Use google put their email address in the search field. youll be looking for mutiple post from the user if there on craigslist (not the email address that craigslist uses) . you'll notice some of the email address will have multiple scams from different cities, jobs to items they try to sell . Give this a try before giving your details out .



edited by: jawjacker, Nov 30, 2009 - 06:48 PM

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**Jawjacker**

Don't forget to put the address in quotes, & make sure there's no empty spaces.

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Martineaux

The scammers love Gmail, as you can tell. If a CL post has no local info and a Gmail address, it's bound to be spam. Google confirms the address.
They also use Hotmail and Yahoo/Ymail, but not as often as Gmail.

I would like to offer another useful tool when you think your at a bogus site.
This will sit on your browser once installed.
It will report how safe the site actually is plus for the added benifit it will give you the server address as to who owns the site.
http://www.callingid.com/Default.aspx

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**Jawjacker**

Something else to explain about "CallingId" Information provided by Calling ID:

Users often respond to emails and other solicitations or search results thinking they are accessing a company and/or responding to a reasonable request. The exposure is as simple as singing up for a newsletter and providing a standard user ID and password. It can be as easy as responding to information verification. It can be as confusing as trying to handle an apparent billing problem and identifying yourself. All these are potential devices scammers and identity thieves employ to get the information they need to overtake your identity.

Many attempts have been made to protect users from the criminals who try to take advantage of the anonymity provided by the Internet. However, most of the tools currently available react slowly when a new scam or phishing site is launched and often block sites you actually wish to do business with because of arbitrary access rules.

Here is where CallingID comes into the picture. CallingID evaluates all the information about the site you're visiting and displays a warning when the site may be fraudulent. Now users don't need to investigate every site they visit - a quick glance at the CallingID toolbar is enough to judge if a site is trustworthy or fraudulent. At the user's request CallingID can show a summary of all the information used to make the assessment of the site, thus allowing users to gauge the site for themselves without running complex tests and queries about the site owner.

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**Jawjacker**

Here are some other ways to spot a fake employment ad:
-No company name or even type of company listed
-Poor grammar or spelling
-Generic location, incorrect location, or no location given at all
-Very basic, unspecific job title and/or requirements
-Compensation is either far too high for that job or has an enormous range
-Says "Telecommuting is ok" on a job that can't be done over the Internet
-Ad tells you to call or email a person, yet there is no email address or phone number listed, because the person doesn't exist!
-Random code of letters and numbers at the end of the listing

Many fakes will have some combination of the above features. If you see any postings like that, flag them immediately. Good luck job hunting in 2010, and hopefully none of you will get scammed!

Great post, Dewey. Those little code letter groups caught my eye recently, as have dignity-health, white-collarjobs, dignity-hc, etc postings. I'm also running into ones that have totally unrelated cities in the ad, like Coeur Creve(Il. or Mo.) on a Washington ad. I'm going to paste & post your post on my regional C/L

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Martineaux

Thanks martineaux, I appreciate people recognizing my work haha. Interesting you mention posts with the wrong location, because I've seen a lot of those too. In fact, I recently saw one with your location of Humboldt County, among others in California, on the South Jersey Craigslist. You'd think these scammers would realize that they have to change the locations on their posts to at least make them look somewhat authentic.

Just a reminder, it is possible to find a real job on CL. I found several ads for a real company, Comcast cable, a few weeks ago; they've since hired me and I start Monday. If I can do it, anyone else can too!

some of the ground has been covered thanks deweyd8855,martineaux and a few other area's that we might be missing ?

SPOTTING PHISHING SITES
Check the address bar - fake sites are often hosted on domains that have nothing to do with their target. Although eBay owns www.ebay.com it may not own www.ebay-members-security.com.
Retype web links rather than click on them - legitimate-looking links in phishing e-mails often redirect you to fake sites.
Spelling test - some phishing gangs make their own webpages and often they are full of spelling and grammatical errors.
Site security - most online banks use weblinks starting "https" rather than "http".
Naked numbers - Few organisations use raw net addresses in e-mails and seeing one can flag a problem.
Use an anti-phishing toolbar - add-ons to browsers are produced by firms such as ebay, Netcraft, Geotrust, Cloudmark, Comodo and Phishing.net that can flag fake sites. Also worth using is the Site Advisor add-on for IE and Firefox.

