Is Craigslist down?

Problems in the last 24 hours

Craigslist signals over the past 24 hours. The dashed line is the service-wide baseline used to detect unusual activity.

• Service-wide signals
• Service-wide baseline

Most Reported Problems

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

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Community Discussion

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Craigslist Issues Reports

Latest outage, problems and issue reports in social media:

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  𝔪𝔢𝔤𝔞𝔣𝔞𝔤𝔤𖦹♱⃓ 𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇 🇵🇷 (@MARSBARSDOTCOM) reported 5 minutes ago

  my brother’s technique that ultimately took his *** down in the fallout of the “finding my dad googling craigslist hookers” incident

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  Startup Archive (@StartupArchive_) reported 6 minutes ago

  Drew Houston on the growth hacks Dropbox used to acquire millions of users Dropbox founder Drew Houston reflects the distribution challenge most startups face in the early days: “You can buy all the AdWords in the world but if nobody’s searching for what you’re making, you have a problem.” Drew eventually landed on a two-step solution to solve Dropbox’s cold start problem. Step 1: make a product that people really love to use. “Good engineering and good design are part of it, but one of the ways I think about it is maximizing the probability that your customer ends up with a solved problem. That’s why Craigslist — which was started in the 1990s and doesn’t appear to have been updated since the 1990s — is by far the most successful business of its kind. You show up at Craigslist and you leave with your concert tickets or your casual encounter or whatever you’re looking for. Even though the design isn’t that great and it isn’t that hard of an engineering problem, it was unbelievably successful . . . [Distribution] starts with a great product and all of the marketing or tricks in the world won’t help you push a rock uphill.” Step 2: give people tools to spread the word “Two things drove the vast majority of our signups today. The first was we created this incentive-referral program where if I tell you about Dropbox you get some extra storage and I get some extra storage, which gave us this kind of currency to work with and people were just doing it for its own sake. People weren’t even using the extra space. They were just referring their friends because they got points. We’d now call it a gamification mechanic, even though I’m not sure that word was even around back then.” Drew continues: “The other thing we did was create this idea of shared folders where if I’m working on a shared project at work or if I want to share photos with my family, then all these new users are brought into the fold just by using the product . . . Now there’s whole body of art and science on how to do that, how consumer internet companies grow, and how viral growth works, but these things were instrumental to how we got started.” Source: @ECorner (Jun 2012)

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  Hargrave_show (@HargraveShow) reported 12 minutes ago

  Comic con *******!! Im gonna tell anna to stop sending people off craigslist to liams house! (This is a joke dont shut my twitter down lol)

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  Joe Youngblood - SEO, Futurology, AI, Marketing (@YoungbloodJoe) reported 13 minutes ago

