Craigslist status: access issues and outage reports

Problems in the last 24 hours

The graph below depicts the number of Craigslist reports received over the last 24 hours by time of day. When the number of reports exceeds the baseline, represented by the red line, an outage is determined.

Most Reported Problems

The following are the most recent problems reported by Craigslist users through our website.

• Sign in (33%)
• Errors (33%)
• Website Down (33%)

Community Discussion

Tips? Frustrations? Share them here. Useful comments include a description of the problem, city and postal code.

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Craigslist Issues Reports

Latest outage, problems and issue reports in social media:

• 
  Gator Jay (@stupiddretard) reported 1 minute ago

  @meaghancates You’re a 5/10 egirl I’ve seen broken refrigerators on Craigslist worth more than you

• 
  masYNYa (@KijAkubovs86334) reported 1 minute ago

  A solo dev opened Flutter, spent 3 weeks on it, and shipped a ride-hail app a casual user couldn't tell apart from Uber. Yellow branding. Live map. GoabX, GoabXL, GoabBike tiers with prices. Visa 4242 on file. Home, Work, Airport saved. "Confirm GoabX" button. The whole flow. Pause at 0:08. Look at the split screen. Simulator on the right running the sign-up screen. auth_screen.dart on the left — the actual Flutter source with _Chip extending StatelessWidget, _CircleBtn wrapping a GestureDetector, BoxDecoration in black and white, Icon at 17.sp. That's not a mockup. That's a shipped auth flow. What the clone has: → Flutter frontend, one codebase, iOS and Android at once → Google Maps + custom route rendering → Ride-tier chips (X / XL / Bike) → Card-on-file with Visa masking → Google + Apple + Facebook social login stubs What the clone doesn't have: → 5 million active drivers → Regulatory clearance in 10,000 cities → A $60 billion payout rail already routed → Insurance underwriters who approved the safety model → Every dispute-resolution playbook Uber wrote from 2012 to now That's the entire product. Here's what nobody in the "just clone it" space is saying out loud: the interface was never Uber's moat. The moat is a two-sided marketplace with 5 million drivers who show up at 3 AM when you tap a button. You can build the button in Flutter in 3 weeks. You can't build the 5 million drivers in 3 lifetimes. The old loop is dead: study successful app → clone the frontend → deploy on the App Store → wonder where the users went. The new loop: study successful app → identify the offline-supply moat → build the supply first → treat the app as the last 5%. The point worth arguing about: the hardest part of building an Uber isn't Uber. It's convincing a stranger with a car to log in on Tuesday at 3 AM when it's raining. Everything else is a Figma file. I know a founder who spent 18 months writing beautiful marketplace code and shipped to zero drivers. Meanwhile a friend of mine ran Craigslist ads for 2 weeks, found 40 house cleaners in one city, matched them with 60 buyers, took 15%. He didn't need a Flutter app. He had a Google Form. The interface is free. The supply is the whole company. Literally.

• 
  Chris Kearney (@SiliconForested) reported 3 minutes ago

  @sivori craigslist but for swapping problems would be fun

• 
  Steel-Toed Turbo Nerd (@PaToFe4) reported 3 minutes ago

  @r_zthai lol right? At 20, I’d reverse engineer the damn board in Eagle if it would save a few bucks. Now? Ehhhh. Nah, thanks. Read your post this morning and thought “well ****, why don’t I?” Got me to actually diagnose the problem, and I snapped some pics of the washer + dryer so the missus can throw ‘em up on Craigslist now. Done deal. Buying a new one was arguable if it was just some crap that froze the pump. Burned out motor controller means I’d be waiting around until next week to see if that was even really the root of the problem. Or at the very least I’d have to dump another couple hours into verifying everything that gets plugged into the board is okay. On top of… finding a laundry mat while I waited, I guess?

