I was wondering if this has been happening on CL anywhere else besides here in L.A. This person keeps listing like 30 or 40 things at a time for his business (He's selling new T.V.s) using a fake location and then immediatly after he'll list another thirty or forty things with a different location and the he'll do it again and again and again. It's gotten to the point where now for the last couple of weeks he's taking up the majority of every one of the electronics pages on CL. He does so many listings and so often that it's impossible to flag them all. He's now starting to do this on the Orange County CL too. I was wondering if this is happening anywhere else and if anyone has any ideas on how to stop him. He's obviously breaking the rules of CL and he's pretty much ruining the the site for everyone.
Here's an example...

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/ele/


If you notice, all the listings with the weird locations are from the same guy.

Looks like this guy and wo*xiang*si have it all tied up! Man I hope they don`t start over here.

Yeah, get those listings just about every day in on the Seattle CL. I don't know why Craigslist can't find a way to ensure that these scams don't even make it on the site. Gotta be a way.

I just got rid of some. Endless losing battle...

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/ele/1075982270.html

enough already!!:thumbsdn:

On the search line, type your specific product. It will avoid the dribble.

The problem is I'm never looking for a certain product. Just something that might interest me.

Wow - that is annoying! And that reminds me - I never got my Chubbawumba CD back......

Rob

Its ALL OVER Chicago CL! I feel like ive been on a one man crusade, flagging 50 listings at a time. I even sent an email to CL...no response.

Everywhere! I live in a small town in Canada and they're even doing it there!

Has it just started within the past couple of weeks for you guys or has it been going on for a long time?

Nothing here, knock on wood.

But there are retail (pawn) stores that list their goods in many ads, especially in the electronics section. I find that annoying.

Ok, that sucks and I would have a blast flagging every post he makes. Hasn't here in Tampa but hey, it's early.

The problem is I'm never looking for a certain product. Just something that might interest me.

:yes:

How many flags does it take to get it removed? I just spent 15 minutes flagging all his ads, and they are still there.

Rob

How many flags does it take to get it removed? I just spent 15 minutes flagging all his ads, and they are still there.

Rob

It takes A LOT of flags and it has to be done by a different person each time. If you flag something a bunch of times it still only counts as one flag point. That's kind of where the problem lies with these guys... It would take a bunch of different people to sit and individually flag each of his ads which no one would be able to do considering how many times he's posting.

Wow! You're right. This guy must have some kind of computer program to lauch an onslaught of this magnitude. Insane vendetta? Dont email this character as you'll regret it.....I am very suprised Craigslist is allowing it to happen. What a mess.

Wow! You're right. This guy must have some kind of computer program to lauch an onslaught of this magnitude. Insane vendetta? Dont email this character as you'll regret it.....I am very suprised Craigslist is allowing it to happen. What a mess.

Oh...I emailed the character. I just got an automated response and the email I sent him was rather fiery. Here's the reply (its boring, I apologize):

Dear friends of customers:
first of all, thank you very much for your contact us!Our item still for sale!
we are just advertisement personnel, if you are interested in our product , or maybe have some questions about our services ,you can contact our service personnel as soon as quickly , they must give you satisfaction of reply.
if you are interesting in our item,you can call -0086-010-81863897 or talk on MSN : aocoe@hotmail.com
(E-mail to : aocoe188@yahoo.com ) and welcome to our website : http://www.aocoe.com we can give you the best price and best service, all the items of us are original and brand new. Hoping with your cooperation and long time. good luck for you every day!


--


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We should get together and get as many AKers as possible to go on a mission and flag these kinds of ads. Well call it A.K.A.B.S.A (AKers against bullshit advertisements)

Every organization needs a cool name :D

I guess almost every local CL has it. Whatever they called themselves it a bunch of sellers from China hoping somebody will bite. I just can't imagine someone will buy let's say 60" Pioneer plasma from unknown dude in China. Besides: how much shipping and custom duties will be??? And something tells me they will post even if A.K.A.B.S.A will flag each and every post.

Get those every now and then around the DC area... I flag them Prohibited, and seems a lot of other people must too. They don't stick around very long.

It takes A LOT of flags and it has to be done by a different person each time. If you flag something a bunch of times it still only counts as one flag point. That's kind of where the problem lies with these guys... It would take a bunch of different people to sit and individually flag each of his ads which no one would be able to do considering how many times he's posting.