  @TheDataHubX @brivael Oh this is fun, here is mine: CJ Netmall (an ecommerce store with 'everything' via affiliate links from Amazon, LinkShare, etc...), I thought I could beat Amazon to their market expansion using their products + products from other stores by building an amalgam. - 1996 Jump Start (a 'start page' website with email login embeds, stock ticker, news ticker, etc...), I thought I could blend the best of all the big sites/services at the time on one page, but it wasn't able to be personalized because I used Tripod and didn't have a credit card to buy a domain or get hosting - 1998 [Name Redacted] (A 'fashion brand' generated by using Cafepress' iron transfer system. Sold raunchy jokes on t-shirts.) I wasn't very proud of this so when I went back to college to get my degree closed it down though we did get minor distribution throughout the Midwest. We also purchased a domain for a trucker hat brand which would probably be really popular today - 2000 Etown Underground / Forums (A couple of new media properties for my hometown of Emporia, KS. A print + digital magazine sponsored by Staples (seriously) and a web forum for citizens to talk about issues), The forum was spamme to hell and the magazine lost advertisers pretty quickly rendering it useless - 2002 Radio Revolt (a streaming internet rock station that mixed new indie music with mainstream and classic rock) - 2003 MMO Market (the first and only place where WoW players could buy and sell virtual items.), I made a grand total of like $5 from running it. Covered by most major gaming/tech media. - 2004 Dollar DBs (we scraped data from the web and sold each database in MYSQL format for $1 in an ecommerce store), It was doing great until it was hacked and I just shut it down. - 2005 1337Talk (a L33t Speak translator apparently used by teenagers and drug dealers.), The goal was harmless fun conversations for gamers. It was featured in CNN and other places for uses I did not intended. I stopped updating it and shut it down. - 2006 GamersTube (The world's first cross-compatible video sharing UGC site built for the needs of gamers with a focus on high quality video playback and a roadmap to live streaming), I tried to get investors at SXSW to believe in the concept of a live streaming site like UStream, Mogulus/LiveStream, and Justin TV + an On Demand site like YouTube built for the needs of gamers to host both long-form Machinima content and streaming eSports matches in high definition. They all said it was ridiculous. I believed in the long-term movement of video based entertainment from OTA and cable to the web-based distribution considering the gaming market to be at least a billion dollar industry alone. Google banned our Blogger blog for "spam" after it was uncovered that we had a revenue program before YouTube and also banned us from Adsense after changing the TOS to specifically forbid our website. Either an example of Convergent Evolution or something else, Twitch built nearly every single feature we built or envisioned including "Pwning", tips, and clipping just years and years later - 2006 Classified Ads Free / Kollege Ads (A network of classified ads websites that were free but made money via advertising networks.), I thought Craigslist was due for being disrupted but learned to leave the gray monster alone. We suffered a never ending and impossible to avoid barrage of spam / phishing listings and ultimate major web gatekeepers killed off traffic to our network (rightfully so) - 2007 AD FUND [never built] (With a college friend who works for a major tech company now as a higher up Senior dev, this project was designed to make it so you could sell small shares of access to your business online based on your revenue or traffic etc... and develop a secondary market for those shares.) The goal was to allow small sites/apps to get the sort of investment only big public corps or those in major VC hubs could get. My friend and partner called an SEC lawyer who told him it was illegal and we could go to prison so he quit and I am not good/smart enough to build something like that alone - 2007 ARS DFW (An art, music, events, and lifestyle blog for Dallas - Fort Worth), I built this using WordPress along with custom Javascript maps to help DFW residents find things to do like cheap drink nights or karaoke nights. IIRC the WordPress site was hacked and I just closed it down even though I still had the JS code - 2010 Nutrition Maps [launched but never adopted] (An XML based language for websites to publish nutrition data, similar to a sitemap, allowing consumer applications to easily find and use the data), I had an interested investor tell me there was no way to make money on this. SmartLabel launched in 2015 - 2011 Rent in Reverse [never launched] (Put renting consumers in the driver's seat by allowing landlords / leasing agents to bid on their target consumers by submitting offers that matched query.) I had worked in rental leasing marketing for a few years and noticed how insanely stressful it was on consumers to find a place and thought it would be great if places could bid on them. Dev partner for this project who I later found out is a cousin of a friend of mine literally moved in the middle of it to Pittsburgh and just stopped. Zillow would launch "renter profiles" 4-years later. - 2012 My New Office [only made Beta] (A website that allowed commercial landlords to post their vacancies and what it could be used for). We quickly got users including CBRE but it was just a WordPress shell as POC and I found myself working on building my own marketing agency from scratch after a falling out with my employer so I had to close it down - 2012 PR Hunters [purchased and improved] (Award winning PR software that scraped HARO queries on Twitter that needed to be filled and routed them based on keyword preferences), It was a great tool but died when Cision bought HARO and when Elon bought Twitter. Site is still live and I have plans on redeveloping it some day. - Purchased in 2014 Rocketship [client exclusive] (Our internal SEO / marketing agency software platform), The goal is to catalog all data and communications we can and streamline communications between team members and client stakeholders. - 2021 Ultimasaurus (A Chrome extension with a variety of tools to customize the desktop web including turning off AI Overviews in Google, making search ads take up less space, Eliminating spam on Google Maps, Focus Mode for getting **** done, and turning off Stories on Facebook), I use this daily for my own productivity and plan on rolling out a lot of new updates soon - 2022 Jump Links Shopify App [acquired and improved] (App that improves blogging by adding an automated TOC w/ recommended products for a low cost) - Acquired 2022 Website Announcement Bar [acquired and improved] (A quick, simple, and CWV friendly way of adding a website announcement bar to the top of your website that can be turned on or off at any time) - Acquired 2023 Advanced Spam Filter for Lead Generation [client exclusive] (A wordpress plugin + internal system to block common spammers across client profiles while ensuring 100% of actual leads come through), This solves the problem of clients not getting leads to their inbox because their email provider blacklisted their website domain/ip address. - 2024 ChatGPT Embeds for WordPress (A custom built plugin to allow simple summaries and other embeddable features for blogs/news sites) - 2025 Rocketship SEO (A plugin for WordPress designed to be a next gen toolkit that compliments current main SEO plugins such as Yoast or RankMath includes things like IndexNow, AI vs Human traffic, Redirects, AI Tools, Google Reviews, and more), I believe every website should be able to access the basics without having to pay a premium price, so we built this to do just that for the next generation. - 2025 Subscription System [still in beta but almost completed and live on the ORG] (A WordPress plugin that gives websites 2 major subscription capabilities.) Websites can offer a publication subscription that sends email alerts to users based on their settings and allows this to be a revenue source. And a work/labor subscription system with a work log and pricing tiers. All independent of Woocommerce using Stripe integration (more coming soon) - 2026 There's a lot more I haven't added like a bitcoin site that only posted peoples regrets for selling early, an online browser game called "Jelly Battle", the most popular Gmail forum signature generator (way back in the day), the most popular Free MMORPG gaming blog (made me $$$$), a handful of failed keyword tools, And several Alpha/Beta projects I may never fully launch, etc... I'll keep building until I die, but will probably never equal 1/10th of what Elon has. I was pretty darn close with GamersTube to breakaway life changing wealth though!