• 
  ᴬᵍᵉᵒᶠᵈᵒᵍᵉ (@evilduck92) reported 5 minutes ago

  @Lexcalibur001 @Vyyyper @grok PC doesn't count as a current platform? I don't buy AAA games on launch, but I don't think that should be taken as an across the board statement that I don't play anything new. Some of my favorites are: Factorio <-Arguably not a game, but still the best game. Civilization V All the Creeper World games. Cyberpunk 2077 All the Serious Sam games Age of Empires II Age of Mythology Rise of Nations Deus Ex Fallout 3 / Vegas Saints Row 3 Ion Fury Portal Bioshock I'll give you a lot of those are older, but let's face it the new Civ games are crap. The RTS genera hasn't advanced since AoE2 IMO. I played the newer Deus Ex and what not, but the quality has dropped dramatically. Recently I have been playing a lot of rouge like action games. Brotato, Nova Drift, 20XX, 30XX I also do a lot of puzzle / physics stuff / real time problem solving games. I played a lot of the Steam VR stuff that was out more than 4 years ago. I have been waiting on the Steam Frame to get back into that. Quite a few arcade style games. A lot of indy games. I mostly focus on them at this point. I did pick up a Wii off craigslist just to do Mario Galaxy on the original controls.

• 
  Jake Moffatt (@jakeonrails) reported 9 minutes ago

  @vjon Also Craigslist isn't "free". There's so much spam listings are expensive. Then you have to accurately price your listing, take good photos, field calls and requests for showings, plus all the compliance issues. This is a lot for mostly small mom n pops that dominate NYC rentals.

• 
  CMK (@ChristinaKilis) reported 11 minutes ago

  @ArmandoNDK It's freakin' amazing this weird chick is a U.S. Rep. Not putting woman down here by no means. But maybe @NancyMace would represent Craiglist better?

• 
  Padre Research (@padreresearch) reported 11 minutes ago

  I used to own a recording studio. So I've watched this movie before. Around 2010 everyone and their grandma bought an Mbox, a $40 condenser mic, and a cracked copy of Pro Tools. Suddenly they were "audio engineers" charging $5 per mix and master on Craigslist. Recording artists in untreated bedrooms with foam taped to the walls. People flocked to them because it was cheap and fast. The music sounded terrible but it was "out there" and that's all that mattered to them in the moment. It nearly destroyed the mixing industry. Studios that invested in real equipment, real acoustics, and real skill couldn't compete on price with someone working off a laptop on their bed. But eventually the market corrected. The bedroom engineers disappeared. The artists who wanted quality came back. The studios that survived were the ones that never lowered their standard to compete with the bottom. That's exactly what's happening in the research supply space right now. Vendors popping up overnight with no testing, no infrastructure, no compliance. Just a Telegram channel and the cheapest price. And people are flocking to them for the same reason. It's cheap and it's fast. But cheap and untested doesn't last. It never has. In any industry. The vendors who test properly, build real infrastructure, and treat this like a business will still be here when the dust settles. The $5 mix and masters won't. #Tuesday #Peptides #Music

• 
  Silo098 (@Silo098) reported 13 minutes ago

  @3DrakaiNa Just go to cut down flock cameras on a second hand bike you bought with craigslist. Or Flock will make sure they find you. Don't drive a car to go take down flock cameras?

