Craigslist ads

[Condor]

Every time I list a few things on CL I get spam replies within a few hours inquiring about whether it's still available or what's the condition. If you answer the email...which comes from CL and you're email address is protected... they have your email address and will broadcast it. So I just had an idea. I also have a hotmail address that I hardly ever use, and I copied their email to it and respond. If I get a couple of live responses I just start forwarding them to the other spamer. If enough of us do this we could drive them nutz.... Hey it's tough finding something to do when you're semi-retired and the economy is in the tank..... :rotf:

[Flyinfool]

I have a friend that listed his bike on CL for $4K.

He made the mistake of putting his home address in the add.

Within a couple of days he got a UPS next day package with a check for $8K and a request to ship the bike with $3k of his money. he checked with his bank and they checked out the check and of course it was a forgery. He turned all of the info over to the cops. The cops said they do not have time for crap like this.

A week later he got another check from the same guy drawn on the same bank, same account, even the same check number and again it was sent UPS red.

this one he turned over to the feds, at least they were polite enough to say thank you and not just blow him off.

This was about a year ago and he has heard nothing.

 

If you like to mess with scammers, check out www.419eater.com.

[Snaggletooth]

You're a man after my own heart there Jack. I got fed up years ago with all the crap I got in the mail. About 4 out 5 pieces of mail I got were pre-approved, samples, "Special Offers", YOU HAVE WON!, oh heck you know the junk I'm talking about. Each and every one of them came with self addressed, postage paid return envelopes. Now I'm not one to see people pay for something that will never get used so I came up with a plan.

 

I would sit down at the table and lay out all the envelopes and take one companies junk and stuff it into somebody elses return envelope (and throw in anything else that I could fit in there also........orange and banana peels, cigarette butts, a stale heel from the bread, even a couple of sardines once in a while.)

 

Over time the amount of junk mail I got kinda dropped off. I reduced my trips to the garbage can by 75% and I looked at it as a early form of recycling. And the companies got a return on their investment on the prepaid postage.

 

Win - Win.

 

I'm sure there was mail carrier out there somewhere that was going "What the heck is that smell?":eek:

[Midicat]

I love that idea Michael! I'm gonna start that. Let's see how much the "junk mailers" enjoy receiving junk mail. LOL So much stuff I wish I had the time to come up with.

[Karl C.]

good ole sardines.... they cure alot of things...

 

had a punk in high school who just got a new ford truck... he loved his new truck dearly... but this oh boy had a mouth on him... unfortunatley he worked where I did... so me and another guy one night while out getting carts, got a can of sardines apiece... he did the windshield wipers, the pull up door openers and I did the exhaust....

 

boy was it a rainy night and when he hit his windshield wipers, well you know what that oil did... and the more the engine ran the ranker it smelt...

 

a very inexpensive fix for an arswhole...

[maindog]

man, that's kinda like what we used to do in the old days before email. we would tape 5 pieces of black paper end to end , feed it into our fax machine, then tape the top piece to the bottom of the last piece and call the target fax machine that was sending us junk faxes.

have it fax at midnight, and let her rip. a few hours later we knew they would not only be out of paper but toner too. a couple nights like that and they never called our number again . He He. Fight Fire with Fire !.

[rlyons]

Don't use the Craigslist Email system at all but list your real email. However do not list it as list@hotmail.com List it as list(at)hotmail(dot)com and then tell them to remove the obvious and send email direct to you. The other way a computer reads the craigslist email and shoots that email out to you. It can not read a non-standard format. Also if you list your phone substitute letters for the numbers such as S for the 5. Or you can spell it out. Works good for me, no more spam.

[Condor]

Don't use the Craigslist Email system at all but list your real email. However do not list it as list@hotmail.com List it as list(at)hotmail(dot)com and then tell them to remove the obvious and send email direct to you. The other way a computer reads the craigslist email and shoots that email out to you. It can not read a non-standard format. Also if you list your phone substitute letters for the numbers such as S for the 5. Or you can spell it out. Works good for me, no more spam.

 

Your email address is hidden by Craigslist if you use their system, and check the box to hide it, so I don't know why you wouldn't use it. It's answering the spam inquirey that'll cause the problems.

[Guest human4m]

I scan CL all the time for scammers, and the scam ads are SO easy to spot (2007 Expedition for $2,900 - Yeah, okay...)

 

SO- I screw with them. I email, go on with days worth of correspondence, listen to their BS about how the car is at a shipping company, etc... Then I tell then I got approved for the loan, and ask again for the address to send payment to... Then I stop writing for a few days. They'll ask "Are you still interested?" This is my favorite part. I reply with a description of all the dirty and naughty things I would like to do to them. When they reply shocked, I simply say, "You wanted to screw me, so I was telling you my side of it."

 

As for the scam buyers who send checks, I tell them "Thanks for the free money!" and continue to tell them I deposited the funds in my account, and I wasn't sending them anything. I even had someone say "I will contact authority" (yes, poor English...)

 

I actually had an hour-long chat with a scammer a few days ago when I called him out on it. He whined about how he only makes $300 a month in Europe, (boohoohoo) and that was his only means of more income.

 

Morons.

[Flyinfool]

Your email address is hidden by Craigslist if you use their system, and check the box to hide it, so I don't know why you wouldn't use it. It's answering the spam inquirey that'll cause the problems.

 

For the CL ad that I currently have when I get an email that I believe may be a scam I set up a free gmail account with a fake name to send the reply. That way if by chance they are legit I have not lost them and if they are not legit they have nothing to use to scam or harass me.

When the ad is done I just never look at the gmail account again.