Classified ads on CraigsList and other classified ad websites result in a lot of fraudulent responses, some of which were designed to divest yourself of your money and others which are designed to obtain your e-mail address so it can be sold to various spammers and fraudsters.
I recently posted a classified ad on Craigs List and immediately received several responses from people claiming to be interested in what I was selling. When I responded, I received back an e-mail stating that the person would send me a check and send someone to pick up the item I was selling. I immediately recognized as as a fraudulent e-mail. Anytime someone says they will send you a check, you can be sure that it’s fraud.
Obviously, I did not fall victim to the e-mail scam, but the worst part of this is that I suddenly realized the scammers now have my e-mail address which of course I had hidden on my Craig’s list ad. Not only do they have my e-mail address, but they know it is a valid e-mail address just waiting to receive spam e-mails from all of the spammers and scammers they sell it to.
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How can you avoid revealing your e-mail address when sending an e-mail to someone responded to your Craig’s List classified ad?
Tip: Set up a free e-mail account at Yahoo.com or elsewhere to respond to people responding to your classified ad. It will only take you 60 seconds to open a new temporary e-mail account, especially because you can use any weird username, so you don’t have to spend a lot of time looking for a good one.
Be sure to keep the username and password available so you can use your new e-mail account again when you post another ad. At any time when you start receiving too much spam at your new temporary e-mail account, just open another one.
admin says
It will not help you as a business because you can't dispose of your e-mail addresses when you're trying to run a business and need a consistent method of contact. Individuals looking to sell one or two items can simply set up a temporary e-mail & never use it again after the item is sold. I now use a "temporary" e-mail address with Yahoo. I only check this address if I am expecting to receive an e-mail, such as when I am selling something on Craig's list. That e-mail address gets a lot of spam every day, but I can ignore it when I am not selling something. Sometimes, I just create a new Yahoo e-mail address and start fresh. This keeps spammers and scam artists from getting my personal e-mail address when I answer a phony response to my Craigs list ad.
birendra Singh says
We are Travel Agent In India and posted ads on craigslist.org, and we are receiving a number of spam email.
using a new id will not be the solution of problem.