• 
  Julius Ilg 🪸 (@juliusilg) reported 15 minutes ago

  finding the right one-liner for Shack took only years 🫠 by now we must‘ve changed it 20+ times „C2C Marketplace“ „Anything to Anyone“ „P2P trade network“ „Human protocol for trade“ „Agentic (re)commerce network“ „Silk Road is back“ „C2C fiat and crypto enabled“ „AI consumer trade app“ „C2C running on Memes & AI“ … the hard part was that I knew what we‘re not no eBay, Vinted, Facebook marketplaces, Craigslist, Uber, Amazon etc so we couldn‘t use the usual C for Y „the eBay for Collectibles“ or the „Uber for trade“ I think we‘re finally there and not sure what took me so long: „building a home for regular sellers“ why do I like this so much? a) It‘s tech agnostic. We use whatever we think is best. b) it describes the solution and the problem c) a 5yr old can understand it d) it captures our key priority: regular sellers e) it‘s not tied to a category or vertical, just the desire to sell smth f) it also clearly implies what we‘re not: for professional sellers. We don‘t want to be the next whatnot, amazon or compete against any of them g) it conveys trust and human connection (home) h) it implies continuity and a long term mission (building) the simplest way to think about Shack is a testing ground for smth you own and want to sell. atoms, bits, time compared to setting up a business first or creating a website or find the right vertical website/app you can just take/create a photo and put it up for sale on Shack for the world to explore. maybe your test turns into a business at some point and then you can do all the admin around it and switch to the unlimited professional selling options out there. Shack is aiming to be the easiest point of entry if you‘re not a business and just want to sell or explore selling, with as little friction as possible what will happen if we succeed and users around the world are putting anything they want to sell online? buyers will follow as the supply will be so uniquely differentiated to all the commoditized professional selling options and most importantly prices will undercut any professional as a regular seller has none of the overhead or is selling something that is depreciating or would have been thrown away winning will prevent waste and preserve value the eCommerce industry continues to drive regular sellers into private whatsapp buy/sell groups or offline by prioritizing pros, buyers and vertical solutions (ten apps for regular sellers compared to one) in parallel the creator economy is accelerating and technology is deflating global P2P trade costs. a solution like Shack could capture multiple secular tailwinds and the best part: connect people around the globe decreasing isolation and strengthening community.

• 
  On The Right (@OnTheRightRepub) reported 15 minutes ago

  @justalexoki Find an old one on Craigslist 20+ years old or something. You can find any part and fix it as needed. My washer and dryer are not modern and every few years I spend 15-60 minutes changing some $20 parts following YouTube.

• 
  Chris Meade (@thechrismeade) reported 15 minutes ago

  If you’re an entrepreneur or hell just a normal person with some kind of work ethic, then you know what I'm talking about when I say we all have a few things that "fire us up" and keep us motivated. Maybe its the “I want to prove you wrong” emotion or prove the world type feeling, but I’ve had that edge for nearly 10 years since the day I was last fired. I’ll never forget getting a calendar invite on a Saturday evening to see HR the following Monday at 9AM. 48 hours with a pit in my stomach, just to go into the office Monday and be told “I wasn’t good enough” and that I was fired. The lowest moment of my life. The lowest point of my career. A moment I’ll never forget. My stomach sunk to the floor knowing I had less than $1000 to my name. No way to pay my rent or my student loans. My ex girlfriend has just left me. I was living with three strangers from Craigslist and now I can’t even afford groceries. I’ll never forget walking down a few blocks, sitting on the front metallic black steps of the Equinox and calling my mom just crying my eyes out. Feeling like the biggest failure. Filled with uncertainty and that I wasn’t good enough. So yeah, I’ve kept that hunger for almost a decade now. Building businesses. Starting things that seem impossible. Creating sports. Creating communities. Creating categories. Doing things that seem like they should be impossible, all because of one ******* looked me in the face and said Chris you aren’t good enough. So if you’re reading this and any of it has resonated I promise you are good enough. You are talented enough. You have the ability to do anything in this world. Keep working. Keep trying. Keep showing up. All the excuses you want to make are just bullshit. Have a bad day? Go ahead, wake up and make the next day better. Slowly but surely, just keep working at it and I promise you can accomplish it. Everything is going to take much longer than you expected. And when you do finally accomplish that dream, I promise you will never forget and be so thankful for the reason that fired you up and got you out of bed all of those years.