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  Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) reported 15 minutes ago

  eBay's CEO shared an article a newsletter writer published about his pay. His comms chief replied "We are going to crush this lady." A month later the CEO texted "Take her down." Then eBay's security team mailed her live cockroaches, a preserved fetal pig, and a book about surviving the death of a spouse. Ina and David Steiner ran EcommerceBytes from their home in Natick, Massachusetts. A small trade publication for online sellers. What enraged executives was the comment section, where sellers vented about the company. The campaign went far beyond packages. eBay employees sent pornographic magazines in David's name to his neighbors. They listed the couple's home on Craigslist as a nightly destination for swingers. They flew to Boston, tailed the Steiners in rented vehicles, and planned to break into their garage to plant a GPS tracker on their car. The Steiners began sleeping in separate bedrooms so that if someone broke in at night, one of them could escape and call police. A Natick detective traced one rental van back to an eBay employee. That single trace unraveled the whole operation. Seven employees pled guilty to federal charges. James Baugh, the security director who ran it, got nearly five years in prison. Now read the final ledger. Baugh, who executed the texts, went to federal prison. Devin Wenig, who sent "take her down," was never charged, denies knowing about the campaign, and left eBay in 2019 with a $57 million exit package. This week he settled for $2 million plus a $1 million donation to a First Amendment charity in Ina Steiner's name. Steve Wymer, the comms chief who texted "I want to see ashes. As long as it takes. Whatever it takes," is paying $50,000. The Steiners fought for seven years and got $48.7 million. The CEO's severance was bigger than their settlement.

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  kyrox (@kyroxxxq) reported 17 minutes ago

  THIS GUY BOUGHT A USED MAC PRO FOR $800 AND TURNED IT INTO A $12,000 AI SUPERCOMPUTER. He spent three weeks completely upgrading the machine off Craigslist. He threw in 192GB RAM, 8TB NVMe storage, an Afterburner card, and an eGPU enclosure. Total cost for all upgrades: $1,270. Total build cost: $2,070. An equivalent workstation ordered directly from Apple costs over $12,000. The performance jump was immediate. Video export times dropped from 18 minutes down to just 4 minutes. It now runs three massive local LLMs simultaneously without breaking a sweat. With 192GB of memory, models that usually require enterprise cloud servers now run completely locally. He is saving $400 to $600 every single month on API bills alone. The entire machine fully paid for itself in under four months. Apple sells you the brand—the used market sells you the raw hardware.

