blacklisted by craigslist

Update: 08/24/10

My fried updated his ad and somehow has been blacklisted by Craigslist when he has a legitimate ad. Of all the people advertising dating sites, adult verification sites, and other frauds my friends ad caught the attention of Craigslist's Filters. My friend asked on the Craigslist forum why he was blacklisted and the only response was that he needs to take out the word "Massage" and remove the last sentence where he indicates he will not respond to frauds such as dating sites, adult verification sites, etc. I'm surprised! From what it sounds like, his ad was flagged but all the sites out there advertising dating sites, porn sites, etc were not. Looks like craigslist uses a word filter which does stop some fraudulent sites but also can block legitimate sites. A while back a newsletter that I subscribed to that discussed current events found themselves on yahoo's blacklist. How did they get on their blacklist? They used the word Casino in one of their issues which flagged them as an online Casino scam. The author of the newsletter apologized to the many yahoo readers who were no longer receiving issues that they paid to receive and it took over a month before he could get yahoo to remove him from their blacklist. Due to the blacklisting of my friends ad, I can no longer add any more to the list. If you find someone on Craigslist who is a fraud, feel free to respond. with their alleged name, email address, and details about the scam.

Update for August 7, 2010

It's been a while since I last posted and the ad to my friend has sunk down a bit as newer ads have been posted on craigslist. Because of this, he isn't getting as many responses as he has before but he has received some. Including a solicitation for prostitution type of response. I'll list the dates of the responses rather than giving each responder a number.

---

Date: August 7th, 2010
Name: Sophia Lovely
email: sophialovley@tmail.com

Here's the most interesting response! My friend indicated on his ad that he is Financially independent and is looking a financially independent woman. Interestingly Sophia is hoping my friend would be willing to have a financial type of relationship where in exchange for her giving he "body, mind, and time" any way he wants it, he "buys her a few things here and there" such as a cell phone, etc. This does sound like a legitimate person but doesn't it sound like a type of prostitution relationship? Sophia may have better luck responding to ads in the Adult Gigs section of Craigslist.

I'm 24 looking for a beneficial relationship. I will be moving to (city removed), august 30 from losangeles,ca. I will be living with my sister and her toddler until I get on my feet. I'm willing to give my body,mind,and time any way you want it. In return I would like help with a few things here and there ex:cell phone, etc..please feel free to email me if this is something that is suitable for you.
Sophia.

Update for July 12th

There are two more responses to my friends craigslist ad:

Response #1:
Name: Bethany Coley
email: bethanycoley130@gmail.com

"Hey thier, a couple days ago you replied to my posting on craigslist. I replied to you but I never heard back from you, I thought maybe you missed my email. I am still interested in meet, if you are still looking. If youd like to hookup my pics and phone number are at http://bit.ly/diesPZ Let''s meet soon ok."

URL takes you to www.localfling.net, this is also responder #8 from the first day and is already considered a dating site recruiter.

Conclusion: Dating Site

---

Response #2:
Name: Sandy Marie?
Email: sandymarie1987@aol.com

Message only had the link: http://konexura.t35.com/ in it.

the site http://konexura.t35.com/ is flagged as a suspicious site.

Conclusion: Suspicious site

---

New Statistics
Total Responses: 11
Fake Responses: 8
Inconclusive: 3

My friends craigslist ad has received nearly 73% responses for spam such as dating sites including 2 potentially malicious sites. The remaining inconclusive are most likely dating site spam or malicious sites too that haven't responded yet. Are there any real people on craigslist personals?

Quick update on my friends craigslist personals ad

Today my friend only got 1 response for his ad that was someone who responded to him after emailing him. Yesterday she was known as responder #3 and since I didn't have much information to determine if she is legit or a scam, I didn't publish her name or email address of my black book.

