Hoax Craigslist ads
I read this news article today and was just appalled: Hoax Craigslist ads cost man huge property loss. Which brings me to my point. Since when was it true because something is on the Internet? And knowing there are so many hoaxes on craigslist, why would you not question it? seriously. What was that saying? “Never believe everything you read”? Yeah, this definitely should go into effect for anything on the Internet. You really need proof.
What does Craigslist do about it anyways? The most they could do I suppose is find out who supposedly posted the ad, and give the data over to the police. I really hope they get caught. Because seriously, that’s just not right to do. I suppose this is a good method to get back at someone. As a revenge thing.
But could Craigslist prevent more of this happening? Should they be forced to screen every single ad on their site? That’s a tremendous undertaking and honestly, it doesn’t sound probable or practical. But if Craigslist were held responsible for all their ads, now that’s a different matter. Of course, they would probably be taken down faster than you could say “Craigslist?” and go out of business. And you know they have a disclaimer which protects them in such cases for legal reasons.
I think personally, I’m just appalled at the evil that people do. Because make no mistake, this is evil. There is no quality of practical joke there anywhere. We’ve seen or heard about all the hoaxes on Craigslist, and it just makes me ashamed to be human. Personally, I don’t think they could be prevented. People are evil by nature. It’s what we do that makes us good people.
What do you think? Do you think more should be done to prevent such hoaxes?
Local Tags: craigslist, evil, hoax, internet



March 24th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Craigslist is a self governed - for the most part - classifieds. There are links for every post that allow you to mark it as spam or fake. I’d see ‘em pretty regularly when looking for PSP stuff. I’d mark them as spam or fake and in about a day they’d be taken down.
Still - I blame the people who went out there and took the stuff more than the person who posted it. Who the hell goes to a home that looks lived in and just takes stuff? When does that EVER happen? Especially when the owner comes home and says ‘That’s mine! Don’t take it!’ and they wave a printout at him and leave with the stuff!? I hope those people get convicted of a whole slew of stuff and hopefully the guy will get most of his stuff back.