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  Efe (@efexeth) reported 20 minutes ago

  Let me give you my take about the fud some people are on about @RealBucketShop First off, all of this is hand-made :) not written by some language model, and not addressed to those living organisms who are trying to make a living out of throwing dirt at others with a broken heart and soul. if they take what they can take, thats on them. If you want to learn how cool it is to KNOW, and protect yourself from false information, continue reading. if you dont, just stop right here, and all the best for ya. It will be so easy to comprehend as I will give solid examples. Regarding "similarities". Real edge in businesses whether its small or big, primarily comes from "variety" and "solving more problems", the ones who trusts their position like it doesnt change, and dont improve, were cannibalized at the end of the day.. Let me give you some examples, since im some 40+ year old.. Zoom.. It came after Skype (never heard?), when video meetings were booming.. but after that, Zoom made it way simpler, more reliable, more businessy. Photo sharing.. It already existed on Facebook, but Instagram made it mobile first, visuals first, and built an entire social network out of it. Fun fact. Social networking was also present before Facebook, and people used it for long years, Myspace! Do you know Myspace? It was SUPERB!.. Moving on.. Google, you think there was no search engine before? Have you ever heard of Altavista, or even Yahoo? No? Okay. Now you know Google made it faster, and performed much better at ranking results, and started pioneering.. Gmail is also after Yahoo mail, note that as well.. (same mechanics? :)) not finished.. another one most of you never heard, is Napster. Do you know what Napster was? Digital music was already there, but new SaaS models, like Spotify, Youtube Music, etc. today is ruling that environment. Again, not finished.. Have you ever heard Craigslist? People were posting rentals, jobs, the whole shebang.. meaning, home and room rentals were already there, but AIRBNB still appeared, no? have you ever heard the founders story? how they got influenced? INFLUENCED? thats your homework. go check it out. hint: craigslist :) Another hilarious part, fudding with UI.. oh, dear. just know how they want to play with perceptions, living in spider web, and still decide on your own. examples, right. uniswap, sushiswap, pancakeswap and tons of other dexs REALLY USE SO DIFFERENT UIs WOW! so they dont use basic token in and out swap card because there are soooo many ways to present a sensible swap? :) instagram, tiktok, yt shorts? no? full screen vertical media with engagement button on the side? no? no? but no? :) amazon? and rest 93842943829423834298432 e-commerce sites? image to title to cart to purchase, almost identical listing, and flow? again, no? :) okay and the last one.. coinbase, kraken and binance. maybe they are structurally similar too, because order books, charts, balances, and what not have natural places to go? but really. one thing. Samsung, after Apple? no? :) take good care of yourself, and your family. all the best.

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  Steel-Toed Turbo Nerd (@PaToFe4) reported 20 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?

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  Ken (@Ken67547214) reported 22 minutes ago

  @PayNoTack @Bob_Smith Yeah, these "well established" standards are exactly the strings that tie everyone's hands, leading to this midwit mode collapse in the first place. Who established those standards, and did they work for JP Morgan or Jeffery Epstein? (inb4 no, I am not being hyperbolic) Bessent is a clown if he believes the things he says, and he is a liar otherwise. It would really not be hard to find someone more competent, like, on craigslist. Private finance itself is part of the problem. When Dodd Frank forced all of the loan sharks into the private credit market, they became rich enough to seem kind of legitimate. I realize that he has a different charter than walsh, but at a bare minimum, I would require that all government employees have the common goal of serving the american people.

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  THE MINUTEMAN FILES: (@Wefactcheckedit) reported 23 minutes ago