Responder #1: (Also Responder #3 from yesterdays blog)
Name: Flossie Riling
Email: flossierilinguj67e7@yahoo.com

I figure I will post her entire message for your enjoyment so here it is:

"Cool:) It seems you are for real
The honest truth Im for sure not first timer in that adventures:) unforunately never really succeed.
Usually received e-mails from teenagers and other unreliable people.
So...whatever... one more time. About Me. 5'6" in shape, too much energy:) but Im normaly stands by man and perfectly knows my "place".:)
Im hard worker have my own car and own place to sleep:)... so soooo independent:) Also Iam not into night clubs and bars scene....
Love guys who I can laugh with, who open to try new staff!
Pictures and some info: weekenddatingoperating.com profile 3009958
If you decide to check it, write you are 29 y.o. or older, only in this case you ll have access, (kind of protection from kids:)
Now your turn:)
Chao"

The weekenddatingoperating.com will redirect you to the site:
http://datingportal-singlegirls.com/ which is a singles parent site operated by singles.net.

today she had more to say than "so, why not". She has had problems with meeting only teenagers and unreliable guys eh. Most say they have troubles meeting men who are already married or a stalker. I think this is the first time I've heard an ad from someone having problems with teenagers responding when teens aren't normally looking for adult ladies.

Conclusion: Today's Response #1 and yesterdays response #3 are Dating Site Scams.

---

The stats remain at 9 responses but no we have 6 confirmed fake responses or 67% of my friends responses were fakes and 3 that are probably fakes too.

Two days after my friend posts add

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Why am I doing this?

I've been told by several people that most of the responses from Craigslist, Backpage, and other online personal sites are taking advantage of people who are looking for a date and have placed an ad online. The most common type of scam is the dating site scam that I already mentioned. Other scams include verification sites to prove that you are not a "sexual predator" or other "sicko". They indicate that it is free for these services but in reality, it is only free for the first 30 days and most dating sites are rip-offs in the first place. You can set up a free profile on a dating site but to communicate to someone or answer a reply to another member you have to commit to a recurring billing of something like $9.95/month. In reality the person who responded to your profile isn't interested in you, they are getting paid to get you to join the dating site and after you join and respond to them, you will never hear from them again. I think it is wrong what people do on Craigslist and other sites as well as dating sites. In my opinion dating sites are the biggest ripoff on the Internet. Why pay something like $9.95 a month just for the chance to meet someone which adds up to nearly $120 a year which in my opinion is too much to spend on a dating site. For that money, I would have more success meeting people in person. I've heard plenty of horror stories from dating sites such as people who were married but didn't disclose this, people who are mentally unstable, and of course stalkers. Meeting someone in person is still the best bet when finding somebody. Some of the responses from Craigslist, Backpage, and other places where you can place free personal ads are hilarious and I thought I would share them with everyone here on the Internet. My friend who forwarded the email for my first entry has agreed to create another ad. Where going to play a little game. How many responses will my friend receive from his add who are spammers/scammers compared to legitimate responses. He has used Craigslist for quite a while but has only had one genuine response from a woman. This time we are going to test how many people are real versus all the scammers and spammers and I will publish the fake responses here in my blog. You will need to check back often as I guarantee there will be some really crazy responses. I will inform you if my friend gets any legitimate responses but these responses won't be shared. He will post it later tonight and forward all the fake responses that he gets and give me information on his success at finding a real person who is interested in them.

My first entry.

My first entry comes from a friend of mine who had a Craigslist listing in the Ogden-Clearfield personals under Strictly Platonic. His ad has expired but he still receives responses from people. Today he forwarded me a copy of a message he received from someone responding to his ad that is no longer listed since it's expiration in June.

The response from his expired ad was from:
   Name: Celeste Sherrod
   Email: celestesherrod214w@aol.com

Additional Information: "Celeste" indicated she didn't have pictures enclosed
because she has some pictures at a site with the URL http://merky.de/2a1257 which
is a shortened URL and you are actually taken to:

http://localfling.net/profile1038803.php?id=1038803.

This is your typical scam where a person responds to your ad to get you to visit
a dating site in hopes you will join the site and the person probably receives a bonus for every person she can get to sign up for the site.

Please note: this information may be inaccurate. Sometimes a person will use a name and email address of a legitimate person that they found through email harvesting to respond to these ads since it isn't their own personal email address that gets blacklisted if someone marks the email as spam on a site and the email address is blacklisted and goes straight to the spam folder.