hello! yoshi

Remember when I wrote that post about Hoax Craigslist ads? Well, turns out, the police say it wasn’t a hoax after all. What apparently happened was a couple in the area had stolen some horsing gear from the gentleman and to cover it up, they made the craigslist ad. That’s right folks, to cover up their own crime, they made everyone else come and take stuff. How crazy is this? I have to admit, it’s pretty sneaky, but they probably needed to cover it up a bit better since they got caught.

Sadly enough, the gentleman has not received all his items back. I’m still floored that people thought it must be real because it’s on the internet. It just makes me sick!

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?