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.

• Errors (60%)
• Sign in (20%)
• Website Down (20%)

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:

• 
  CAPT Shuyan Huang MD (@CptHuang) reported 37 seconds ago

  Caution with this #goatmilk lady - i ain't offering the #refundpolicy when y'all get into trouble. 1) false pretenses 2) the cyberstalking via craiglist 3) told me that she wanted me to sign some papers; the next day, it was probably a DEA staff. [?White male in blue SUV or something?]

• 
  Janice Phillips (@CatCrazyJan1) reported 4 minutes ago

  @its_The_Dr I love it. When the convid happened, I would say "I'll walk off into the woods naked before I comply". Well, there's a river that is a five minute walk from my home. I'll launch a boat first. I have two, but they're just little fishing boats. *searches craigslist for a broke down pontoon to remodel*

• 
  THE MINUTEMAN FILES: (@Wefactcheckedit) reported 4 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

• 
  Abandon Comfort (@abandoncomfortx) reported 7 minutes ago

  When I saw this log cabin for sale on Craigslist 5 years ago I thought it was a scam. I talked to the 80-year old owner on the phone & still thought it couldn’t be real. It was impressive how elaborate this hoax was. Pulling down the long driveway, I still didn’t know if it would be real then there it was. Perfectly placed on the hill like something out of a fairytale. Everyone else interested in buying the property were going to tear it down. It couldn’t be saved they said. It took me the better part of 2 years but I saved it and in turned it saved me. It made me a believer again.

• 
  samcam (@samtothecam) reported 9 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.

• 
  Silo098 (@Silo098) reported 10 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?

• 
  Jaxon (@jaxoncoder) reported 12 minutes ago

  A brother living near my house bought a used iPhone on Craigslist for $300 cash. It looked brand new. It was completely factory reset. A week later, his camera flash turned on by itself in his dark bedroom. He thought it was just a software glitch. But it was so much worse.

• 
  kyrox (@kyroxxxq) reported 15 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.

• 
  Citizen (@afistfulofteeth) reported 17 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.

• 
  Chris Powers (@fortworthchris) reported 19 minutes ago

  Justin Lopas (@JLopas), Co-founder & COO of @basepowerco, told me about the first battery they ever installed. Six months in, they had financial assumptions, regulatory assumptions and engineering assumptions, and no way to know if any of them held. So to put those assumptions to the test, they installed one battery in Dallas, TX. "We got a friend of my co-founders in the Dallas area, and then we found an electrician on Craigslist. And we're like, okay, let's make it happen." "Nothing worked." Wrong battery, bad install, failed inspection. They pulled it out a few weeks later and started on the second one. In this clip, what one broken battery taught them that six months of assumptions could not.

• 
  SUMO Momentum, MBA, Six Sigma (@SUMOmomentums) reported 22 minutes ago

  Dear $META. Stop selling rebuilt cars on marketplace. The platform is allowing this. It’s an easy fix but you won’t care. Shits Craigslist 2026 Facebook Remember Don’t tase me bro? Now it’s- Don’t rob me bro.

• 
  CRAZY DAYS AND NIGHTS (@CrazyDaysPoster) reported 23 minutes ago

  Thursday, August 06, 2026 Today's Blind Items A Hairy Situation A lead actor and producer for a new CBS show recently had a Craigslist purchase go awry. The actor needed a hairpiece for a specific scene of the show he's starring in, so he began looking online for local listings. He saw a free toupee advertised, and he made plans to meet up with the seller to pick it up it. Soon after returning to set, he took the toupee and placed it down on a table next to the director's salad, running off right after to film a scene. After half an hour, the director came over to the table and found the "toupee" eating his lunch. It turned out that the toupee, was, in fact, a Peruvian long-haired guinea pig. The actor tried contacting the seller, who never responded. The guinea pig ended up getting adopted by the show's co-producer (who seemed unusually enthusiastic about his new pet), and costuming ended up buying an actual hairpiece for the show—one that won't steal the crew's lunches.

• 
  The Automotivist (@_automotivist) reported 26 minutes ago

  Bought a broken Ford Escape Hybrid off Craigslist in 2018. Someone said the battery was dead. A $50 charger and a YouTube search later, it was not. The mechanism was there. Nobody in the industry had a reason to explain it to me. Marcus did the same thing this month. He called a credit union. They cut his rate by three points. Saved him $2,800 in interest over the term. The dealer had the same rate available the whole time. The refi is a phone call the industry does not advertise. Friday's issue is the framework I did not have at 23.

• 
  Kevin McCallister (@realKevinP) reported 30 minutes ago

  @Shidokado1 That was terrible back then. I moved and struggled to find anyone who sold ****. Had to buy it off craigslist ads. lol terrible situations and tons of time wasted.

