New scams regarding pictures and one of the common scams I forgot to mention last time

   Summer has gone by fast and is almost over but the craigslist scammers (and scammers to other sites like backpage) don't slow down for the Fall and Winter Months. In my last entry I covered the most common scams but there are a few scams that I missed. One is where a person responds to your ad with a photo of themselves and an email address, another where the person seeks your sympathy because they have a disability, and of course there are the porn site recruiters who like the dating site scams are trying to get you to join their porn site.

Picture with an email address
   In this scam the person includes a picture of themselves and a little note saying "If you are real, email me at ...". To the person who receives the response to their ad, they may think that this person found a clever way to avoid scammers and isn't a scam themselves. It turns out that they are a scam and will respond telling you to join a dating site or age verification site. It is interesting how far scammers will go just to get a response from you. Of course they are receiving a commission for every person they can sucker into joining the website scam that they represent and a lot of people know about their scams forcing them to change tactics. A personal friend of mine that I mentioned in my Craigslist Blacklist blog has been using craigslist and we are doing an experiment to see how many real responses he receives from an ad he placed on Craigslist. So far none of the responses have been legitimate people and he has shown me at least 2 responses to his craigslist ad by women who posted a photo of their chest (wearing lingerie) with a note saying that if he is a real person to email her at an email address. He responded to them and one of the ladies responded back asking questions about him and seemed interested. When he replied, his emails to her started bouncing (returned undeliverable by his email provider) and later she did the sales pitch where her email provider isn't reliable but there is a cool dating site that he can join for free (but will have to pay $9.95/month to be able to even talk to her according to the sites Terms of Service since a non-paying member must upgrade to a paying member to send messages to other members). The other lady was concerned he may be her ex-boyfriend or some stalker and wanted him to join a "free" adult verification site "just to be safe".

Using disabled people to seek sympathy
   Another scam that I have seen is a guy will respond to an ad for a male seeking female ad to ask if you can do him and his wife a favor. He mentions how because of a War Injury, Car Accident, etc he is in a wheelchair and unable to satisfy his wife. He mentions that his wife is drug and disease free and includes a picture of him in a wheelchair being pushed by his attractive wife. Don't worry, he assures he won't be home when you are with his wife since he has to work long hours. The only thing you need to do is join an adult verification site because he is looking out for the best interests of his wife who he so dearly loves.

Adult Website advertisers
   I forgot to mention one of the most common scams on craigslist and other online personal sites. In this scam a person will respond to your ad and after exchanging emails or chatting online he/she tries to get you to join a free adult porn site because they don't post pictures on a public site like craigslist. You also may respond to someones ad and after emailing and chatting be asked to join a free adult porn site to see pictures of him/her. It is always a waste of time to talk with someone who you would like to meet in person only to find out they have no plans to meet you in person, they are just selling a porn site and if you join, they get money for suckering you into joining.

   Three more of the scams you can expect to see on craigslist or other online personals site. Of course if you do find a "real person", you may find out he/she is a prostitute looking for clients. There's very little Craigslist or other sites can do about people who respond to your ad and sometimes they will remove an ad that is one of the many frauds out there but don't count on it. It's nearly impossible for them to follow up on every complaint which may include rival scams trying to get an ad from their rival removed.