What's happened to Craigslist?

[quicksandfarmer]

I've been thinking about this for a while and the thread on Ebay spurred me to post. I used to use Craigslist a lot, to buy things, sell things, give things away, find tenants, find people to do things for me, whatever. Lately I find that the listings have really slowed down, most of the stuff offered for sale looks junky, most of the people offering services seem shady, and everyone seem flaky. Is it just me or just my area, or are others seeing the same thing? Are there any good sites out there? I agree that Ebay is not what it once was either.

 

[bigtiller]

I have been slowing down also. It seems to be the same old overpriced stuff, day after day for weeks on end.

They used to have a rule that you had to wait 3 days before re-posting the same ad.

 

[RNeumann]

Russians?

 

[ericm979]

CL's always been full of flakes in our area. It is worse now than it was 15 years ago. When I sold my B7100 I had scores of low ballers from CL and no serious queries. I sold it for the asking price when I posted it to a local mountain area mailing list.

OTOH I found a good deal on a truck from CL, from a nice honest sales guy at a good dealership.

 

[ning]

My daughter uses nextdoor.com a ton up in Portland Oregon. Real names, localized postings; she's been setting up a new household & gardens and has found a lot of stuff, both for sale and for free.
I'm starting to use it in the CA Gold Country; I like that it's localized ("neighborhoods") and real people. I still use CL from time to time but to be honest it's never been a gold mine - very hit & miss.

 

[flyerdan]

There is a lot more competition out there; as mentioned Nextdoor is a venue, and there can be several facebook groups for every community, as someone takes offense at something and starts their own faction, and on it goes. Now someone needs to come up with a spider search that encompasses all of these groups. We've come a long way from when the only way to buy and sell was the Nickel Ads and IGA shopper.

 

[ThirdMan]

I agree that Craigslist is facing more competition. This last year I sold a car and bought a truck on Craigslist. It was better than any of the other services I tried for that. But smaller items are posted to Facebook Marketplace around me. Facebook keeps all of that concerning personal information, but that also makes what they show me on marketplace relevant to what I am interested in. I see some things on Nextdoor and it is more local and probably safer.

 

[Teachu2]

I recently helped out a family member who was about to have his truck repossessed - which left me with an extra truck. I put it on Craigslist and my phone blew up, five dealers out of Los Angeles wanting to buy it. Two of them met me in Bakersfield the next day, and one bought it. Others called for weeks after I'd taken the ad down.

 

[jaxs]

DFW Craigslist is overrun with scammers and flakes. IMO,Craigslist would be much improved if there was a small fee for posting. If nothing else,that would eliminate posting the same ad a dozen times, phishing for phone #s and email addresses. If the fee was charged every time ad was renewed,that would help eliminate reposting every 2 hours. Most deals I've got was when the seller was sick of messing with idiots and willing to take what's offered to end it.

 

[Tomtint]

Up here there are always great deals to be had on CL... I mean..I can buy a number of like new Kubota tractors or mini excavators for 1500.00 each..all I need to do is wire the funds to the guy in Nigeria and he will have his cousin meet me right down the street with it.....yeah..CL is complete ghetto trash in my area..