• 
  Duuguu (@ArtDuggy) reported 22 minutes ago

  remember finding a room for rent on craigslist, just 1 pic of it taken from a distance, they spoke broken english & were reticent about actually giving me a showing. I contacted the actual owner & they were completely unaware someone was pretending to be the owner of their house

• 
  Annie Oakley (@GotMyAR15) reported 22 minutes ago

  @MAGA_X_Times All of this is totally true. I have had many similar experiences with my ****** @hp printer that I bought 3 years ago. So many issues that I’m now looking on Craigslist for the oldest functioning printer I can find (not an @hp) so I never have another one of these days again.

• 
  ☘️ (@JrueLFG) reported 23 minutes ago

  @BallUpTopBrad They didn’t have a choice, Brad. They’ve shopped JB for years. Never found a good deal and other teams turned him down for their stars. This year they literally posted him on Craigslist and he sat there for weeks and that was the best offer that came back.

• 
  FeelGoodTales (@feelgoodtale) reported 26 minutes ago

  Almost five years ago, I started searching for a dog. I found a Craigslist post from a family rehoming their late father’s German Shepherds. He’d been a *******. The dogs needed homes. I went there for a specific female. But she was already gone. They introduced me to her sister — Sabrina. Thin, shut down, unsure of everything. Still, I couldn’t walk away. Something in her still reached for connection, even through fear. She came home with me that day. Now, she’s ten years old — but still acts like a pup. Loves the river. Hikes. Long naps in the sun. She’s everything I didn’t know I needed. I didn’t just rescue her. She met me where I was and pulled me forward.

• 
  FAFO Farms (@FAFOFarmsTX) reported 28 minutes ago

  Sad news the calf did not make it. We brought him inside at 7pm because he could no longer stand. We gave him a second round of electrolytes for the day. 20 minutes later he was starting to move his legs and head and his breathing was getting fuller. After getting the twins down to sleep came back out at 930pm to him no longer moving or breathing. The people who sold us him also have not responded since I reached out earlier today. This is heart breaking and stressful. We are now 3 for 3 in getting cows/calfs that are not healthy through craigslist.

• 
  Easy Money (@NASLACS) reported 29 minutes ago

  @al_requiem How hard is it to get stuff from the lower 48? Maybe check marketplor Craigslist, buy it all down here and drive it home?

• 
  samcam (@samtothecam) reported 30 minutes ago

  @Tammy69498676 I look at craigslist free at least ten times a day with a 131 mile range on. Any free pile on the road is in trouble if I spot it. Got a lot of shelves this way lately.

• 
  Dan from Spotted Model: Cars & Tech (@spotted_model) reported 32 minutes ago

  @CajunCybertruck @28delayslater @SpringdaleRobo Shipping is the biggest issue as either Tim or my son will tell you. So find a seat out of a Tesla locally on marketplace or craigslist. The Amazon parts are $60-$80 to make it into a chair with wheels. My son‘s kit is $399 to electrify it. That will enable anything the seat originally had like heating, cooling, lumbar, etc. to be used all the time in the seat. We have a video showing how to install and it takes about an hour. The seat without power is cool. With all of the functions it’s magical. DM me for more info or clarity.

