.15.10
Fraudsters are trying to take advantage of the unemployed in the bad economy by posting enticing work at home job ads. But what you’re really signing up for is to be the rube in an advance fee fraud scheme. Here’s the email one job-seeker got back. Bear in mind this is the first contact back from the “employer” after sending in her resume. All spelling and spacing is sic. [More]
Best Buy Sells Something On Craigslist
By 10.28.10
Reader Coco spotted a Craigslist ad that seems to have been made by a Best Buy employee desperate to get rid of an open-box item that’s stuck on its shelves. [More]
Scammer Flips Free Kitties For Profit
By 9.21.10
A Park Slope woman who gave away her kittens on Craigslist was later shocked and aghast – a common affliction among Park Slope residents – to see the buyer posting an ad trying to sell the very same kittens, even though her ad said that if the buyer wasn’t going to keep the kittens themselves, they were to return them to her. Turns out the woman she gave them to is a serial “cat flipper.” [More]
Craigslist Removes "Censored" Box From Home Page
By 9.10.10
About a week ago, the folks at Craigslist replaced the link to its controversial Adult Services section with a non-clickable black box containing the word “censored.” At some point in the last day, the site has removed the box, but hasn’t resurrected the section the box had been covering up. [More]
