Craigslist is the Wild West; use it at your own risk. A few years ago, I answered an enticing ad for a pretty nice apartment in a good school district near Boston. The price was about half what you would expect; that was the only tell.
They answered my inquiry right away and said something about being "away in Africa on mission work and need someone to sublet our place". I supposed this was somewhat plausible, but decided to test them.
Since they said they wanted someone quiet, I said, "We have a pet howler monkey. I hope that's okay."
They replied "That is fine." I then knew something was wrong, so I mentioned that he's not really house trained, and tends to throw things, and then they ghosted me.
Meanwhile, someone else might have fallen for the scam. I did report the ad, of course, but that takes a few hours or days and in the meantime, someone else might have been suckered. Craigslist could really benefit from some kind of comment/review system that would allow you to immediately call out these kinds of posts publicly. Of course it would also require a systematic way to take down revenge or mischief posts that unfairly attack legitimate sellers.
Have had this same scenario play out several times myself on CL. The other most common scammy post is a roommate.com one where when you get in touch with the poster, they have you go to a roommate.com link which basically requires you to sign up for a ~20$/mo membership. I get the need for such sites but I've seen this so often I consider it a scam and wonder if, like hired shills and trolls, people get hired to post such content just to drive membership.
They answered my inquiry right away and said something about being "away in Africa on mission work and need someone to sublet our place". I supposed this was somewhat plausible, but decided to test them.
Since they said they wanted someone quiet, I said, "We have a pet howler monkey. I hope that's okay."
They replied "That is fine." I then knew something was wrong, so I mentioned that he's not really house trained, and tends to throw things, and then they ghosted me.
Meanwhile, someone else might have fallen for the scam. I did report the ad, of course, but that takes a few hours or days and in the meantime, someone else might have been suckered. Craigslist could really benefit from some kind of comment/review system that would allow you to immediately call out these kinds of posts publicly. Of course it would also require a systematic way to take down revenge or mischief posts that unfairly attack legitimate sellers.