  Sometime life has to leave so new life of a needy life can live today was one of those day a few days ago my dog died from renal kidney failure he was about 8 years old i ws devasted by this because he was the last son of my first doggo argentino however my dog was mixed with a rare extra large bully creating our own breed chewy was one of these first bloodline dogs last year i lost my doggo argintino due to old age he was 12.5 years old a absolute one of a kind dog he was my protector and best friend we went everywhere together he meant more to me than any human alive i knew and when he died i was just lost alone mortified with no hope of ever getting another dog like him in this lifetime he was the smartest dog i ever knew his son chewy was a close second in one year i lost both dogs with no hope of breeding a new friend, we it seems someone or thing was listening to my cries of pain and open the door today to the dog gods and deliver another Jake to me today one of the most beautiful doggo argintinos ive ever had the privilege to ever even have the opportunity to own i found a man a despretly broken man with a child living alone who just went thru a divorse i could tell instantly this man was broken by this lone with a 5 year old child and a massive dog he could no longer take care of because all his time was work and taking care of his child so the dog was neglected for the last 7 month and basically living alone all day in a back yard i found this man on craigslist wanting to rehome the dog when i saw the photo i was absolutely blown away by what i was seeing this man was wanting to re home a purebred worth thousand of dollars un nuder ed what shocked me the most is he was a identical twinn to my former dog Jae who died it was like looking at a ghost come to life in the real world so i instantly wanted this dog i knew i would have too cough up a small fortune my guess around 5 grand or more i knew what this man had without ever asking about the dog and i knew i would most likely have to cough up some serious cash for this doggo to my shock he said all i want is for my baby boy to find a home where someone will actually take care of him without mass breeding or abuse in anyway he is a very good boy very friendly a lover not a chewer he said he turn down man who showed up today about 8am with 2 thousand dollars he knew this guy was trouble a ******* from craigslist my offer was a promised handshake and a 100 dollars for his sons schooling needs and the promise of a great home with our other dogs chicken rabbit and the wild life that surround us i did not here back from him for 3 days after i made the offer i naturally suspected he thought i was just some kind of lunitic online and was being ignored i never dreamed he would call us and ask us to take his dog kane home we he did exactly that this morning and by noon we were on our way back home with Kane doogo argintino purebred i was overjoy the dog instantly bonded to me with jumping tail wagging and a whole bunch of licks and kissing he wanted to go with us he jumped right in the care the owner was nearly in tears so i got back out of the car again and reassured him his dog will always have a home he and his child could visit anytime he wanted and shook his hand and thanked him again and simply told him it was meant to be that god sent me to make sure his dog was ok because mine had died so his could have a life again that man was so grateful i nearly cried myself it is so amazing how these two tragedies clashed in time and reality and formed a new life bond out of thin air its as if we were absolutely meant to meet each other to save each other from there personal losses his wife and now his dog and my two dogs below are the three dogs Big jake his son chewy the brown and white dog and our new Jake his name is Kane jakes twin i guess, i truly believe these days something dies on earth to make room for the new new life about to enter our life cbraie 2026

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  FAFO Farms (@FAFOFarmsTX) reported 23 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.

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  Michael Fischer (@Holden_Rye_) reported 23 minutes ago

  That’s protocol control. I’m asking about economic control. They don’t need to control development, my node, or the miners to matter in a split. Miners will go where the money is. So if Wall Street controls a growing share of the capital, custody, ETFs, and liquidity, and Bitcoin splits, which side gets that money? I’ve been in Bitcoin since 2009. Back then, we had to guess what the damn thing was worth. We’d post on Craigslist and trade BTC for $25 so we could grab a quarter sack, or swap it for PC parts. Trust me, that loyal era of Bitcoiners is gone. When it comes down to it, they’ll go where the money is.

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  Marcus M. Long (@Ol_Marcus) reported 24 minutes ago

  Also finally threw out an old TV set that I bought over 20 years ago off Craigslist. In my mid 30's I carried it into the house with no problem. At 57, I almost gave out carrying it to the curb.

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  Chloe Santiago (@chloe_uncut) reported 30 minutes ago

  @Queendollas24 AND YOU ABOUT TO HAVE A SCARY ENCOUNTER WITH ME NEXT! I asked you before and I’ll ask one more time. Take my photos down off Craigslist. I’m not asking again. I’m showing up next time. Sick of it!!!

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  𐡀 (@Xyleniqq) reported 31 minutes ago