• 
  Novara Media (@novaramedia) reported 33 minutes ago

  Ebay has been ordered to pay a $55.7m settlement to an American couple over a harassment campaign by company executives which included doxing, online threats and the delivery of live cockroaches to their home. The orchestrated campaign, which lasted for two months in the summer of 2019, was waged against husband and wife David and Ina Steiner by six eBay employees and one contractor. The couple were targeted after posting criticism of eBay’s corporate and policy changes on their newsletter and website EcommerceBytes, which is popular among eBay sellers, Wired reported. The campaign began with anonymous threats via Twitter DMs before ramping up to malicious deliveries to the Steiner family home. Items sent to the couple included pornography, a bloody pig mask, pests such as fly larvae, live spiders and cockroaches, a book about grieving a spouse and a funeral wreath. Ebay employees had the Steiners trailed in a rented van and posted fake classified ads on Craigslist advertising a ******* party, a ********* and a yard sale with their home address. After the police were contacted, the harassment campaign tailed off as those involved sought to conceal their actions. Former eBay CEO Devin Wenig told Wired via a representative that he was “saddened” by the harassment. He has continually asserted that he had no knowledge of the specific actions taken by the group who carried out the campaign. Wenig is alleged to have given former eBay chief communications officer Steve Wymer the order to “take her down,” in reference to Ina Steiner. However, his lawyers claim he was referring to a communications plan and not any criminal behaviour, a claim supported by court documents according to Wired. Six former eBay staff and a contractor were charged with taking part in the campaign in 2020. The Steiners followed with a civil suit the following year. The case has now reached a final settlement which will award the Steiners more than $46.15m from eBay, $2m from former CEO Devin Wenig, $500,000 from former executive Wendy Jones, and $50,000 from former executive Steve Wymer. David Steiner told Wired: “We were really adamant that this type of behaviour by a Fortune 500 corporation didn’t go unchecked.” In a published statement, eBay said that what the Steiners were subjected to was “wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened,” and that the company had strengthened its policies, controls and training since the incident.

• 
  DBB (@DBB00) reported 36 minutes ago

  @sssarahohhh Like 6 months ago I tried posting this onto Craigslist (I don’t have Facebook so marketplace is out) and I didn’t get any takers and took down the post so I’m accepting any and all ideas!

• 
  Citizen (@afistfulofteeth) reported 36 minutes ago

  @MidlifeCrysis_ It still can’t be functionally equivalent at all. Consumer initiated transfers transfers work from a business standpoint or a legal stand point. If this were to happen, then Sony would be getting in the middle of sale disputes between random people. Bob down the street could agree to trade games with his neighbor Steven. Then go to initiate the transfer from Sony (or do it themselves if you think that would happen). Then the key gets transferred and what happened? Steven didn’t pay Bob!! Who would they have to go to fix this or dispute it? Sony! This is just one instance. Multiply that by millions. You have to think about the big picture. Companies aren’t going to put themselves out there to be legally liable for crackheads selling video game licenses on Craigslist.

• 
  Sarah Saturday (@Saturdaymatters) reported 38 minutes ago

  7 HIGH-PRESSURE SITUATIONS GOLDEN HIPPO PUT ME THROUGH IN 10 YEARS 1) Every brand was banned from all ad networks at the same time. Revenue on the front end went to zero. People were wondering if we'd have to shut the company down. That's when I found out I do my best work when things are actually on fire, not when it's a drill. 2) I made my first $1M/month during that crisis. Before that, I didn't think email was exciting. I was excited about the revenue number, not the channel. I didn't understand what email could actually do until it was the only thing left standing between us and closing. 3) The higher-ups noticed, and changed how they ran the whole team because of it. What I did under pressure became the new expectation for everyone else. That was the first time I saw performance turn into policy. 4) We built an entire brand, filming, backend, everything, and the front end just never took off. We walked away. Years later I took the backend strategy from that “failed” brand and used it on a different one that was actually trending. The month I spent on the first one wasn't wasted. It just paid off late. 5) They handed a small team a brand they'd basically given up on, told us to just play with it, and nicknamed it The Sandbox. It's now one of their most profitable brands, and most people don't even know it's theirs. 6) Less than a year into my marketing career, I built a product testing program from scratch, starting with people I recruited off Craigslist to try products and answer surveys. I had no business running something modeled after a medical study. It evolved into the system they still run today. It became core to how they validate products before launch. 7) For years I couldn't let go of any brands I had already optimized. I thought it was faster to just do things myself than teach someone else how. They kept pulling me off writing and putting me on copy chief instead, training other writers rather than producing the copy myself. It felt like a demotion from the thing I was actually good at. What I didn't see yet was that every hour I spent training someone made me need them less later, not more.

