Craigslist ghosting (email, work, ISP, Word) - Internet - - City-Data Forum

cmjones311 · 12-19-2011, 10:51 AM

I'm more than highly irritated at Craigslist and the idiots that ruin it for everyone.

I tried to post an ad on craigslist last night for the new city I'm thinking of moving to, to try to make friends before I get there.

Because CL saw by my IP address that I was not in the state I was posting in, my ad "ghosted" (they sent me a link to see it, but it never actually posted on the site for anyone else to see).

I know this for a fact because I tried several email addresses/phone numbers/words in ads, from 2 different computers, and none of them posted. I've posted things in my local area before without any issues, and even posted an ad in my local area to test it out right after the ghosting, and it worked just fine. The only common denominator for the issue is an IP address that isn't in the geographical area I was trying to post in.

It's not like I'm trying to run a marketing scam and post a hundred ads; I just want ONE, and it's not trying to sell anything!

I honestly see no possible way to get around this stupid rule. I've googled until I'm blue in the face. And of course, there's no one at CL that you can actually talk to. Any emailed questions you have, they just send you an automated link to their TOS. NOT HELPFUL, as I had to just do my own guesswork on trying to figure out the problem, and there's no solution.

IRRITATING.

reed303 · 12-19-2011, 11:33 AM

Instead of CL, have you tried the City-Data forum for the state/city of interest ??
at https://www.city-data.com/forum/#u-s-forums
Lots of posts by people looking for info etc on an area they are moving to.

Bo · 12-19-2011, 02:38 PM

If you're not a frequent poster on Craigslist, the algorithm there probably doesn't trust you enough yet to let you post on a category for a faraway place. You might try posting a few times in categories for your local area to gain the algorithm's trust before posting again in the category for the non-local place.

Even if you could reach their support people, I doubt they would be very forthcoming about countermeasures to their anti-spam provisions.

It's also possible that the IP address your ISP assigned to you was once assigned to someone local to you who did bad things on Craigslist and it may have been blacklisted. I doubt they would tell you that, either.