Craiglist scams: Identifying and reporting them

Craiglist scams: Identifying and reporting them Craigslist is a well-known American website for classified ads. A successful site is bound to attract attention, especially from scammers.

What scams are there on Craigslist?

Craigslist is a favorite hunting ground for scammers, especially those dealing in advance-fee scams. They use all sorts of excuses to make you pay and you’ll never receive anything in return.

Not helping matters is the fact that Craigslist does not provide any kind of buyer/seller protection or certification respectively.

As such, there’s a lot of scams to be seen on the site. Here’s the most prominent types of scams encountered:

• The employment scam
• The fake ad scam
• The escrow scam

The employment scam

This scam targets job seekers. Scammers will pose as employers in order to reel in desperate victims. Once they have ensnared a victim, they will ask them to purchase some bogus work related equipment or software.

Sometimes, they make the victim do some kind of work and offer to pay afterwards. This is clearly a sham because as soon as the victim hands the work over, the scammer will vanish with the promised payment.

The best way to avoid this scam is to always remember that a legitimate employer will never ask you to send them money, or to purchase software on your own. Also, always make sure to have a contract ready before taking on any kind of freelance work.

The fake ads

The fake ad scam is exactly what it says on the tin. You see an ad for an item that you like, and you wish to purchase it. You decide to contact the seller and that’s when you enter contact with the scammer. One of the most prominent red flags is if the “seller”(read: scammer) asks for a payment in advance, and will pressure you into paying before receiving anything. In conclusion, if you are ever asked for an advanced payment, it is most likely a scam.

The escrow scam

This scam is generally used by scammers as a way to lull victims into a false sense of security. This is because escrow is usually a third party that will hold any sum of money until the conditions of the agreement is met. This is usually done online, on a secure website. Of course, scammers will use a fake website that’s not safe, and will run off with your money or steal your personal information.

Sometimes, scammers may even send their victims to a site that claims to be an official Craigslist escrow service. This is part of their scheme to get the money and personal data because Craigslist has no escrow service.

How to avoid being scammed on Craigslist

There a few things one can do to avoid being scammed:

• Be vigilant and never make hasty decisions. If you see an item listed and you like it, make sure to do a reverse image search to see if it’s legitimate or a scam.
• Never pay in advance! Especially if the ad is about a car or a house.
• Don’t trust any websites you don’t know
• . If a seller or buyer redirects you to a website that you’ve never heard of, be sure to check it before making any sort of transactions on it.

How to report a Craigslist scam?

Via our dedicated form which allows you to make a community post about a scam.

If you’re still curious about other Craigslist scams, why not have a look at the articles below? We selected them ourselves.

Or you could have a look at the user-submitted reports on the site for more examples.