Last week I replied to a very legit-sounding, well-worded job opportunity post on Craig’s List, and started getting spam like crazy for stupid bullshit thanks-for-applying-to-this-very-prestigious-position-that-sounds-nothing-like-the-job-you-just-applied-for-even-though-that-job-title-is-in-the-reply-header-so-click-here-and-give-us-all-your-personal-information-so-that-we-can-do-a-required-credit-check-on-you “jobs”.
Then yesterday I posted something for sale on CL using the anonymous reply feature. I got a reply from an actual first name/last name person at an email address that looked totally legit (firstname/lastname@yahoo.com) asking if my sale was a legit sale post. I thought “Ah-ha! I’m not the only one that has gotten fucked recently on CL!” So I replied with a VERY GENERIC “yes I’m in Columbus and am selling this item”. I immediately started getting bombarded with bullshit spam.
And this is not “enlarge your penis size” recognizable spam, it’s “re: (exact posting title)” and starts out sounding like a bona fide reply.
What the fuck.
I mean, if you want to reply to a post, whether it’s for a job or an item for sale, I guess you take the risk of getting spammed. And if you’re selling something and have to reply to inquiries or else you’ll never sell your item, then you also take the risk of getting spammed. Therefore- use Craig’s List and get spammed.
I got my current IT job (a good legit job) through Craig’s List. Just sayin’.
Of course I didn’t get it by answering ads. As you say, that’s mostly a fruitless exercise. I posted my anonymized resume.
Not that precautions aren’t in order. If you are going to venture there, setup a disposable email address on Yahoo or Google and use it in conjunction with their anonymous reply feature.
Disposable e-mails that work with Gmail’s multi-address inbox feature (or Outlook, for that matter) is the greatest boon in having a big online presence. I do a lot of minor articles for different webpages and magazines and you wouldn’t believe the amount of crap you get as soon as an address is in a fixed, available location. So whenever I start a new gig, it gets a new address which is linked to my gmail. If it starts getting spam, it gets cut loose and a new addy gets posted up and forwarded to whoever needs to know.
Which means I only need to spend about half an hour a month amputating e-mail addresses instead of dealing with spam every day.
I use Craig’s list all the time and have only very rarely gotten a spamy reply to an ad. YMMV, but we’ve gotten some great deals on Craig’s List and haven’t encountered the problems the OP has.
I’ve had about 50/50 success rate with CL, mainly in selling “yardsale” type stuff, but with some large ticket items as well.
I was trying to get rid of most of my possessions in preparation for my move to Texas. In my ads, I specified only local customers (that is, people who could drive to my house and pick up the stuff) and cash. I had quite a few people come by and get dressers, baby playpens, clothes, toys, stereos with no problems.
Then I had a guy that wanted my piano, came by to look at it, and paid me 50% down (with a check). To verify his interest, I cashed the check, and I got my cash. However, after that, I couldn’t get a hold of him. I tried for 1 1/2 months before I had to move. His loss.
But what really torqued me were the formula scammers, who presented the I-across-the-country-and-will-send-you-a-certified-check-for-$2000-send-me-the-change-via-wire scam. IIRC, that’s the first scam that CL warns you about. I had about a half dozen of them try this, to which I simply replied, “I asked for local customers with cash. Don’t send me any kind of checks, please.” I even had one of them threaten to sue me (!) for not sending him the change, when 1) I hadn’t agreed to his terms, and 2) I never received any check.
I use CL sporadically now, to get rid of the occasional item that I’ve upgraded. I haven’t seen any scammers since I’ve moved, but then again, I’ve only posted maybe 1 item every 3 months.