• 
  N2 Rotation (@BlisteredSkies) reported 36 minutes ago

  @ervin_pa I guarantee you’ve never been to another country to witness atrocities. I had an 18 year-old Haitian kid escape at the end of the hurricanes 12 years ago. Taught himself English. Worked his *** off. Made him the manager of my franchise coffee shop. Started buying broke down cars on craigslist and his spare time and flipping them after fixing them. Started his own used car dealership selling 60 cars a month in Naples, Florida. Now works for Hendrick motorsports. Ask that kid if he cares about 200 years ago or feels oppressed here in America No one is more ungrateful or busy reliving past sins then present day black grifters Imagine if Jesus had everyone never forget their country’s past and blame endlessly for something they themselves never experienced. Grow up lady

• 
  Raunak (@stratwright) reported 37 minutes ago

  In 1957, an 18-year-old named Yvon Chouinard went to a junkyard, bought some scrap metal, and taught himself to blacksmith so he could make better climbing gear. He sold pitons out of his car for $1.50 each. He ate cat food on climbing trips to save money. He had no investors, no business plan, no MBA. Just a product he believed in and customers who needed it. That company became Patagonia. It now does $1.5 billion in annual revenue. He never took outside investment. Not once, in 50 years. The idea that you need to move fast to win is one of the most expensive lies in business. An Inc. study tracking more than 100,000 midsize US businesses over 20 years found something most founders don't want to hear: the faster a company grew in one period, the less likely it was to grow again in the future, and the more likely it was to fail. The companies that grew consistently, year after year at moderate rates, were the ones still standing two decades later. Mailchimp bootstrapped for 20 years before Intuit acquired it for $12 billion in 2021. Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius owned 100% of it. No dilution. No board telling them what to do. They just kept reinvesting profits, fixing what didn't work, and not rushing. Basecamp has been around since 1999. Same product, roughly the same team, never needed outside money. Jason Fried turned down every VC offer and wrote a book about it. Their annual revenue hasn't been disclosed but it's been consistently profitable for over 25 years. They turned down a $100M acquisition offer in the early 2000s. Craigslist is still one of the most visited websites in America. It has roughly 50 employees. It generates hundreds of millions in revenue per year. Craig Newmark started it in 1995 as an email list. The pattern across all of them is the same. They stayed small long enough to figure out what actually worked. They didn't raise money to paper over bad decisions with marketing spend. They survived downturns because they weren't burning cash they didn't have. And they kept 100% of the thing they built. Fast growth feels like winning. What it actually does is compress your learning curve while multiplying your costs, hire people before you know what to do with them, and optimize for metrics that look good in a pitch deck but don't necessarily mean the business works. The S&P 500 average company lifespan was around 30 years when Patagonia was founded in 1973. Today it's less than 18. Companies are being hollowed out faster than ever. The ones that last keep doing roughly what Chouinard did: build something real, charge a fair price for it, don't spend more than you make, and stay long enough to get good at it. Slow feels wrong when everyone around you is announcing funding rounds and growth hacks and hockey stick projections. It's supposed to feel that way. That's how you know you're doing it right.

• 
  tp53 🍊🥕🦪🥩🥛☕ (@tp53guardian) reported 38 minutes ago

  @Rationale_Male No it's not. I used to run with a whole gaggle of knuckleheads from poor and broken homes. 1 is in prison. The cousins he was raised with are both dead. Some are alcoholics and burnouts who are 30 to 40 years old still living with their parents. The ones that are ok are divorced, sometimes 2x over, or living lives of service doing charity work for troubled kids through churches. The few determiners between me and everyone else I grew up with is slightly more money ( I was lower to middle middle class) and the fact I had a two parent home. Where as most of my friends grew up in poverty , raised by single moms , or an aunt in one case. Or by an alcoholic step mom in another case. I wouldn't trade my life with anyone I was friends with. I wouldn't trade the outcomes or lessons learned between me and them either And given the account I'm replying to, a couple in some instances may have attracted more women when they were 15. But not by the time I was in my 20s , and I'm the one who ended up in a stable marriage with a kid that excels. At best they ended up with baby mamas with kids that curse them out in the grocery store. If they got a woman or a kid at all There's nothing glorious or glamorous about struggling as a youth 1 out of 100 learns amazing lessons from it. Most get trampled by the experience and never exceed the adults that raised them Come back and talk when you know girls that went into porn and it just seemed like a no duh bc her mom sold her *** on Craigslist. Or when your buddy who's mom was a ****** and dad was a unknown John , mom died so Grandma took him in. Grandma dies so he becomes a foster kid . Aunt figures she can get social security check so she brings him in but soon as he's old enough to work odd jobs he has to buy his own toilet paper, toothpaste and grew up using water with cereal bc he wasn't allowed to touch the milk used from his aunt, cousins and whatever man she was sleeping with . He ended up in juvie and later as an adult . prison . Or the twins who were raised my mom and daddy number 3 with 4 other siblings who got beat by their sherrif step father Or the dentists child who got divorced and dentist won custody. Remarried. Dentist gets nailed for dealing drugs. Step mom raisj the child and she's passed out on the couch every night from drinking Or or or..I could write. A book of stories. The fights. The theft rings. The drugs at 13 and 14 years old that most people don't even get offered until they're in college , at best. My childhood first girlfriend was raw dawged ********** at a house party 3 houses from where I grew up. About 2 to 3 months after we broke up. I had to turn down ' my turn'. I was barely 14. She was 13. So yeah. Uh. **** kids struggling. A whole lot of other **** comes along with being raised by struggling parents who are trying to do it alone , they're over worked and come home exhausted and stressed to the point they hide in a bottle or zone out in front of TV while their kids run around tearing down the world.