It is very annoying and I'm doing my part but it seems like you need 100 flags or more to remove this sheit.

Don't go to their website, I read that they will place a META-CRAWLER on your computer to search for passwords. This SCAM is originating from China.

I believe I read somewhere that it takes 3 flags (from different users) to get a CL post removed.

I believe I read somewhere that it takes 3 flags (from different users) to get a CL post removed.

I heard that too. But I dont think its true for all areas.

Yeah I think it's a lot closer to 3 than 100, at least where I live.

Luckily, I haven't seen this crap here.

Here in NO/VA. CL too!! Phones phones and more phones!! I tryed to flag but its just too many

Have any of you thought about posting an anouncement in the section they're monopolizing, explaining and exposing their scam listings ?? Re-posting this daily MAY discourage their continuing that BS !:bash:

The Charlotte CL is very well managed. Our biggest issues are the white van stereos and the prolific postings from professional cell phone sellers.

Well it's pretty much official... The electronics section in the L.A. CL is now useless. Has anyone found out any information about these a$$ holes. It's obviously someone from another country but does anyone know if CL is planning to do anything about it? It's been going on everyday non-stop for months now.:thumbsdn:

How are they getting by the captcha? Seems like the CL version is pretty hard to solve even for humans. You'd think CL would be all over this problem considering how huge a market LA is.

Here's an idea - have the server auto-delete any messages in a row with identical description, location, or pictures. Run a captcha program of their own on the pictures to decode any info .. like the foreign phone number, and delete all ads with the same foreign phone number or email.

Well it's pretty much official... The electronics section in the L.A. CL is now useless. Has anyone found out any information about these a$$ holes. It's obviously someone from another country but does anyone know if CL is planning to do anything about it? It's been going on everyday non-stop for months now.:thumbsdn:

It's over the top way F-ed up:sigh:

It's over the top way F-ed up:sigh:

Yes... It is.:gigglemad

They aren't getting around the captcha. They have probably automated the whole process up to that point and then their automation software prompts them to answer the captcha question. I can easily see that being a reasonable task, should the rest of the process be automated.

Even without automation, the process of posting on CL is so easy that I can easily imagine someone doing it all day long and not going batty.

When someone has no other opportunities in their country but making a dime an hour in awful conditions, they will be willing go to great lengths to make their own "business" model work. They must be nabbing enough unknowing customers to make it worth their while.

If someone had the time and programming skill, it would probably not be much trouble to setup a system that would inundate them with email replies. It's possible that if they started getting an insane number of replies they would be discouraged. But the replies do first have to go through CL's system and it's possible they would ban you before you could reach a significant volume of messages reaching the originator.

I heard a story that ebay was behind this to discredit craigslist and make them look like an amateur operation as supposedly competition from craigslist is hurting ebay's overall sales in electronics which is a money making category. Anyone heard anything like this? :scratch2:

Doesn't eBay own part of CL? I heard that too, so they very well could sabotage it easily if they wanted if that were the case.

Ours gets pretty bad sometimes too, especially multiple ads from China in the computer & electronics sections. :nono: I like the idea of flooding THEM with bogus replies, but without causing problems for the CL servers. :scratch2:

as far as I know, CL is still independently owned.

I see this kind of CL spam constantly, if it isn't cell phones, its something else.
mattresses in furniture, old toys in collectibles, the same rip off arstists in jewelery..etc.

at this point the community moderation system isn't working.

they really need moderators.

really, they could rebuild the system, so that when an ad is flagged, it gets put up in a moderator only section of the site, for the city in question.

volunteer moderators can log in, and remove or OK anything flagged.

if you have enough volunteers, it would get 99% of the BS off CL....


or at the very least, put up a section, where users inclined to police CL can post "flag this moron" ads, with a link, so that others can flag them as well.

Ours gets pretty bad sometimes too, especially multiple ads from China in the computer & electronics sections. :nono: I like the idea of flooding THEM with bogus replies, but without causing problems for the CL servers. :scratch2:

Flooding them with bogus replies wouldn't work in this case. It's happening so much here that would be impossible. They're literally doing it to where it's taking up at least half (usually 3/4 or more...) of EVERY page 24 hours a day seven days a week. Also it's not just going on every once in a while... It's been happening non stop for two or three months now.