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**Jawjacker**

one more thing from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/phishing/symptoms.aspx

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**Jawjacker**

I just posted edited versions of Dewey's "Here are some other ways to spot a fake employment ad" in my native region and neighboring states, and those & Flake warnings I've put on CraigsList over the last week have all been flagged! Nice that CraigsList cares more about Flakes & Scammers than protecting their users. I guess I posted too many similar ads in too short a span of time

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Martineaux

Too bad Craigslist wont let people from the local area like one or two would moniter the job areas from their own cities. I'm sure there would be a few out there that would like to do this in there spare time.

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**Jawjacker**

I just want to say that it is VERY frustrating trying to look for a job, and here is a site that is supposed to be helpful and I swear I have not found one post on craigslist that isnt a scam in the jobs section. Then when I think I found one that seems to be legit, of course not i get an e-mail back asking me to go to freecreditreport.com UGHHHHH

It IS very frustrating, bdeezy87. These people are screwing with us and it's NOT fair. There needs to be something done by the government or something. We're hard working people who don't deserve to go through it. Granted, CL can't look through EVERY post and weed out the bad, but I wish something could be done about it. It's really crappy.

omg, I feel exactly the same way!! nowdays, I'm so suspecious and don't wanna even give them any info! It's really annoying to get a lot of junk emails while we are seriously waiting for a response from company

I started forwarding the Gmail Flakes addresses to abuse@google.com. They'll just switch to ymail or GMX or Yahoo or Hotmail. Frigging CraigsList just doesn't give a Flake!!!

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Martineaux

I just sent jobs@craigslist another note:
I'm currently underemployed, and had good luck with CraigsList last year, when I was unemployed, but now, CraigsList is infested with scammers: most want an applicant to either spend money to apply for a job, or are links to paid "training" sites, or submit a credit report, which opens the door to identity theft and fraud. Scammers will post virtually identical ads all over the US, all over the "Help Wanted" boards that don't require payment. I'll see the same ad many times, with just a little group of letters in the bottom left corner that change from ad to ad, thereby making it a "different" ad.

CraigsList is great for free ads for buying & selling, and other networking, but it looks to me like the only way to eliminate the scammers and spammers is for CraigsList to start charging for Help Wanted ads. Just $1 might ward off these lowlifes, and the dollar charge would offset the cost of credit card processing to CraigsList.

Also, a lot of people who are looking for work post ads on the Help Wanted pages: CraigsList should add a "Work Wanted" classification. Evidently there are actually people out there who are intimidated by the word "resume". When I posted my resume on CraigsList, I never, ever got a legit response....only scammers, so there should be a Captcha step for anyone to respond to a Work Wanted post, and Help Wanted posters should be encouraged to not use an email link or their email, but to spell it out, as in:
jobs-AT-craigslist-DOT-org.

I'd love to see the people take back the Help Wanted boards at CraigsList, which needs to start with a charge for all Help Wanted ads


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Martineaux

martineaux I dont think there was any better way to say it. Kudos to you!
We need to take back the helpful website that has been taken away from honest job seekers by scammers!

I have asked Craig's List if they would be interested in adding a "report flake" link to their ad pages, as suggested by a FlakeList user. I don't expect that I'll get a positive response, but then again, you never know. Keep your fingers crossed!

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Super idea! Maybe we could petition them. Flakelist.org is my hero.

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Never been scammed, never been keylogged, never had a virus...online since 1996

I agree. Craigslist needs to step up and stop these crooks from posting fake jobs.

I hope something changes soon. I am desperate for a job in the graphic design field and I can't find one legit job online. Where is a guy like me supposed to go to start my career? This is crazy!

I go to besides Craigslist for my husband's job searching is Hotjobs.com which one of my local paper uses and go to the other local paper's website. I also go on Careerbuilder.com. If people are looking for Hourly chain businesses Snagajob.com. I am glad I found this site. My husband called a number on Craigslist and went to where he was to meet the person (Mcdonalds) and really did not see hardly anyone their so just left. When I went to Craiglist to get the number again the ad was gone so Craigslist must have taken it down. I do not have a problem clicking on those buttons to the right on Craigslist. I also wanted to say I have gotten LoL twice from temp services, they do not realize they need to give out more information in the ad or I will ask Real job?.

Hey Jawjacker,
I read your posts about CallingId and I installed it on my computer. Thank you for the info on it, I feel a lot better having it on my computer and knowing for sure if a site is safe. Who knows how many times I've gone to fake sites before??