Introduction to Craigslist Scammers

To kick off the launch of the site I am diving right into some beginner info about Craigslist scammers.

Craigslist is a free online classifieds site in which scammers use to advertise for free. It is a VERY affordable method of advertising because posting ads are free. Not to mention the HUGE amount of website traffic Craigslist gets every day. It is becoming increasingly difficult for scammers to use, as more security measures are being put in place. But I know these guys and they are very smart.

For example, Craigslist introduced “phone verification” in which a user needs to have an account and verify it with their phone number in order to post an ad in certain areas. Think this would stop anyone? Nope, only the weak who gave up. The persistent spammers began purchasing PVAs (Phone Verified Accounts). The average street price for these are $3-$4 each. And it is a well known fact that you can only post 3 ads per PVA.

Each ad must be on a separate IP address as well which means the scammers all have ways of changing their IP address at will, usually by the use of proxies, DSL, or dialup. This is just 1 example of the many ways these idiots work.

I will go into more detail about this another day, because I believe understanding how these schemes work is the basis for identifying scams everywhere.

Lets look at one of my favorite Craigslist Scams.

It took me about 5 seconds to find one of these in the Cars & Trucks section, they are classic scams.

Note the extremely low price. The most important thing to remember, if it looks too good to be true, it IS.

Lets look at the ad itself.

It is a very brief ad with a link titled “ASK SELLER A QUESTION!”. When you click on the link it will take you to emailmeform.com. This is another huge flag. In the past all the scammers used to post an email address (most still do), but some have decided it is more economical to use a free service such as emailmeform.com to send the email to them self which makes it harder for craigslist to block.

Now none of you should send them an email now that I have identified it  for you. But what if you did send them an email? From experience, you will most likely get a delayed autoresponse saying something like

“I am sorry I sold the car but I originally bought the car from <LINK HERE> – You should check them out!”

Where “<LINK HERE>” is some link to a BS membership site that will require a credit card. Now if you do put your credit card and submit it, the person has just made a sale and will usually receive about $10-$40 from the scam as money in their pocket.