Has Craigslist gone the way of ebay? As in, so flooded with commercial sales and scams that it’s no longer usable? I haven’t looked for stuff on CL in over 5 years, and now it seems infested with ads, scams and sketchy sellers. Many years ago I bought some stuff on ebay, but it became so saturated with crap I abandoned it.
FWIW: I’m looking for a used ATV for the deer lease, and it’s a mess. Lots of ads with a single screenshot image and absurdly low prices, tons of ATV dealers flooding half the page with their products (at least they’re upfront about who they are). A barrage of misspelled ads that mix product lines and tout nonexistent machines And lots of those weirdly spelled ads like YAMAHA__RHINO. I don’t know why this is done, but assume to bypass some sort of filter.
So… any advice from veteran CL users? Why on earth are those bizarre special characters attached to descriptions? Am I correct in assuming ads with one pic and impossible vehicles are just scams? (I realize most don’t know ATV brands, bit it would be like seeing “2014 Buick Corolla for sale!”) Should I just give up and buy from a dealer?
It looks to me like it’s going to depend on where you are. I suspect that if you’re in a larger metro area that the dealer/scammer ratio will be higher.
I just skimmed my local CL for ATVs and only a couple of the recent additions looked scammy. Quite a few dealer postings but not an overwhelming number.
As always, Caveat Emptor. I use CL and eBay and have had good luck so far. Be discriminating and avoid anything that looks even remotely scammy and you should be fine.
Thanks for the responses everyone. Maybe my personal spam filters are set too high and some of the ads are legit. I’m still going to tread cautiously though. I think I’ll limit myself to only ads which appear to show the machine at a private home (on the lawn, in a garage, etc.). That should filter down to mostly private sellers.