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Old 01-04-2012, 03:01 PM
 
831 posts, read 2,821,647 times
Reputation: 733

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How can scammers continue to get away with posting these obviously bogus ads at CL.
There's no way these apts. even exsist. They're all too good to be true.
I'm looking all over the internet for a place and I keep getting links to CL only for it to be a scam from the same company. I won't fall for it, but I feel bad for others who do. My sister did last year and lost $150 to a company that took her $$$.

I keep clicking the spam button next to the ads but they continue to appear by the thousands everyday.

I'm in the North Jersey apt. section.

What more can be done?
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Old 01-04-2012, 03:05 PM
 
912 posts, read 5,249,022 times
Reputation: 2089
Learn to spot them and ignore them.

What else do you want to do?? Its a free service, open to all. You are bound to run into the less desirable sections of society.
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Old 01-04-2012, 03:10 PM
 
Location: St Thomas, US Virgin Islands
24,665 posts, read 69,567,744 times
Reputation: 26727
They appear here on island too. I can spot them a mile off and have often engaged in some email exchanges with them under the guise of being a prospective tenant. Wasting their time and watching them tie themselves into knots can be pretty amusing. I tag them all the time but they keep popping up with new email addresses. Nothing else you can do ...
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Old 01-19-2012, 03:23 PM
 
831 posts, read 2,821,647 times
Reputation: 733
Quote:
Originally Posted by STT Resident View Post
They appear here on island too. I can spot them a mile off and have often engaged in some email exchanges with them under the guise of being a prospective tenant. Wasting their time and watching them tie themselves into knots can be pretty amusing. I tag them all the time but they keep popping up with new email addresses. Nothing else you can do ...

I can't believe there's nothing else I can do.
It's the main way to find apts. since nobody uses the newspapers anymore.

Why should I have to click on bogus ad after bogus ad? These adds are clearly trying to get peoples money, not to rent apts. In my area it's the same company, why can't they be stopped?
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Old 01-19-2012, 03:28 PM
lz0
 
Location: Chicago (Lakeview)
34 posts, read 230,832 times
Reputation: 61
It's up to CL to stop it.

Chicago CL is virtually worthless when looking for apartments nowadays. It's full of scams and spam from apartment finding agencies. You pretty much have to go with an agency now.

I wish CL would impose some kind of risk on housing posters like they did with their job boards. Charge $25 per ad or something. Would make a huge dent in the scams and spam.
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Old 01-19-2012, 04:30 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
12,322 posts, read 17,089,650 times
Reputation: 19556
Quote:
Originally Posted by CarlitosBala View Post
Learn to spot them and ignore them.

What else do you want to do?? Its a free service, open to all. You are bound to run into the less desirable sections of society.
Agreed. One can find nice apts, Though it's a crapshoot. My friend and his girlfriend have incredible luck with this. 2 nice legit apartments and 1 job. Much diligence required though. Me, Everything I ever found from apartments to 1 job was with newspaper ads. Guess to each his own.
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Old 01-19-2012, 04:30 PM
 
4,918 posts, read 22,643,111 times
Reputation: 6303
Because Craigslist FOUGHT against being included in the classification of normal advertising, they claim they are nothing more than a bulletin board at a bus stop free to anyone to post what they want and its up to the reader to deal with scams and cons. and thats seems to be what craigslist USers want it to be. If you didnl;t know about craigslist position on this, thats your own fault for not paying attention and if you get ripped off, who cares.
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Old 01-19-2012, 07:42 PM
 
103 posts, read 301,649 times
Reputation: 110
I agree... I almost fell for one of this "to good to be true" scams. Thankfully before I procreeded to send any money I decided to look for information on how real state scams works and found a carbon copy example of what the scammer was trying to do to me. I'm currently looking for places in Chicago and I also agree CL is a waste of time.

The best rule is ... If its too good to be true then it probably is!!
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Old 01-19-2012, 09:23 PM
 
2,091 posts, read 7,501,542 times
Reputation: 2177
As someone who advertises only one single family home on craigslist, when its available, I find them hugely annoying. There is one advertising over and over and over, the same thing, slightly written differently, but the same phone number, no photos, or anything that a potential tenant really wants to know, just CALL CALL CALL, this it HOT HOT HOT, wont last long! Holiday special! (still) new years special, free rent in January!!! Free rent in december!!! all the same place.. I flagged and flagged to no avail. Finally just figure I'd make two ads of my own that were different enough not to get flagged as spam, and listed them 24 hours apart, so I had one or the other to renew every day. Sigh, found my tenant from a site I paid to be on anyway, no luck from craigslist this time.
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Old 01-20-2012, 06:19 AM
 
Location: St Thomas, US Virgin Islands
24,665 posts, read 69,567,744 times
Reputation: 26727
Quote:
Originally Posted by sas0814 View Post
I can't believe there's nothing else I can do.
It's the main way to find apts. since nobody uses the newspapers anymore.

Why should I have to click on bogus ad after bogus ad? These adds are clearly trying to get peoples money, not to rent apts. In my area it's the same company, why can't they be stopped?
Whether you believe it or not, there IS nothing you can do other than simply don't use Craigslist if it frustrates you that much. It's a nationwide free site and you get what you (don't) pay for! There are scams but there are also plenty of legitimate postings there.

Of course there are alternatives to Craigslist for finding apartments. What do you mean, "nobody uses the newspapers any more"? Certainly they do. Neighborhood signs, realtors, signs on bulletin boards - apartment listings aren't confined to Craigslist.
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