• 
  Steel-Toed Turbo Nerd (@PaToFe4) reported 39 minutes ago

  @r_zthai I’m glad I decided to pull and inspect the motor controller before completely pulling off the front panel - There were quite a few more screws to get at before that was gunna be done lol. Yeah, this machine is like the opposite of serviceable. Contributed a bit to my desire to replace it. What’s that old saying? “If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it”? Guess in my case its “if it’s a PITA to fix, maybe I don’t want to own it” lol Question remains: I can get a replacement control board on eBay for about $85. There’s a case to be made for fixing it and slinging it on Craigslist for a couple bucks to recoup some cash. Or just slinging it as-is for less, now that I’ve identified the problem.

• 
  FoamingPig (@FoamingPig) reported 46 minutes ago

  @muhasaba_needer went back to look on craigslist and they were gone same as the UTV I looked at earlier and thought 'that looks like a good deal' indecision drags me down

• 
  John Chang (@jchangkp) reported 52 minutes ago

  Part 2 of When technology meets traditional business. After we figured out how to generate demand, we almost destroyed the business. We built an SEO-driven website, dominated Craigslist (this was 2011), and cut quote turnaround from days to hours. Sales exploded. The problem? We had optimized customer acquisition—not operations. Orders piled up faster than we could process them. Deliveries slipped. Suppliers became frustrated. Our showroom filled with customers, but we didn't have enough salespeople to help them. Some visitors waited hours after driving across Southern California just to see us. Six months in, we did something that felt completely backwards. We shut off almost all of our marketing. For nearly two months we hired staff, rebuilt our processes, reset customer expectations, and only then turned growth back on. Luckily, the business survived, and started to re-ramp. Year 1: $750K Year 2: $1.5M Year 3: $3.5M Founders spend countless hours planning for failure. Spend some time planning for success. Your biggest risk might not be too little demand—it might be more demand than your business can deliver. #30YearsHardKnocks

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  Danielle Dyer (@danielle4657) reported 53 minutes ago

  I'm pretty positive my sister was the one that attempted to organize the institutionalization at UNM's ER on May 10th 2025 I know what the staging of the ER is - it's like thing they try to pressure patients to go to because you have such little rights there for inquiry / access to patient information related to the exam I was screaming outside of that Roswell, NM hotel on May 10th 2025 as my dad put me into the car - begging him not to take me saying I had been being made to go insane all day in Roswell was agitators, crazy makers and my dad saying to me that I was just having issues still because I had told him about the ***** trafficking thing, same with my mom both of them still not believing me about it believing he was some craigslist kind of scammer or something

• 
  Polsia (@polsia) reported 54 minutes ago

  Six-figure van builds are still hunted down across Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, forums, and Instagram DMs. Built Vandeed: one curated marketplace for conversion-ready rigs. Standardized specs, verified sellers, escrow payments. Live soon.

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  Spaceballs The X Account (@Grunt2A) reported 56 minutes ago

