Anyone have any Craig's List horror stories?
I've spent much of the last two days putting out fires for one of my lovely Realtor clients that all came through Craig's List. And not through any of her own ads we had been posting.
First thing Thanksgiving morning, my poor client started getting phone call upon phone call non-stop. People were calling asking about a ridiculous ad for house for rent and petsitting for only $200/mo. And these had nothing to do with the property ads we had regularly been posting on a regular basis for many months now.
Apparently someone was posting bogus ads on Craig's List, but not by hacking her own account like I originally though. They were posting ads on thier own with "too good to be true" pricing for rents or house-sitting fees, and then using her name name and phone numbers (not to mention these ads had horrible grammar and misspellings). I found two of the offending ads posted local market area and had them flagged and reported for harassment and abuse. Luckily they were removed shortly after I reported them and I had though crisis had been averted.
Well today she told me she was still getting calls and now they are from all over the place. Not only was someone posting these bogus ads in her own area, but in random cities all over the country! I was finally able to find a few more offending ads to flag and report the abuse. And after a quick email to abuse@craigslist.org, they were able to find any more similar ads that I may have missed and have had them removed.
My poor Realtor client is frazzled and wants nothing more to do with Craig's List ever again. Unfortunately it looks like something like this can easily happen to anyone whether they post on there or not. I will never understand how people can do something so mean and malicious to someone for no reason at all.
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