Craigslist - Great Real Estate Marketing if You Can Jump the Sharks
Anyone with a shred of entrepreneurial spirit has got to admire the opportunities available on the web. For many of us in the real estate business, it is the backbone of our company - allowing us to market our client’s listings in new ways to an ever expanding marketplace. I love craigslist. It’s easy to search, it’s easy to post listings, and it does provide leads….and it’s free! Over the past couple months, we have had the pleasure of hooking clients up with renters and potential buyers that contacted us through craigslist, and I would recommend to any and every client to be sure that your listing is represented on craigslist.org.
And then there are the spammers, and scammers, and advanced fee fraudsters. This is the part that drives me up the wall with advertising online, and craigslist really seems to get pounded by these dark elements of the world wide web. Today, I posted some listings on craigslist, and about an hour later I get this email:
From: fay.colson@gmail.com <fay.colson@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 2:55 PM
Subject: $339000 Romantic 3 BR, 2BA North Georgia Cabin Located in Big Canoe! (Big Canoe)Hi,
I’m very interested to see this place, when are you showing it?
can you call me and let me know?thanks
About 30 minutes later I received another email from nataliem1988@gmail.com, and natalie m’s email read:
From: nataliem1988@gmail.com <nataliem1988@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 3:30 PM
Subject: $339000 Romantic 3 BR, 2BA North Georgia Cabin Located in Big Canoe! (Big Canoe)Hi,
I’m very interested to see this place, when are you showing it?
can you call me and let me know?thanks
So it would appear that I made the team for an email campaign for a craigslist spammer. Over the course of the afternoon, I received additional copies of the same email from: mr.gelbert@gmail.com, jackt1000@gmail.com, and jay19hart@gmail.com. Lucky me. There’s not a doubt in my mind that craigslist would love to take out the trash, but it’s just not that simple. It’s almost a virtual arms race to see if the good guys can outpace the bad guys. The old adage of caveat emptor applies more now than ever before. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Here are some additional links regarding online scams (and avoiding them) that are definitely worth reading:
- Craigslist Real Estate Scam Alert
- Beware of fake real estate ads on Craigslist
- Real Estate Scams on Craigs List
- Our old pal Helen Dickson needs your help!
- And right off of craigslist.org itself, the following link regarding scams: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html
~Karin Elliott is a resident of the North Georgia mountain Community of Big Canoe. Read more about living in Big Canoe in her blog Life in Big Canoe, Real Estate in the Mountains.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I completely agree that the internet has opened up opportunites for people. It’s a pity, but there will always be that element that tires to take advantage of people.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Funny! I had a similar experience selling my car of Craigslist. Eventually someone real bought it but there were a lot of phonies too! Your post helped. I noticed a lot of similar patterns in the emails. Too bad I deleted them or I would have posted a few.
Good luck!!
Jeniffer
June 4th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Thanks for providing this helpful information.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Whether its Craigslist, or EBay, or even your own blog, there are so many tools being sold today to some make intelligent spam… its amazing. In most cases, they want your email id, so that they can add it in their live-email id database and sell it forward. Ever wondered how all those mails come in your spambox? This is why. Thanks for this post. I hope it helps people.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am
@Ryan - You’re absolutely right. To be fair, I get more spam to this blog than I get from Craigslist and Ebay combined. Fortunately, Akismet, which is Wordpress’s spam catcher, filters most of the garbage before it ends up on the site.
June 14th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I encountered email spam from
Date: Sun Jun 8 11:19:12 2008
From:
[ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ]
To:
Subject: $325000 Home selling $100,000 below tax value (Sunnyvale)
** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY — AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html
i would like to set an apontment to see this property. do you have more like this?
and
Date: Sun Jun 8 11:41:33 2008
From:
[ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ]
To:
Subject: $325000 Home selling $100,000 below tax value (Sunnyvale)
** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY — AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html
i would like to set an apontment to see this property. do you have more like this?
When they are spamming why do they even email back?
Thanks Tom
June 15th, 2008 at 8:41 am
@Tom - No idea why the spammers do anything that they do! Often, they respond to anything they receive regardless of how ridiculous it sounds. You could tell them that you’ve got a bug infested swamp filled by alligators for sale, and the spammers/scammers will respond.
I guess it’s just the brute force approach, and unfortunately, it must work on occasion because they continue with their efforts!
July 1st, 2008 at 11:00 am
Once you reply, they have your name and real email address and if you reply with it, or have it on your signature, your direct phone number. That is probably their real goal.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Thanks for the info. Just received an email from “jay19hart@gmail.com”
hello,
I’m interested in checking this place out. when are you available to show it?
When is this place available to move in? i’m flexable and sold already my house.
Please contact me back - thank you
July 13th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
You’re welcome Christy!
July 17th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Glad I did a google! Just received the following e-mail saying the same thing from the above mentioned offenders, plus one more name…
fay.colson@gmail.com
jackt1000@gmail.com
jay19hart@gmail.com
gregory.sambo@gmail.com
hello,
I’m interested in checking this place out. when are you available to show it?
I then received yet another message saying the same thing from the gregory.sambo.
I don’t understand their purpose, but thanks for the info.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Thanks Christa! I’ll have to add gregory.sambo@gmail.com to the list.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Got a suspicious email from gregory.sambo@gmail.com. The thing that tipped me off is the near complete lack of intelligence of the email.
“I’m interested in checking this place out. when are you available to show it?
When is this place available to move in? i’m flexable and sold already my house.
Please contact me back - thank you”
Is it some criminal trying to come in and case the house during an open house, or just some wahoo with nothing better to do?
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Doonser - who knows for sure. I’m not sure if they’re just harvesting contact info or if they’re working on some type of advanced fee fraud scheme, or if they just like sending out useless random emails to people!
I do know that the amount of spam email I receive seems to be increasing. A quick look at my junk email folder for the past few days shows maybe 20-30 emails from characters like Madam Charity Uwaoma, Mr. Song Lile, the UK National Lottery Organization, and my personal favorite - the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:05 am
THANK YOU so much for posting this info -
We’re trying to sell a place outside Columbus GA and I thought CraigsList would be a good addition to our efforts. We rec’d an email last night from “Fay Colson” - what was strange was I had provided a link to a page that has information/multiple pics of our property and this person was wanting MORE. Anyway, for some reason I was compelled to run my standard internet check I run on any stranger that contacts me . . . but am I happy I did!
Thank you for helping this newbie avoid wasting time!
May you have a blessed day!
July 26th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Cindy - I apologize for not having your comment posted sooner, but for some reason Akismet (Wordpress’s spam blocker) tagged it as spam. Don’t feel too bad, Akismet marks me as spam even if I post on my own blog!
I’m glad our site helped you out. “Fay” has been pretty busy sending out emails lately haha. Best of luck selling your home in Columbus. Feel free to contact me if I can help out further.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Cindy - one other point. Cragislist is a great place to advertise your property. Our real estate company here in Big Canoe, GA has received plenty of good leads from Craigslist. You just have to avoid the sharks