  The other day I talked about buying a used gun. I had several comments about how I should never do that because you have no idea if the previous owner took care of it. I am near to tell you that is hogwash. Buying used guns is safe as long as you know what you are doing. I love buying used guns. You can find great deals and as a devoted cheapskate, I love saving money! But you have to know how to do it or your low priced used gun can quickly become a high priced gun. If you buy from a gun store you have some built in protections. If your used gun doesn't work properly the store has an obligation to fix it for you. Check their return, repair, and warranty policies on used guns before paying. But if it's a reputable gun shop they have already test fired it and verified it is in good working condition. And if there ends of being a problem a reputable store will apologize profusely and repair it for you at no cost within a reasonable time frame. If a gun store selling used guns doesn't make any guarantees, walk away. You want nothing from that store. But what about the gun you saw an online ad for from someone you don't know? It's a cash deal and an 'all sales are final' situation. The burden is on you to make sure it's a good deal. First off don't impulse buy a used gun you know nothing about. Believe me, I understand the temptation. I have more than one that was acquired due to raw emotions and thoughts of the "Must have the new shiny" variety. So I'm not judging you. But knowing what you're buying makes a huge difference in how well things work out for you. So you see an online ad from a guy nearby for a gun you think you want. You can afford his asking price. But is it worth his asking price? The first thing you need to do is see if it's a reasonable price. Just because you can afford it doesn't mean it's a good deal. Look up the new prices of that gun first. Often I've found that the used asking price is $50 less than a brand new one. If you really want that specific model gun, spend the extra $50 and get a brand new one that comes with factory warranties and no unknown history. It's always worth the extra $50 to buy those assurances. Then look at used prices. Search engines are your friend. No matter what gun it is, there is a recent sale of one. If the asking price is $500 you want to make sure you can't find 5 other copies of the same gun for $400. It is on you to make sure you are getting a reasonable price. If you agree to a high price and find out later you overpaid, that isn't the seller's problem. It's your problem. If you don't know how to valuate a used gun, learn first. On that note it is perfectly reasonable to be willing to pay $50 over market value because the seller lives two blocks away and you wouldn't have to drive an hour and a half to meet him. Your time has value. You also need to know how to evaluate the condition of the gun. This is more important than the price. If you overpay for a great fun that works fine.... oh well. You still got a nice gun. If you get a gun with problems it doesn't matter if you underpaid. You're out money and still don't have a working gun. When you meet up with the seller he will let you inspect the gun. That means dissembling it and checking the parts. Tell the seller up front that you'll want to do this. If he says no, walk away no matter what the price is. It is unreasonable to not let a buyer inspect the item. Doesn't matter if it's a used gun or a used leaf blower. But it is not unreasonable for the seller to want you to evaluate it quickly and make a final decision fast. So you need to know what you're looking at. You should know how to disassemble the specific model gun before you show up. You don't have to be an expert that can do it blindfolded while hanging upside down. (To anyone who gets the Major Payne reference there, you are my people). But you need to know how to do it. The seller should know too, but you'd be surprised. I bought a Glock off a guy once carried it every day for years. It was his go to side arm. He had no idea whatsoever how to disassemble it. You want to inspect the barrel to make sure there isn't pitting on the inside. (meaning rust that has been scraped off) You want to look for surface rust over the entire gun. You want to make sure there are no cracks in the frame or any signs of serious neglect. Any chips out of the metal around the chamber or rust are big red warning flags. Does the firing pin or striker come come through the breach when manually pressed? Check all these things and more. But what if the gun looks fine overall but the barrel has some pitting on it? Circle back to knowing what the value of the gun is in advance, you should also have an idea of what the individual parts cost in advance. Say you have a Glock 19 you want to buy. You should already know how much under new retail the seller is asking. If it is $100 less than retail but it has a bad barrel you should know that a replacement barrel will run you $100 or more. So suddenly this gun could cost you as much or more a brand new one. But maybe everything looks fine except the striker. The seller tells you up front it is broken and he just wants to get rid of the gun. You should know that the striker is a $25 to $40 part depending on where you buy it. And it's easy to replace. If that is the only problem you add $25 - $40 to the total price and if it's still a good deal, great! If you put it all together and function test it and everything seems to work like it's supposed to and the price seems right, enjoy your new used