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Woman's House Robbed After Fake Craigslist Post
flanksteak writes "The Seattle Times is reporting that a woman in nearby Tacoma had her rental property stripped of almost everything after someone posted a fake Craigslist announcement that everything in the house could be hauled away no questions asked. When contacted, Craigslist said they would release data about the poster if they were issued a subpoena."
I saw an interview with this person on the news.
1) They left the doors to the house UNLOCKED
2) They pissed someone off.
Ive often wondered if things like "free transmission behind X house" were actually something along these lines. Neighbours getting even. Its an interesting problem anyway that doesnt really have a solution I can see. No free webmail posts to craigslist?
I could see the same thing happening to any classified ads service. How do you know the laptop your buying is not hot? The car parts you buy? Its not craigslists job to verify every ad for truth. The only thing that needs to happen, is the obviously doubbley duped salvagers give her the stuff back. Imagine how pissed that would make the evicted tenant or whoever.
I know it's supposed to be "news" that crime continues to exist despite (and sometimes with the facilitation of) the internet, but I can't seem to muster up the energy. I'm sure that when the phone was popularized there were initially stories about how people would use this new technology for dastardly crimes, such as getting pizzas delivered to the wrong address, but do we really at this point need be kept informed of the breaking development that yes, new technologies will be used by criminals as well as law-abiding citizens? Maybe I'm just crabby and this is a good old heads-up.
I went to the city because I wished to live without deliberation.
It's bizzare because it really does fit a classic urban myth profile. It obviously happened and the owner was shook up but it shows why urban myths are often believeable. Gotta wonder why no one that stripped the house questioned it. At least the first few to show up it must have looked like a normal house. It got pretty trashed so the later ones at least had an excuse.
What happened to common decency?
A huge population (Tacoma,) would have to be uncommonly decent, some might even say unnaturally decent, in order for there not to be a few vultures present.
As it is, it's Tacoma, and thus only has merely common levels of decency, and thus there's a few vultures present.
Common decency itself remains intact.
It doesn't matter if the door was unlocked, it's still considered theft. You can leave you keys in you car and the thief will still get charged with grand theft auto - though you insurance company might not cover it.
s the first 5 seconds of a film uploaded to beasttube.com,
beasttube.... ehwwwww....
Let's see. Brief Synopsis of a great deal of the replies here...
/. especially) should be donating everything they can to help this woman out. It doesn't matter if she is rich beyond means, or if she needs to rent this property to keep from being homeless. Pranks and acts of vandalism like this are not funny. At all.
1: She was an Evil landlord. She evicted someone. She deserved it.
2: Karma returned to her what she deserved.
3: It was a rental property. She can afford to replace everything.
4: She left the property unlocked. She deserved what she got.
5: Crime is nothing new. This is nothing new. Laugh all you want.
WTF people? IF and WHEN something like this happens to you, you will change your tune VERY quickly. What does it say about the state of people today when the biggest mouths all laugh at someone's misfortune, writing it off to just be "Life". People who engage at finding entertainment in the misery of others, are the ones responsible for continuing the misery of others.
Sure it could happen (and probably has) with regular old paper classifieds. That doesn't make it OK. People in the Tacoma area that read this (and those here on
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
I wouldn't say karma, per se, since the tenant most likely had it coming (it's very difficult to evict someone without a reason). It's just a biproduct of property management that you make enemies. When your tenant become a liability and/or breaks there contract, it's a business decision to you, but it's a home decision to them.
