Seriously, I have to ask this for a single friend who is too embarassed to ask other than me; and I’m clueless as to what he’s talking about.
Apparently, he’s tried Craigslist “casual encounters” to meet, (how he described) “interesting” people. When he gets a response they apparently, invariably say something like "Hello, please go to someotherpage.com to talk to me.
So this smacks of fishyness to me that there is something with the social protocols on Craigslist that he’s naive about and I’m just totally clueless.
Does anyone have an answer; are these “women” all really guys from Bulgaria who want to remove money from him. Or are they really hookers in disquise, who for some reason can’t communicate through gmail?
Ah yes, your “friend.” I can’t answer this with any authority, but it sounds like spamtrons to me, or some other such that is directing him to porn sites. I’m sure whatever your friend is being redirected to is going to request his credit card number at some point.
I doubt very many of the “W4M” pages are actual women. If you sort them by ads having images and look through a few of them, you’ll find that the spambots repeat images and utilize ad messages that contain odd syntax and broken English. Of those that are presumably real people within your city, many of those will be prostitutes/escorts. You can spot them by the code phrases they use (“bring me X roses,” roses being dollars) and the way they spell their phone numbers out with words instead of numbers, for whatever reason.
Actually the Women for men section does work. If you live in Illinois you may remember the mass shooter Steven Kazmierczak who killed a bunch of students at Northern Illinois University.
The police were able to get a lot of background prior to the shooting 'cause he was meeting (and having sex with) women left and right that he was meeting off of Craigslist W4M section in Champaign, Illinois
As for the original question I agree it’s a scam, but people DO hook up a lot. Of course they are just looking to hook, not for dating
Next time “he” responds to an ad, have him give the person directions to follow - like include the word “tulips” in the subject line, or describe the color of their bedroom or something. Everyone on CL knows there’s a bunch of spam, and those who are actual people (and willing to meet your friend) are happy to oblige, and will probably do the same in return.