Is posting ads for someone on craigslist a scam?

[C. Marie]

I recently posted my resume on craigslist. I got a text message from someone asking if i needed a job and i said yes what kind of job. They told me that ill i have to do is post ads on craigslist and ill get paid $400 a week. I started this today and thats all i do is post ads for their cleaning/ house keeping business. Could this be a scam and if it is what is the point for them? they dont have any information from me

[Cory]

If it is a scam , their using you to get information of people , not sure though

[Jake]

A general rule for Craigslist is if it's too good to be true, then it probably is. I had a similar offer and I received a check from an unknown bank. I called my banker and she said that the person who sent it was trying to access my account. I would say you have a scam on your hands. I personally would never pay $1,600 a month for Craigslist postings alone.

[Jake]

Typically if you post more than 1 ad a day your account is at risk of being removed, professional ad posters equipped with multiple computers and accounts charge about $3 each for ads, at their rate you would be limited to be able to sustain about 7 ads, worth $21 a week, my roundabout logic suggests their not being able to justify paying a regular person $400. Another too good to be true offer.?

The point is being able to get ads posted for a week for free, after they don't pay you they just hire someone else next week.

[purringLeader663]

Of course it's a scam.
No one needs to pay anyone $400 to post ads for them. If they were too busy their 5 year old child could do it for them.

[john]

You are now involved in a criminal operation that could land you in federal prison... seriously. All the scams on craigslist are posted by fall guys like you. The scams will lead directly to your door. Expect the police. Delete ALL the adds, cut off all contact and call the police... Seriously.
Also they won't pay you or will give you phony check.

[Sumit]

posting ads for someone on craigslist can be a scam ,so advice you to refer Free Post unlimited Ads

[whisperingpen787]

100% scam.

There is no job. There is NO cleaning/house keeping business.

There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money and maybe your freedom.

The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "assistant" and will supply you with stock ads of fake "cash the fake check" type jobs. You are suppose to post the ads, the victims contact the scammer, he sends them a fake check to cash and they send him their money via Western Union or moneygram. When the victims realize they were scammed, they report YOUR post to craigslist and now you are ip banned from ever posting there again. Being ip banned is the real reason that scammer can't post his ads for fake jobs.

Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.

Any "paycheck" you receive will be fake and will bounce. In fact the scammer might try to steal more of your money by saying he "accidently" sent a check made out for "too much money". Then he will demand you cash that large fake check sent on a stolen UPS/FedEx billing account number and send most of the "money" via Western Union or moneygram back to the scammer. When your bank realizes the check is fake and it bounces, you get the real life job of paying back the bank for the bounced check fees and all the bank's money you sent to an overseas criminal.

Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails and texts from his other free email addresses and paid-for-in-cash cell phone number using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even partial sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

7 "Rules to follow" to avoid most fake jobs:
1) Job asks you to use your personal bank/paypal account and/or open a new one.
2) Job asks you to print/mail/cash a check or money order.
3) Job asks you to use Western Union or moneygram in any capacity.
4) Job asks you to accept packages and re-ship them on to anyone.
5) Job asks you to pay visas, travel fees via Western Union or moneygram.
6) Job asks you to sign up for a credit reporting or identity verification site.
7) Job asks you to post ads on ebay/craigslist or on forums advertising merchandise, programs or other websites

Avoiding all jobs that mention any of the above listed 'red flags' and you will miss nearly all fake jobs. Only scammers ask you to do any of the above. No. Exceptions. Ever. For any reason.

If you google "fake job posting ads scam", "selling on ebay fraud Western Union" or something similar, you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near-victims of this type of scam.