When I first became aware of Craigslist in my city, I thought it was fantastic for buying and selling used goods. Before Craiglist, selling something meant placing an ad in the local paper and paying $20 for 4 lines of text running only 2-7 days. Then you had to hope a potential buyer saw the ad and called you.
I sold a car, bought and sold gym equipment, discovered vacation rentals and adopted 2 dogs using newspaper classified ads.
It was a matter of timing, luck and having nowhere else to look that made classifieds work.
Then came Craigslist. For the next 20 years, whenever I wanted to buy or sell something used, I headed right to Craigslist.
It was free. It was searchable. It had detailed ad copy with pictures. It reached everyone in the local area and beyond. Most importantly, it worked.
A few months ago, I posted my old lawnmower on Craigslist. Within an hour, someone reached out wanting to stop by that afternoon to pick it up. I gave her my address and phone and told her when I’d be available.
Shortly after that, she replied with a message saying, “I’m out of town but will mail you a check with an extra $50 and you can keep the difference”. I immediately recognized this scam and responded that I had sold the lawnmower and deleted the Craiglist ad.
I was disappointed in myself that I gave the scammer my phone number and address. Not because I feared a visit, but because my number could now be resold on the dark web. Ugh.
That’s the last time I’ll use Craigslist. The anonymity, the free posts, and the reach that made it so effective have also made it into a hotbed for scammers and con men.
Bummer.
I ended up selling the lawn mower a few days later using a free posting on Nextdoor. Because Nextdoor has a verification system for users, it’s a less popular for scammers.
It also has far less reach than Craigslist. But for my purses, it was fine.