Tips for Users of Free Classified Ads and Job Post Sites

I have found a few opportunities using free classified ads giant Craiglist.org. They cover almost anything. Their traffic is insane!

But as you know, humans always look for ways to abuse resources. Free classified ads sites are no exception. If you use those sites to post or search items, then you should know about these tips on how to make the most out of free classified ads sites.

Not everything posted on free classified ads sites is legitimate. For instance, people post stuff on free classified ads sites just to collect email addresses to build their email lists. Spamming is not dead; people still get flooded with spam messages. Even a great email program such as gmail is not 100% effective at filtering spam. So the next time you are replying to a post from a free classified ads site, you need to make sure that you are replying to a legitimate post.

For example, if you are replying to a job post, you need to make sure that there is a real/actual entity behind the post. If the post is from a company, then they should openly provide their company identity (name, website, etc).

Using provided email or your own email address is not always a good idea. Craiglist.org does a good job by providing users with an anonymous email, hiding the users' personal email addresses. But that does not really solve the spamming problem. The auto generated email does expire after a month, but you can easily be spammed for 30 days after you post on the free classified ads site.

Some people do provide their personal email addresses. Again, that exposes them to spam. What is the solution?

There is no real solution, at least not yet. But there are a few tricks you can use to protect yourself. Here are some tricks to use:
1- Provide your email address in a very ambiguous way. For instance, if your email address is ac_user@domain.com. You should give it as ac_userboggus1@domain.com and write a line telling humans to remove "boggus1" from the email address.

2- Use image versions of your email address. There are good programs that can generate a hard-to-decode image for your email address. Use such programs. Give the image ambiguous names.

A lot of people use automated programs to reply to posts from free classified ads sites. That means you can get multiple replies from the same user. It might require sophisticated tricks to filter out those annoying replies. So the best thing you can do is prevent them.

If you do have a dedicated email account (and server functionality) to filter replies, make sure you provide instructions on what you expect from people who reply to your free classified ad. That way you can easily remove any replies that did not match the expectations/specifications.

If you are replying to posts via telephone (cellphone), it is better to use a landline phone. If the post is not legitimate and is merely collecting cell numbers, then by calling from a cell you are exposing yourself to unwanted promotions via text messaging and the like.

If you are posting jobs, it would be a good idea to provide links to pages where users can apply for the job instead of just replying to your post via email.

Alas, that is the downside of free classified ads sites; they can be highly abused. Make sure you look for legitimate posts to reply to. And of course, flag illegitimate posts whenever applicable.

Let's make the free classified ads experience better for all of us who are good people with no intention of abuse!