• 
  shredded Denim (@denimneverdies) reported 38 minutes ago

  @laurasukas I don't give a **** what they're *saying*, I care that, for example, when the government shut down adult services on Craigslist, death was the result

• 
  node33 (@x_esk_x) reported 40 minutes ago

  @Kintakus @RobotPerson78 I hear the cost for escorts has gone up from $25 per hand as was on Craigslist to $100k on 𝕏 or 60k if in San Francisco. As long as can afford it and not fording someone unwilling to do it and threaten them with guns and extortion probably can do and gets you in trouble for hiring escorts if not CEO or billionaire as extra risk

• 
  Mary (@supergreak) reported 40 minutes ago

  @Abomination81 That's darling that you think normal people are spending 42000 on a car. If I had 42K it's a down payment on a 🏠. I don't care if my car is a "depreciating asset", I've had it for 5 years and paid $7500 cash to some dude off Craigslist. Gambling w/debt is for suckers.

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  🇺🇸🇺🇸Ritch Ason🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@ElonMusky_Fish) reported 40 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.

• 
  TravelPants (@PantsToTravel) reported 42 minutes ago

  @mattressguy_ In college I bought a bed off craigslist, got the mattress down the stairs but the box spring couldn’t make the turn. So I took a hammer and and broke the runners and bent it around the turn and duct taped them back together once in the room

• 
  L💚VE (@uknowwho1001) reported 43 minutes ago

  If any of you guys are having an issue with… Impulse control. May I suggest… On a whim… Get a puppy off Craigslist. That ‘cured’ my impulsive tendencies. I now have a reminder… Every time I move… My toes are attacked… By a 3 lb gremlin. No impulsive behavior…

• 
  ᴬᵍᵉᵒᶠᵈᵒᵍᵉ (@evilduck92) reported 46 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.

• 
  Dhawal Yogesh Bhanushali (@imkin) reported 51 minutes ago

  @shiv_cybersurg This is true but also not entirely. There are people who would buy and take (like me) but cannot "find you". the apps like @OLX are full of store folks. In US this is how craigslist was born. it has its own problems but I have sold and give away so many things over there.

• 
  Efe (@efexeth) reported 52 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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  jennyTheCat 🇺🇲 (@JennyTheCat3000) reported 54 minutes ago

  @MathewLight17 Depending on your state my mom's husband could fix it or my husband could fix it or you could try watching YouTube videos to fix it. Looks rough. Craigslist sometimes offers free building materials which could help if anything good is available in your area.

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  Pete Mogck (@peteyboardman) reported 55 minutes ago

  Our first warehouse was a sublease in the Longfellow neighborhood of South Minneapolis. A glorified garage, really. We shared it with other businesses and made every square foot count. Selling on Craigslist was still a thing. We popped up in malls around Christmas and ran Groupon offers to find customers wherever we could. Once we made a little money, we immediately bought an old Volkswagen truck. It broke down every time we drove it and took up valuable warehouse space. 💀 But it was “cool” Looking back, the first six years were about figuring out how to run a business. The last six have been about building one that can sustain itself. There was no clean transition between the two. No moment where we suddenly knew what we were doing. We just slowly got better at making decisions, hiring people, managing money, and admitting when something wasn’t working. A lot of the things that helped us survive early on, eventually held us back. Doing everything ourselves. Saying yes to every opportunity. Hiring only people we already knew. Making decisions based on instinct instead of numbers. Those things weren’t necessarily wrong at the time. They were just part of the stage we were in. Every version of the business requires a slightly different version of us. I’m glad we didn’t wait until we were ready. We never would have started.

• 
  Matt James (@mattejames) reported 58 minutes ago

  In the same way that Craigslist was a generic solution to the problems better served by more tailored solutions like Airbnb, TaskRabbit, and other marketplaces.

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  Spaceballs The X Account (@Grunt2A) reported 59 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.