gun! For a gun like a Glock this is easy. They all work the same way and quickly break down in to 4 parts that are easy to inspect. If it has a red dot sight just make sure that work as well. Same for an AR-15 or any other easy to dissemble gun. But if the deal is for a .22lr rifle that has a bunch of tiny parts and requires tools to dissemble, that's a bigger risk. I can field strip my Glocks and inspect them and resemble them in 2 minutes. But I have a .22lr rifle that takes me 20 minutes to disassemble and needs a wrench and a screwdriver. (Guess how often I clean it? The grey gunk that oozes out of it will give you a hint.) A seller isn't going to spend an hour letting you figure out how to take apart his gun for a $200 sale. So this is more of a risk. I recently passed on a .22 rifle with a scope. It was $250 but I wasn't an expert in the model rifle. And with all the parts of the gun, the scope, the rings, any one of which could have been a problem this cheap rifle had the potential of being a really expensive rifle quickly. So I walked away. You don't want to buy a project gun unless you're into fixing up old ones and know how to evaluate parts needs quickly. No matter what, you're taking a risk buying a used gun without firing it. Now, if you can meet at the range and test it first, all the better. Nothing like seeing that it works properly before buying. That covers how to check the quality of the gun and pricing. But you also need to consider the seller. If you are bad at judging people quickly, buying used guns from strangers is not for you. When I buy a used gun I am evaluating the seller as much as I am evaluating the condition of the gun. Does he seem honest? Does he seem like he is hiding something about the condition of it? Is he covered in blood and in a hurry to complete the sale? You need to observe these details. Maybe I'm not sure about the condition of the gun but I trust the seller. I may be willing to take a little extra chance that it works fine. On that same note, you need to make sure the seller doesn't give off a "I'm going to kill you" vibe. If you are buying a handgun you need to transfer it at an FFL. Do your inspection of the gun and disassembly inside the well lit store. The FFL will want to see your driver's license and the seller's driver's license. At that point the seller isn't likely to be a criminal. I feel very safe in this situation being in a gun store where the FFL has a copy of the seller's ID. Bad guys intending to do you harm aren't going to do all this. They will stick to the Craigslist deals for a TV to lure in a victim carrying cash to a back ally meet up spot. But if it's a long gun and an FFL isn't required your guard needs to be WAY up. First off you can say you want to do a transfer through an FFL anyway. It'll cost you an extra $20 to $50 depending on your FFL fees but that gives you all the protections mentioned above. If you don't want to do that make sure you have a safe meet up place. And be armed. Do not show up to meet a guy you know will have a gun when you are unarmed. Do not be that stupid. When I buy or sell things on Craigslist I like to meet up in front of a nearby bank's ATM because the ATM has a security camera running 24/7. I used to tell people why I picked that spot and that I knew the bank manager who would give me the video (I didn't actually know the manager, but they didn't know that). I've had 1 person who wasn't interested in meeting me there after that and I was happy to not make that sale. Pro Tip: Don't meet to exchange a gun in front of a bank. That's called being a moron. It's a great option for buying a used DVD from Facebook Marketplace. But for a gun sale you want a public place that won't invite scrutiny over a visible gun. The parking lot of a gun store is often a good option. There will be security cameras. The people who are in that parking lot won't freak out by seeing a gun. You should check with the store first to make sure they are cool with it. They may even welcome you to do a non FFL exchange inside depending on how friendly they are. If the seller has any hesitation to a public place with cameras, stop the conversation and block his email. I also said if you can test the gun first, that's better. But don't invite a seller you don't know to your outdoor range where you will be the only two people there shooting live ammo. Be smarter than that. You'll be focused on the gun and inspecting it, not the stranger who you know has guns. If you can't meet at a populated range you should skip the testing part. Get a dated bill of sale that includes the seller's info from his driver's license and the serial number of the gun. If that gun turns out to be a murder weapon you'll be very happy that you have some evidence that you gained possession of it after the date of the crime and have someone else you can point the cops towards. Same thing goes if you are selling a gun. If the gun you sold ends up being used in a crime you'll be very happy you have evidence that it left your possession prior to that. There are downloadable blank bill of sale forms all over the internet. You don't have to make up a custom one. Finally, know the laws in your state. Does this gun have to be transferred through an FFL or is a face to face sale legal? Is the gun you are buying legal in your state? The odds that the seller is actually an ATF agent setting you up is never 0. Be smart. If he tries to convince you that you don't need to go through an FFL to transfer his full auto suppressed SBR it's definitely an ATF agent.