A great prank/revenge?!!? Are you fracking kidding me?!?! The tenant was evicted... which TYPICALLY means said tenant didn't own up to their bills or violated some sort of agreement signed when they moved in. I'm sorry, but in no way is stealing a "great prank". Particularly when it involves stealing things like the hot water heater and kitchen sink, things which, without, the home is now completely worthless. You need to seriously rethink what you consider a prank. If it's your buddies calling your girlfriend, you'll pay up in your own hell... but you need to consider the collateral damage. In this case, it's going to cost this lady thousands of dollars. And YOU consider it a good prank? When was the last time you spent thousands of dollars just to pull off a prank (and if you had, where do you work, I could use a job like that)? This isn't funny.... this is the kind of thing that causes fear in our society for people who don't have the means to support themselves. It's the "good" thing to think, "Hey, they're a little down on their luck, let me help". And I really do like to think that way, but it's stories like this that make me think, "They're not down on their luck, they're just out to screw someone." As for the people who went in and took stuff... c'mon people! Use a little common sense! Should Craig's List require a subpoena? Of course! But that doesn't make what happened any better. You've got one imbecile who's mad because (s)he can't pay their debts, and then a bunch of other people who are just, apparently, waiting to prey on a CLEARLY false opportunity. If you're the kind of person who reads that add and thinks "the hot water heater MUST be okay to take" then I've got this great bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Think of all the money you can make on tolls! It even has a pedestrian walkway! Real cheap, but act fast, the bids keep coming in! Seriously... THINK about anything you see on the internet. This is supposed to be such an advanced society what with our acceptance of technology, and all this shows is that we're too stupid to filter out the crap. If anyone here fell for that add, it's a wonder you're not broke for buying EVERYTHING you see on a T.V. commercial. A good general rule of thumb is if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, and you should do a little research before you sink your time and/or money into it. If you don't believe that, quit your job and go do the "clearly" higher paying job they offer on T.V. to "work from home" and "make millions of dollars". I really expect more from society. I like to think that as information becomes more prevalent, people become more wary... Clearly I'm being too optimistic. Time to call my folks and make sure they're not doing something stupid...
I grew up in the town where the Angel of Death was born and raised. Do we have to drive around in APCs instead of regular cars and sleep in bullet-proof vests? Well, no. So unless you could name a mechanism by which Tacoma makes people dangerous (except that it's a town in the USA), that's not exactly a reasonable argument. I don't question the conclusion of locking the door, but maybe the rationale behind it is more than "we had a couple real bad guys born here". Anecdotal evidence only goes so far.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
OK, sure, Cletus told me to do it isn't a good defense, but...
"Cletus told me that he owned it, and that I could take it. Furthermore, he told me in a forum where such offers are not uncommonly made, where offers for such services as one night stands are often solicited, and where completely fraudulent offers are commonly listed with no detection or tagging methods" sounds pretty good.
Maybe I'm just not a trusting soul, but it seems to me that if I were a demolition contractor, I'd require a meeting with the client to show me his ID and the deed to the building before I'd accept the job. I know that in Santa Cruz county (California) at least, you have to get a permit for that kind of work. I'd be surprised if that's not the case in most of the USA.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You know, quick question, but wouldn't a demolition crew check a house thoroughly BEFORE tearing it down? I mean, even looking through the window, if you see a ton of furniture, especially stuff that'd sell pretty well on eBay at the very least, odds are, it's not really scheduled for demolition.
And even if it really is, why not TAKE all of that furniture, first? I hate waste. Take the stuff for yourself, sell it, donate it to the homeless/a shelter/an orphanage/whatever! Tearing a place down still full of usable things seems just completely wrong to me, when people are still in need.
How is identifying ethnicity (a fact) racist? lighten the fuck up.
>WTF people? IF and WHEN something like this happens
>to you, you will change your tune VERY quickly.
Yep. Nobody is *really* a relativist. The coolest punk
or the smarmiest professor turns positively Puritan
when it's *their* stuff stolen, *their* face punched,
*their* wife raped.
Do I have that right?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I think it was meant to imply they didn't speak much english, which would make the resolution of a misunderstanding that much harder.
I believe the proper action for Craigslist is to simply ignore any non-official demands for information.
The only "official" way to demand information is a subpoena or search warrant.
I don't want them shooting off the personal details of every poster each time they get an email claiming to be from "Joe FBI".
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.