Gary Tuchman | Bio
AC360° Correspondent
Everyone talks about Craigslist. It is an internet want-ad system of everything you would ever want to buy. Go on craigslist.com, and you can find concert tickets, cars, romance and everything else.
But one other thing you should know about Craigslist. It is a petri dish of fraud. There are so many criminals pedaling their wares on Craigslist, that if they were caught they could fill up whole jails.
A friend of mine wanted to buy two tickets to take his small daughter to see the Jonas Brothers. He had never used Craigslist before and presumed that sellers were honest. He sent a 500 dollar money order to a woman who promised four tickets. The woman took the money, and disconnected her phone. She never sent the tickets.
Now, you might say my friend should have been more careful. And you’d be right. But you see, the low-lifes who rip off people just need a small percentage of people to fall for their scam and they become rich. I decided to do a little investigating and pretended I wanted tickets to different hot concerts. I looked for prices that seemed to good to be true. Every response I got came from a con man or woman.
The common ploy was this: the sellers said they were stuck overseas and couldn’t go to to the concert. So please send a money order which they promise will not be cashed until after you use the tickets.
Now, Craigslist is a great business idea with brilliant minds behind it. But the people in charge need to be more accountable in dealing with this widespread problem. My friend e-mailed Craigslist to report his fraud and to see what he should do. He has yet to hear anything back.
We reached out to Craigslist for a comment. This was their response:
Before I tell you what we do in order to prevent scams, it’s really essential that your readers read the warnings that we place on every single page of the Craigslist site.We feel badly for the victims of scams anywhere, and particularly when someone has abused our Craigslist Terms of Use in order to scam a Craiglist user. We always cooperate with law enforcement and we are gratified to know that our assistance helps catch the perps.
Our number one warning is DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON - follow this one simple rule and you will avoid 99% of the scam attempts on Craigslist.
***Craigslist is a LOCAL site so only deal with people in your area with whom you can meet in person. (if you’ve used Craigslist before you’ll be familiar with how the site is local unlike other auction sites etc.). *** Use common sense .. if something sounds too good to be true, it likely is too good to be true.
Some of the measures we take to prevent crime include:
- We ban all illegal activity on the site.
- We place prominent notices on our posting forms warning against illegal
activity.- We place Preventing Getting Scammed Warnings on every single page of Craigslist.
- We provide a community moderation system whereby our users flag
inappropriate ads for removal.- We place prominent notices asking users to flag inappropriate ads.
- We block ads containing language that in our experience has a high likelihood of violating our Terms of Use.
- We remove inappropriate ads that come to our attention.
- We block persons violating our Terms of Use from posting.
- We maintain information pages regarding user safety on Craigslist on every single page.
- We respond promptly to inquiries and requests for assistance from law
enforcement officers.- We give periodic briefings for groups of law enforcement officers on how to efficiently obtain information from Craigslist.
| dianne |
August 18th, 2008 2:22 pm ET well while back i saw some porn on criglist i call them to let them know they would not do noting about it, they were very rude on phone |
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| Heather |
August 18th, 2008 2:24 pm ET Didn’t someone place an ad in Craigslist for people to go to someone’s home and they could take whatever they wanted? They ended up trashing,stealing,and basically destroying this persons house.Someone who never placed the ad and knew nothing about it.You really don’t have a any of verifying who you are dealing with especially when they are out of the country or out of state.I think that is why they use this method.They know it’s next to impossible stop what they do.Hopefully your story will change that. |
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| JC- Los Angeles |
August 18th, 2008 2:25 pm ET Gary, our entire nation has become “a petri dish of fraud.” Wall Street? fraud. Mortgage Banking? fraud. Hedge Funds? fraud. How many companies have restated earnings? How many companies have had writedowns? I thought Sarbanes Oxley was created to prevent fraud. Our nations has become one big cesspool of corruption and fraud with no accountability whatsoever. |
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| Cindy |
August 18th, 2008 2:37 pm ET Gary, Cindy…Ga. |
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| Tricia |
August 18th, 2008 2:59 pm ET That is why you should always you Paypal for any transactions that aren’t in person/cash. If you don’t receive the merchandise you can dispute the payment and get your money back, just make sure they don’t stall you until after the time limit. |
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| Claire |
October 6th, 2008 12:33 pm ET I’ve found a few good things through Craigslist, like a job and also a rental house. I can understand how buying things on there might be more of a gamble, though. Buyer beware! |
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| Eugenia-San Francisco, Ca |
October 6th, 2008 12:38 pm ET Our number one warning is DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON - follow this one simple rule and you will avoid 99% of the scam attempts on Craigslist. These low life’s, would you really want to meet them in person? I think I remember at least one story where someone was physically assaulted through Craig’s List. Rule of thumb: Bad people will take advantage of you, if you make it easy for them. By the way, Hi crazy hurricane rollerblading man! |
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| TS |
October 6th, 2008 12:48 pm ET “It seems that CraigsList and these others like it need to vet the people selling the stuff more or have to pay for the rip offs. That’s the only way to stop it, otherwise it will continue running rampant. Cindy…Ga.” Yep, cause the newspaper does that when you place an ad for the same items you want to sell and the newspaper is totally responsible if the person is ripped off. *rolls eyes* *with sarcasm* The only person you need to take care of is yourself, no one else will do it for you. Maybe CNN should vet the people posting on this blog, it would get rid of the lamer comments. |
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| Melissa, Los Angeles |
October 6th, 2008 12:52 pm ET I was surprised to read on CNN in a past article there is a section for escorts to advertise. How is that legal??? Craigslist started with a good idea but without any real controls it’s now just a waste of a site. |
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| Joanne |
October 6th, 2008 1:07 pm ET They do nothing to prevent fraud. I, however, do. I put a sports car for sale on Craig’s List and go a response from a |
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| tim |
October 6th, 2008 1:17 pm ET In his scramble to learn how to use the internet it appears that John McCain used Craiglist to find his choice for Vice-President! “Item Wanted: Female extremist who can pander to the right wing religious gun nuts wanted for part-time spokesmodel position. Some limited speaking required, but it need not be substantive or coherent, only dishonest and mean-spirited. Prefer idealogue with limited education and below average intellect. This is a fundraising position. Chance of promotion is likely according to actuary tables.” |
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| Maya Tatineni |
October 6th, 2008 2:24 pm ET I feel obliged to write in about my experience using Craigslist. I bought a Piano using Craigslist and did make sure the seller was located in my area and met them as well as tried the Piano out before buying - so I guess I did follow some of their guidelines. My experience was great and I got a really nice item for a good price. |
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| pati mc., camp hill, pa |
October 6th, 2008 2:53 pm ET Once again Gary, I owe you big time. I was about to use Craigslist to advertise my consulting expertise. I am so NOT a scam!!! You have saved me for an enormous mistake and I thank you sincerely. Kudos for the timely reporting. You are the bomb and I cannot wait to hear your report on Alaska tonight on 360. Welcome back to the lower 48, We missed you. |
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