Other Examples of Craigslist Spam Tactics [NSFW]

So I treaded on the dark side at one point, and was hired to write a Craigslist spam application. It was pretty simple and would automatically post to all the Erotic Services sections in all the U.S. localities with randomized (a huge set of varying titles, descriptions and photos - that could all be localized specifically to where it was posting) postings, randomized emails, obfuscating the text further by using shades of black for each letter - then solving the captcha and auto-responding to the email to publish the posting. It would do this every 20 minutes, 24/7.<p>The results for spamming adult dating affiliate links was pretty interesting. On average it would earn $1k a day, with most holidays jumping up to $2k a day. One very religious holiday in particular (won't mention which one to single any group out) brought in $3k. In one single day.<p>As long as spamming people with affiliate links will work, and makes them money - someone will do it.

My company is creating a mobile classifieds platform. On the company blog, I've spent some time analyzing Craigslist scams ("Five Craigslist rental scams" <a href="http://invantory.com/2012/04/craigslist-rental-scam-crisis/" rel="nofollow">http://invantory.com/2012/04/craigslist-rental-scam-crisis/</a> ) as well as spam ("Craigslist 'by dealer' categories and dealer spam", <a href="http://invantory.com/2012/04/craigslist-by-dealer-categories-and-dealer-spam/" rel="nofollow">http://invantory.com/2012/04/craigslist-by-dealer-categories...</a> ).<p>Craigslist puts in a lot of effort to warn people about common scams, yet the problem persists in the high-value categories. This is especially true of rentals -- I get a Google Alert every week of Craigslist-related crime appearing in news reports, and half or more are rental scams. How can people miss the warnings and get conned? Part of the reason relates to smart social engineering, as the OP suggested -- girls, convincing sob stories (active duty military deploying overseas is a common hook), well-written emails, great prices that are almost too good to be true. The scammers are constantly running tests to see what works best and then applying them to multiple areas. But the other thing is the nature of buyers, who may only come to Craigslist once every few years and may assume that because their last experience turned out good, their next one will, too.<p>On the spam front, "flagging" is one of the main weapons CL uses to fight things like overposting, top-posting, miscategorized posts, etc. Unfortunately the system has broken down in many markets. Check out some of the cities in Western Canada, which are overrun by spam (see "Craigslist Canada: Ticket spam, giant markets and dead areas" <a href="http://invantory.com/2012/04/craigslist-canada/" rel="nofollow">http://invantory.com/2012/04/craigslist-canada/</a> ). Dealers and spammers using manual or automated means simply overwhelm the categories, and there aren't enough active flaggers to mark the violators -- or people have simply given up.<p>Classified marketplaces really interested me, and if anyone wants to talk about Craigslist or mobile classifieds, I can be reached via the websites listed on my HN profile.

I think it's very important to distinguish "spam" from "scam".<p>What AirBnB did was a little spammy (and probably violated CL's ToS). Same goes for ODesk and other freelance boards (I got one from HireTheWorld just the other day).<p>When someone wants all your personal information or help moving (i.e. "laundering") money overseas, that's an entirely different animal.

Spam is absolutely not a grey area. "it is NOT FUCKING ACCEPTABLE for a <i>single</i> post that is from a <i>person</i> talking to other <i>people</i> to be deleted, to be dropped on the uncaring floor to make room for machine generated spew."<p>—<a href="http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html</a> (actually about Usenet, which was wrecked by the same sort of predatory scum)

ezl does not seem to have gone all the way down the rabbit hole with the oDesk tracking link. (I work at oDesk, but not on this, so I was really curious.) After about 3 HTTP redirects, the www.dpbolvw.net link seems to turn into some sort of affiliate link. So my guess is that a (possibly errant, but presumably very data-driven) affiliate was the one sending him e-mail about oDesk, rather than oDesk itself.<p>That seems to raise a broader question, which is: to what extent should companies be blamed (and thus try to control) for the actions of the people in their affiliate programs? Would you be unhappy about a blog purporting to be by a cute ice cream eating girl filled with recommended books with Amazon affiliate links? What are the standards in this area, exactly? (On reload, see <i>dabent</i>'s comment below as well.)

craigslist could probably eliminate a ton of spam by simply editting out the urls that go thru it's email system.<p>i.e. if someone includes &#60;a href&#62; inside the email body, simply unscramble it and show the full link.<p>And on the bottom of the email spell out a warning about affiliates.<p>This will eliminate most of the spam that goes out to people who list stuff on craigslist.<p>To fight spammers that list fake listings to gather email addresses...simply implement a private message system for craigslist. Then you can analyze all emails that get sent to users and do the same trick as #1.<p>You can also limit exposure by blocking messages based on user IPs. Chances are someone from China listing in New York craigslist is a fake.

Would appreciate a NSFW disclosure, thanks!

Modified the titled to reflect possible NSFW image

The freecreditreport spam is amusingly clever.<p>Wish the final pic had a NSFW warning though.

I'd say the others usually constitute fraud, so I wouldn't really give them a free pass... Also, the african missionary apartment scams are also looking for wire transfers of prepayment of rent.

"Respond to ads where people are seeking roomates. If they respond back, game on." I've seen most posts ask for not non-solicitation.

Hehe, and didn't even tried the car section.<p>I now avoid any car with steering wheel covers in the picture as all the wreck scams I've seen had them.<p>Safer to miss the few false positives.