What is Craigslist?
For those of you who find posting on Craigslist interesting, important or profitable, I have created this website to keep everyone informed about all the things that happen behind the scenes at Craigslist that they don’t want you to know about. Yes, All the Dirty Little Secrets of Craigslist. For those of you who may not know, let’s start off with what is Craigslist?
Craigslist is an online, (so called) free internet advertising site ( or online free classifieds, if you will ) that was started a little over a decade ago by a geeky nerd who couldn’t get a date and hung around his mother’s house too much. The site itself (Craigslist) languished for a few years and really went no where until a few years ago some savvy investors decided to plug some money into it. Some people actually thought it had potential. It is actually a reasonably good idea, unfortunately it is poorly run and managed. So anyway, like I was saying a few investors plugged some money into the Craigslist website and through some clever marketing they made Craigslist more popular.
The entire marketing scheme behind Craigslist dates back to the old hippie days of the 1960′s. They even utilize the old PEACE symbol as their logo. Craigslist likes to propagate this idea that they are here for the people and by the people. That’s where the whole community thing comes from. The whole thing about Craigslist just being there for the people and by the people is a total load anyway. Craigslist is there to make money for the corporate managers. The staff at Craigslist likes to push the community idea because it makes their users do the work of the staffers for free. Free labor, you gotta love it! You’ll learn more about that later.
Yes, they advertise Craigslist, and the whole buzz around Craigslist, is that it’s free, but it actually isn’t, not completely. For some types of ads you have to pay. So this whole free notion is more or less a marketing ploy. Even though the company bears the name of Craig, Craig Newmark has taken a lesser role in the company over the years. Maybe top management thinks geeks just aren’t good at marketing.
So you go on Craigslist and post your products or services for sale, you find someone interested in what you have to offer and everyone ends up happy right? Well, maybe in theory but not in practice. There are so many things wrong with Craigslist itself and the entire concept, that it will take many posts to dissect the problems and elucidate on them properly. I am writing this blog to enlighten people about the problems and dangers of Craigslist so they can better understand and work with it as opposed to many people who are being hurt by it. You are welcome to post your comments in response to any of my postings, just keep it clean. Unlike Craigslist, I promise I will post each and every comment you make.
whoops …..my bad what they care about is flagging
Whether Flagging or Ghosting is your issue, I suggest you visit my main website. At my site I go into much greater detail about how to deal with Ghosting and Flagging. Putting all that aside, what I meant was that you should never give up. I know it’s hard, but good things only come from much effort. If we persist, we can change Craigslist.
Link to your site please…….
and as much as I agree with not giving up, the members are so out numbered by the flagging, trust me…seconds after you get a new add up it is flagged (price wrong) how in the heck is one supposed to keep up or fight when you are out numbered by 20 to 1 or 80/1 people flagging…then use the ridiculous forum only ….berated and told to go find other place to sell …or you don’t get how we work or read the FAQ…you can make perfect add and if they don’t like the price then it is gone ….yes give me the link to your site and show me HOW it makes a difference …you and I talking about it is NOT going to change it…they need to internally change
JUST Google Craigslist customer service complaints,..and see how many you get…any intelligent business would look at what its customers say …the only problme they are the only dog on the porch….so they play …..there way only
Here is a real good one
http://www.customerservicescoreboard.com/Craigslist
Craigslist Customer Service
User Reviews, Ratings and Comments
Craigslist customer service is ranked #483 out of the 502 companies that have a CustomerServiceScoreboard.com rating with an overall score of 18.31 out of a possible 200 based upon 652 ratings.
This score rates Craigslist customer service and customer support as Terrible.
633 Negative Comments out of 652 Total Comments is 97.09%.
19 Positive Comments out of 652 Total Comments is 2.91%.
Issue Resolution
* Negative Comments (633)
* Positive Comments (19)
* Employee Comments (0)
Haha, I already have a link to that Customer Service rating on my site. I agree it is ridiculous. I also have a link to another website that points to the fact that Craigslist readership has gone down. The problem is that changes are small and incremental. Google for example no longer indexes their ads for search like they used to many years ago. The days of Craigslist are numbered, take it from someone who has been around from the beginning. That is one of the reasons I formed my site. My site is listed on the side roll of all my blogs, but I’ll make it easy for you. Go to http://www.howtobeatcraigslist.tk for much more info.
‘Then I ask YOU how to change it……all they ace about is flagging .
It is sad in so many ways what Cl has become, you have Mods that are power hungry, no clue about pricing just want to say you are wrong.
No way to correct abusive power of over moderation…they just say” if ya don’t like it move on.”…..long way…..what Cl started out as….
Any remember can post any price they want…except for being flagged if they the Mods do not agree you are gone.
Serious abuse of language
I agree with you my friend. Craigslist has become an over moderated site run by power hungry individuals. That Peace symbol doesn’t mean much any more. This is why we have to do everything we can to show them that we are like the “Occupy” people. We wont leave, we wont hide, we wont be pushed around, we will win! For everything they do, we can find a solution.
hi there,
I am having a big issue with ghosting. I like your pay phone idea, but there are no pay phones around here! Can you email me at *********@gmail.com? I would like to pick your brain on strategies and I am willing to pay a fee in return. Thanks!
Sue
Sorry Sue, I would really like to help you but I must keep this at this level. If I took you up on this, I would be getting hundreds of requests for assistance. I post all my new ideas here or at my home page http://www.howtobeatcraigslist.tk and I do it free of charge so everyone can have an even deal when dealing with Craigslist. As far as a pay phone, there must be a pay phone some place nearby. Every liquor store, hospital, garage, shopping center has one.
What’s up with all the flagging that goes on with craigslist these days? The format is obviously not working–good and interesting ads get flagged by angry people. I notice that MSW ads requesting certain body types are allowed to stand but WSM ads requesting true romance without adultery quickly get deleted.
Why the hating on a preference? And how exactly does flagging work? Do these flagger-jacks sit around waiting to flag in tandem? Sign on to more than one IP addy at a time to get their thrill from deleting advertisers who do not wish to see their cockshots or commit adultery? Why is it okay for men to ask for no fatties but not okay for women to request no skeeves?
Most importantly, why does craigslist allow this to happen? Any plans to stop the madness? Most people probably do not even realize they’ve been flagged since no message is received, so they just figure the system gets crappy results. And following that, men seeking good old-fashioned romance probably figure there’s not many women here besides bots and hookers. This could be one reason why craigslist personals aren’t used much anymore for true romance, but rather just for married people looking to cheat, hookers, and sex games.
Too bad.n CL was once the cream of the crop.
And another thing about the false and abusive community flagging on craigslist–the reason I requested no adulterers or cockshots is because every time I’ve placed an ad or spoken to a friend about their having placed one in the last several years, we all have had the same experience of receiving lots of pics of dicks and married men responses. I can see getting those when posting in the “sexual encounters” areas, but those of us posting in the “dating” section looking for real partners feel accosted when opening a pic only to see some limp dick. Craigslist management neither responds nor seems to care that this happens to women on their site who are looking for real romance.
I guess it’s time to go with match.com. Too bad.
Who says there hasn’t been any?
Telling the truth is never easy!
Curious how you guys have managed to keep the site up w/o harrassment. I’m doing research on the ‘other side’ of craigslist, and haven’t found much yet.