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CraigsList going to charge $5 for car listings


zeitgeist57

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https://jalopnik.com/craigslist-will-soon-start-charging-5-to-list-a-car-fo-1833999592

 

Given how bad CL has gotten in recent months, I applaud this move. That which is free is not necessarily valuable. I hope the small fee knocks a lot of fakers off to Facebook. It's not like they have a ton of revenue that they risk losing if there's a reduction in posters. :lol:

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CL wouldn't be so bad if they actually monitored it. They really don't care and the flag system is garbage. No car should be listed for $1, dealers shouldn't be able to list down payments as car prices, and dealers spam the hell out of the keyword lists.
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meh, the biggest problem with CL for me isn't with the ads, it's with the barely literate mouth breathers that respond to the ads. I've gotten pretty good about spotting scammers and questionable ads, and the dealer things doesn't bother me because there are work arounds.

 

But fer fooks sake I don't want to trade my motorcycle for your hatchling pythons or collection of vintage VHS pornography.

 

Charging $5 just means I won't be using CL anymore. I've gotten some great deals because it's free and therefore the worst un-saavy buyers can post stuff poorly and I can put in the leg work to deal with the old dude selling the cherry whatever who won't accept text messages and I have to sit through 2 hours of his boring stories on the phone.

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That's true too, but don't know how you possibly stop that.

 

Facebook found a way - takes out the anonymity and you can be selective about how wide a net you cast. seen way fewer jackasses on there.

 

facebook isn't perfect though - that auto respond "is it still available" makes me want to kick a puppy (not that I would but that's how mad it makes me).

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They should give one account one free listing per year though. Would cover the average person who just wants to use craigslist like most people and not as a business hub. Sure businesses could abuse it and make multiple accounts but the time that would take to make and manage... you'd probably be better off just paying the $5.00

 

Also think its a little steep honestly from $0 to $5. Is that per month too or just one time till you take it down?

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I listed my car this past Sunday night on Craigslist and the first person to contact me Monday morning came and bought it with zero issues at all. I didn't think this was possible.

 

This has been 99% of my CL experience. It's easy to spot the scam emails and ignore them, but I usually get a few legit replies right away and sell whatever it is I listed easy (and to normal people). I've had one issue with someone 'jerking me around' and not showing up, but of the hundreds of things I've sold on CL, I'm good with calling that the exception.

 

The $5 thing will just drive people to Facebook groups to sell cars. (imho)

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  • 2 weeks later...

so today is the first day I had a chance to search CL since the $5 listing fee went into effect on the 15th. There were hardly any interesting ads at all and so many fewer than normal. It felt like an electronic version of those terrible car selling papers you see at the supermarket.

 

RIP Craigslist.

 

fortunately for me motorcycle ads are still free for now so...

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so today is the first day I had a chance to search CL since the $5 listing fee went into effect on the 15th. There were hardly any interesting ads at all and so many fewer than normal.

Same. I get bored and browse old cars and now there's only a fraction of what used to be. It either skimmed all the fat (scammers) leaving only real posts, or people are really cheap.

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Same. I get bored and browse old cars and now there's only a fraction of what used to be. It either skimmed all the fat (scammers) leaving only real posts, or people are really cheap.

 

I do the same thing. I think that people really are that cheap, $5 doesn't seem like much, but based on the past experience of CL, I would not pay $5 to have to deal with CL buyers.

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meh, the biggest problem with CL for me isn't with the ads, it's with the barely literate mouth breathers that respond to the ads. I've gotten pretty good about spotting scammers and questionable ads, and the dealer things doesn't bother me because there are work arounds.

 

But fer fooks sake I don't want to trade my motorcycle for your hatchling pythons or collection of vintage VHS pornography.

 

Charging $5 just means I won't be using CL anymore. I've gotten some great deals because it's free and therefore the worst un-saavy buyers can post stuff poorly and I can put in the leg work to deal with the old dude selling the cherry whatever who won't accept text messages and I have to sit through 2 hours of his boring stories on the phone.

 

Exactly.

 

The fake ads were just a minor annoyance, you could spot them before you even clicked on them 99.9% of the time. The dealers posting their auction shitboxes in the owner section was kind of annoying, but again, pretty easy to spot. No license plate, paper floor mats from the detailer, very brief description, and you could search the seller's phone number and his name was usually Mohamed Abdi or similar.

 

I've bought and sold several cars on CL, buying was typically easy and selling was usually a PITA. It's a double edged sword, that's just the nature of it, but a lot of the time it depends on what you're selling and the type of people that the car attracts. The absolute WORST was trying to sell a '95 Caprice. The tire kickers who wasted my time with that, my God what a headache. But sometimes you would get lucky and the first guy shows up on time and buys your car without any issues. Definitely hit or miss, again it's the nature of using a free service and dealing with the people it attracts.

 

Like Kerry said, you could find some gems because some people were incapable of posting a halfway decent ad which would scare off most everyone else, making it easy to get a good car/deal if you put in a little effort. Unfortunately, you'll have a lot less of that now with the $5 fee. Hell, it's only $5 but you know how people are.

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As much as it seems like complaining, I would rather deal with the crazies and have it be free than to spend $5 for a CL ad. I just think CL was trying to solve for a problem that was a mild annoyance (scammers) and ended killing what made it great.

 

 

 

What should I be using instead?

 

I've been liking facebook marketplace lately. Way more sensible than CL, and way fewer scammers (for now).

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I hate the interface on FB Marketplace. I really can't stand anything about it, from search function to the listings and everything else in between. Maybe it's better on the desktop version but mobile kind of sucks.

 

Maybe I just need to get used to it, I really haven't used it much

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I do the same thing. I think that people really are that cheap, $5 doesn't seem like much, but based on the past experience of CL, I would not pay $5 to have to deal with CL buyers.

 

Right, because craigslist is generally a last resort to selling a car. Now that last resort costs money, so it's essentially rendered itself useless.

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So all the inexpensive car posts have straight up disappeared.

 

yeah...who is going to spend $5 to list a $500 beater or a $1500 project car. The question is - where are they migrating to? Some of those CL sellers could barely use CL, thinking that they would be able to use FB - yikes.

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I just looked there are still some sub $2k cars on it.

I think if you want to reach a large sometimes uneducated audience you will post your beater there.

But the question is, will it stop the scammers?? If you can scam 5 people for a total of even $100 a piece, $5 seems like a cheap investment.

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