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..

 

[joecoin]

We own a commercial building that we needed to rent out starting April of 2017. We used a real estate broker to list it nationally. My wife also put it up on Craigslist, even though the agent told her not to bother.

Took three days on Craigslist before we rented it, still had to pay the agent.

Locally I see a fairly robust market (on Craigslist) for the things I'm looking to buy.

 

[forgeblast]

Facebook classifieds. I like it because you can see if the person has a profile and who they are before meeting.

 

[polo1665]

Russians?

Probably not, but they are definitely responsible for the thistles in the other thread.

 

[Dadnatron]

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..

In my area, we have a lot of Military folk (often women) who are selling their equipment and ATVs before redeployment. It always tends to be in storage, at a loading dock about 300 miles away, ready to be shipped to my address after full payment has been made. I keep itching to pull the trigger... but just can't part with my $$$. Even at the low low price of $1503 for a $19,000 tractor... I just can't part with it.

 

[Groo]

Facebook it the leading private sales sight, even though it isn't set up as one. What is good about it is it can be reasonably local, and some of them are restricted to keep spamming riff-raff to a minimum. Seeing the seller's profile helps too.

 

[D2Cat]

Must be a lot of flakes here also.

I had an L2050 4x4 with a 5' finish mower attached. I determined what I would be glad to sell the setup for and listed it on CL at about 9AM. I was pretty busy the whole day and stopped about 3:30 to get a drink an eat my lunch. Had about 6 calls on my phone. I called the first one. Guy said he'd been trying to reach me several times, did I still have the tractor? I told him yes. He wanted to know where it was located, and I told him. He wanted to know if he could come over and see it, he was only a few miles away. I told him to meet me in an hour.

In 45 minutes he called and told me where he was and about 3 miles away. When he showed up he had a young guy with him (about 25) and I asked him if that was his son. Nope, that was a friend who helps him and was coming along to see if the tractor was what he was looking for.

Started it up, played with it about 15 minutes, handed me the cash I asked in the ad, and the young man drove off.

Two flakes, him and me...both happy! I use Cl frequently.

 

[teejk]

Seems to be a geographic thing. I shop for woodworking/other tools from time to time and have yet to bother with the inflated prices people ask around here. But I understand that other people in other areas love the site. It may be that I don't understand the "game". How far off from the "firm" price can I go?

 

[D2Cat]

In the last month I've bought a 100 gal fuel tank with a hand pump, a round bale moving spike, two quick attach mounting plates, 4 ea solid skid steer tires. I really don't have problems dealing with folks selling things.

I do not respond to ads listed by folks who want me to email them to start any communications. If they don't list a phone number I go right on by...no matter how much I might want to know.

Now wait a minute, I have sent a couple of emails to those who did not list a number. Just to tell them I couldn't find a number. Then when they email me back I delete it! Just for sport.

 

[rekees4300]

What is happening to Craigslist is the same thing that is happening to the shopping malls .... it's called AMAZON.COM

 

[jaxs]

Now wait a minute, I have sent a couple of emails to those who did not list a number. Just to tell them I couldn't find a number. Then when they email me back I delete it! Just for sport.

Yep,those on Craigslist "just for sport"are also a problem.