KonAaron Snake 

I remember that guy Rocco...he was incredibly annoying. Even more annoying than the guys he ranted about. If memory serves, he ended up accusing our local top posters of being some sort of bicycle mafia that were all in cahoots to steal, convert to fixie and over charge.

krems81 

I'm pretty laissez-faire about the whole thing. I seldom flag anything, things rarely upset me on cl, and I sometimes find the vigilantes to be more harmful than the dubious sellers. Those sellers never seem to move their stuff.

I do appreciate the occasional post outing a seller for hocking something for more than it costs new, but I won't be the one to write it. I figure the market will govern itself. I find craigslist buyers to be intelligent people - at least the ones I come into contact with - and if one is foolish enough to make a poor buy from a dubious seller, I figure its a match made in heaven. I don't really think that way, I just don't waste my time considering what kind of off-color deals might be happening.

Paternalism is really the subject at hand. How much can we really save the public from themselves? I'd rather work towards educating the people who come to buy things from me, so they understand what they're getting and why. If I got into trying to prevent people from being ripped off, I'd have to start picketing on the street in front of certain brick and mortar bike shops.

sonatageek

I pretty much only flag the things where people are trying to hold an auction or if they are making over the top lies.

The flippers who repost there 5-20 over priced bikes every few days are the real scourge, and there is no way to control them. If enough people flag them, and the ad goes away, they just repost. They create so much clutter, well they take half the fun of scanning CL ads away.

Rollfast

Human nature dictates that the expose' and vigilante types probably have a juvenile personality (are one maybe) or share some blame for the problem they howl about (like firefighters burning down building to get recognition for saving lives).

I've caught the same cat accusing folks of being frauds three times in the Electronics section here and he actually responded, scolded and penitant only to do it again.

Maybe he should stick with Atari and dial phones...what is worse he sounded like one of my relatives down dad's side.

Rollfast

This happens when the gold bullion and crack are gone and the 1973 Ford Country Squire Wagon can't be sold because where would you put all your junk?

That and eBay. See it enough and it warps your mind in the worst way.

Want your mind warped the right way? Watch a lot of Rocky and Bullwinkle

phillyrider

If you get seriously ripped off - here's an example.
I checked out Phillies tickets for fun - I was somewhat amazed that people would hand over $1,000 for 4 tickets only to get to the game to find out they're fake.

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/tix/1437896659.html

ricksey

I've been on CL this summer in the bikes section like it's crack cocaine or something. Can't stop myself. So here is my .02. If you post something on CL, and someone emails you a question, answer the email. If the item is sold, delete the listing. It's really not that hard.

I have also found that Craigslist has brought out the most illiterate group of human beings I have ever seen. It's as if no one knows how to use punctuation or sentence structure at all. And do not get me started on spelling. There is some idiot in my area, (Mpls/St Paul) who misspells Schwinn as often as possible, uses "coll" for "call" and is always looking for $100-$150 for $50 Huffy's and Magna's. Maybe he's from another country, maybe he's a drunk, maybe I shouldn't care. But I had to get that off my chest.

And I will flag each and every Razor Scooter that shows up on the bike board. Those are not bikes.

Force 

We also have such vigilantes on the Atlanta CL. I don't understand these people and the need to police the site warning people of rip offs. If the bike is a rip off, then it won't sell. If someone is on craigslist, then they have access to information on the internet about pricing. It is just a google search away. Let the market work it out. Do these vigilantes also stand outside of Wal-Mart to warn people that certain items there can be had more cheaply at Target?

SweetLou

I agree. I only flag something that is against Craigslist rules. I might think someone is either stupid or silly to be asking for some prices they do, but I don't flag them. If it's an outright lie, then I do flag.

My biggest pet peeve is items in the wrong category. It's not bad on CL, at least not in my part of the US. But there are certain eBay categories that I don't browse any more because they are filled with items that don't belong there. It makes it much more difficult to browse the category for the things you are interested in.

Tigerprawn

Selling a $300 bike from bikesdirect for near double the cost is pretty common on my CL. Sad, but true. Everything else (C&V wise) is fair game. People will post for what they want to sell it for. If you don't like the price and can't haggle walk away.

kendall

I've flagged a few ads, mostly annoying types for spam or overpost.
Really hate when people just post a bunch of names so their ad pops up in searches.
A car dealer nearby posted their complete inventory with a huge list of key words in each one,no matter what I searched for using the main window's search bar, or on craigs helper, brought up 20 or 30 ads from them.
After a few searches for bicycles and different tools and always having to pick through their ads it ticked me off so much I went through and flagged every one of them.

Another thing that gets me, more more in a "funny" mode, is when people list something that's so overpriced and with such a limited interest that it never sells, and keep listing it forever without lowering the price. (one ad I see regularly, has been listed about every month for a few years now, and always at the same $2500 price, get a clue dude!)

Ken.

Charles Wahl

Posting banter just raises noise and reduces signal on CraigsList, as far as I'm concerned.