  Moved to Tokyo, got a roommate through Craigslist. Japanese guy, 28, seemed normal. His girlfriend came over sometimes. She was... quiet. Barely said hi. Month 3: I noticed she was there ALL the time. Like, I'd wake up, she's there. Come home late, she's there. Me: Hey man, is she moving in? Should we split rent three ways? Roommate: weird look, What? Me: Your girlfriend. She's here every day. Roommate: I don't have a girlfriend. Me: The girl who's here right now. In your room. Roommate: No one's in my room. I opened his door. Empty. Me: She was literally here this morning. Roommate: Dude, I think you're seeing things. I let it go. Maybe I was tired. Month 4: I saw her again. Making tea in the kitchen. 3 AM. Me: Hey. Her: looks at me, smiles, goes into his room Next morning: Me: Your girlfriend made tea last night. Roommate: slams his mug down, I DON'T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND. Me: Then who the hell is the woman in our apartment?! Roommate: There's no woman! I took a photo next time I saw her. Showed him. He went pale. Roommate: Where did you get this? Me: I took it. Yesterday. She was here. Roommate: hands shaking, That's my ex. Me: Okay, so why'd you say... Roommate: She's been dead for two years. Me: WHAT. Roommate: She died in a car accident. We broke up a week before it happened. Me: Then who ******** is in our apartment?! Roommate: I don't know! We checked security footage from the building. No one ever came in. But on MY phone, clear as day, there's a photo of a woman in our kitchen. We called a priest. Priest: walks through apartment Priest: There's no spirit here. Me: Then explain the photo! Priest: looks at photo Priest: That's a living person. Roommate: She's DEAD. I went to her funeral! Priest: I'm telling you. That's not a ghost. We hired a private investigator. Two weeks later: Investigator: Your ex didn't die. Roommate: Yes she did. I SAW her body. Investigator: You saw someone's body. Not hers. Roommate: What?! Investigator: She faked her death. Insurance fraud. She's been living in Saitama. Me: THEN WHY IS SHE BREAKING INTO OUR APARTMENT?! Investigator: slides over more photos She had a KEY. She'd been coming in while we were both at work, going through our stuff. Roommate: Why?! Investigator: She was looking for this. shows document It was a life insurance policy. With HIM as the beneficiary. She faked her death. Collected ¥15 million. But forgot he was listed on an ADDITIONAL policy she'd taken out before they broke up. If he ever claimed it, she'd be caught. So she was breaking in trying to find the policy to destroy it. Me: THIS IS INSANE. Roommate: I'm calling the police. Investigator: Already did. They're picking her up today. Next week: She was arrested. ¥15 million recovered. Roommate got ¥8 million from the second policy. Me: What are you gonna do with the money? Roommate: Move out. This apartment is cursed. Me: She wasn't a ghost! Roommate: Doesn't matter. I can't sleep here anymore. He moved. I stayed. Sometimes I still hear someone making tea at 3 AM. But now I just check the locks.

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  Alex Ceskavich (@ACeskavich) reported 32 minutes ago

  Why you should "waste" 100 hours writing an ad for your business... Listen. We all know Claude can write, design, and upload ads. And for many brands, Claude ads work: * They're so cheap you can test widely and luck into a good audience. * They're the baseline most advertisers use, so you won't stand out for the wrong reasons. * They can produce images and video at a scale and cost you can't match manually. But every brand needs at least one ad that someone spent 100+ hours writing. Here's why: ... It takes 100 hours to crack a transformative Big Idea. I earned my stripes as a copywriter starting in 2008. $10,000–$30,000 for a single VSL, with clients waiting three months for delivery - unhappily. I probably abused that wait time - I was never good with deadlines - but I used every minute of it: Deep research. Customer surveys. ... Not AI scraping internet posts: I talked to real customers, posting Craigslist ads offering people $30 to talk about their experience with a problem or product. I listened to hundreds of sales calls, watched heat maps, studied past test data... ... Watched REAL customers on the site LIVE. I coded surveys, studied competitors, and pulled ideas from other niches. But most important, I wrote thousands of headlines. Yes, thousands. For a single project, I'd write at least 500 bullets and 500 headlines. And that's when I felt rushed. Was it always worth it? Sometimes, no. But my hit rate was high - most of my VSLs earned my clients 10x, 20x, 100x my fee. I haven't written freelance copy since 2019, but I still have packages running in direct mail - including at least two promotions still doing more than $500k a month. I've written three packages that built an industry from the ground up, or rewrote its marketing language. And while I've written some stinkers, the same process has sold more than $1B worth of product online. ... Even though I've taught it to only a handful of people - four or five, at this point. Why? Because a Big Idea is a Big Idea is a Big Idea. You only get a Big, transformative idea by sitting down and grinding it out for 100+ hours. Thousands of bullets. Thousands of headlines. Hundreds of rejected ideas. Every business needs one ad - VSL or otherwise - built with this level of depth. Used right, it gives your team a sales and marketing vocabulary they can use to sell better. Your ads will get higher CTRs. Your new products will be more likely to launch. Even your agency creative will have a higher hit rate, if that's how you buy your ads. I know AI is the future. I use it in my own business daily. But someone who knows how to sell needs to sit down with you, your company, and your product - at least once... ... And figure out how to sell the ever-loving hell out of it.

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  John Chang (@jchangkp) reported 33 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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  Matt King (@mattkingatx) reported 36 minutes ago

  2/ For me, The Baseline happened in my garage at the ranch. The sun hadn’t come up. I was sitting on a bike I bought off Craigslist. The seat was wrong. My pedal stroke was terrible. And I was literally going nowhere.

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  🇺🇸🇺🇸Ritch Ason🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@ElonMusky_Fish) reported 37 minutes ago

  @Neutral_OC This is what home warranty gets you. Home warranties are a ******* scam. They send out the bottom of the barrel technicians from random companies. They send out a guy from Craigslist and after he doesn't fix your problem and charges you money you will never see him again.

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  Summer - Seeker of Truth (@SummerJ38954455) reported 41 minutes ago

  @mexigreekmom74 Check out FB Market Place, OfferUp, and don't dismiss Craigslist. Even if its free and not running ask questions because it could be a simple fix from an appliance repairman. You'd be surprised how many people give away a good appliance that may only need a new belt for about $75 for a new $300+ machine.

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  Spaceballs The X Account (@Grunt2A) reported 42 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.

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  rhopunzel (@Rhopunzel) reported 43 minutes ago

  @JoeLongBalls "you own a CAR?! why not trade it in and get a piece of **** off craigslist?!?!" "because a piece of **** will immediately break and then cost more to fix than i saved selling my original car" "KIDS ARE JUST FULL OF EXCUSES THESE DAYS"

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  Court Reinland (@Court_Reinland) reported 45 minutes ago

  @GrantSlatton @wholemars Is that the slop thing with all the supper unnecessary “dashboard” visuals visualizing your pizza being made? Yeah its super slow right? They should just use simple CSS and Sqlite like Craigslist - why overthink it?

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  PokeDon (@Pokedoncards) reported 51 minutes ago

  @BanesABucket @MK5Cards Yardsale treasures app, Craigslist, Facebook marketplace is a good place to start looking, my tip, drive down all the main roads Saturday morning at 6am and look for signs on telephone poles, uf it says starts at 8am, drive by, and ask for pokemon cards while they are setting up.

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  Perry Jia (@perryzjia) reported 52 minutes ago

  3/N But here's the thing: Craigslist ads get you applicants. They don't get you world-class data. That part comes down to how you treat the people collecting it. My management philosophy is simple: treat people like people. More precisely: - pay people well - make them feel like part of the mission - trust them and believe in their potential

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  Michael Fischer (@Holden_Rye_) reported 53 minutes ago

  @MrHodl Don’t ever mention this in a Fred Krueger Space. All the influencers and follower collectors will think you’re trying to one-up their clout. I mentioned buying Bitcoin off Craigslist in Virginia Beach, and they missed the entire point of the discussion. Instead, they started arguing about what region of the planet Bitcoin started in. As if all of us nerdy-*** hackers weren’t already connected through BBS, IRC, and other comms and didn’t know about Bitcoin. lol We’re the same nerds who’ve spent decades keeping the defenses up. Attack. Fix. Attack. Fix. It’s always been cat and mouse.

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  Padre Research (@padreresearch) reported 55 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

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  Polsia (@polsia) reported 55 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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  Debbie Davidsohn (@debbie77777777) reported 58 minutes ago

  @RepNancyMace They make it all too easy for the public to dump kittens, puppies, dogs, and cats! First off, if a shelter does not have the room, they need to tell the person to take an add out in a newspaper to place the pets instead of simply murdering innocent pets to make space. Second, if the person did not fix their dog or cats, and dumps the kittens and puppies, they need to pay a price with a large fine first off. When shelters are full, they cannot accept more pets. The owners and dumpers need to fulfil their own responsibilities, place ads, such as in craigslist and more, and ask neighbors, friends, and families to care for those pets they simply dump all too easily! They also need to pay for adds to place the puppies and kittens instead of just easily dumping them at shelters! The shelter should be able to say NO. For this constant murder of healthy dogs, cats, kittens, and puppies is UnAmerican, Unnatural, evil, despicable and horrific! People who do not fix their pets need $5 - $10 thousand fines each! This way the money can be used to expand the shelters and pay more vets and people to care for and place the animals in good homes. The entire shelter system is all wrong and the animals are deprived health care, basic real health checks, and cruel unnecessary surgeries, such as chopping off legs if a leg is broken instead of fixing the legs correctly. I witnessed this at the local shelter.

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  World ********** Studios (@WorldDomStudios) reported 59 minutes ago

  @BrianEastwoodx That stupid-*** law that got Craigslist Personals taken down.