It’s a testament to the fundamental goodness of humans that a site like Craigslist is successful. Billions of anonymous transactions take place between total strangers every day, and only a small fraction of these turn criminal. That said, the criminals who do show up on Craigslist seem hell-bent on making up for this by being especially strange and depraved, and their victims seem intent on making up for it by being especially gullible.
Minister Steals Newlyweds’ Gifts
Ahh, weddings. That special day when a man and a woman are joined for all eternity. What a day full of love, commitment and free-flowing booze. Anyone who has actually been a part of a wedding can tell you this is a complete and utter fabrication. Weddings are a terrible blight upon your friends and family and are enjoyed by no one except deluded brides. They are hectic, mish-mash affairs that everyone can’t wait to end. So it makes sense when a Portland couple hired a minister off Craigslist—it was probably fast, easy, and affordable. Or, they could have done what most sane people do now, which is force a friend to get ordained on the internet and perform the ceremony in exchange for twelve whiskey sours.
The minister apparently performed the ceremony and then ran off with the couples’ wedding gifts—which, at even a small wedding, can easily total in the tens of thousands of dollars. While this may sound tragic for the newlyweds involved, theft seems mild when compared to what most in-laws would do if alone in a room with the bride and a 9-iron.
Couple Steals, Then Resells, Trailer for Years
Everyone’s had that old mattress or car on cinder blocks that they’d almost pay for someone to get rid of. Showing they were true entrepreneurs, a couple in Gresham, OR decided to see what they could get for their old trailer on Craigslist. Once the trailer was sold and their money spent on meth and Miller High Life, one imagines that they begin thinking of ways to earn more money.
Not having any more trailers to sell, and neglecting to do the honorable thing and knock over a 7-11 like the rest of the civilized world, these Einsteins decided to steal the exact same trailer… and sell it. On Craigslist. Again. They actually got away with doing this for years. Thus reaffirming that the best way to make money in America is to do something incredibly stupid for just a short amount of time.
Lease to Own… Nothing
It’s an old platitude that something that sounds too good to be true usually is. On the internet, if something sounds too good to be true, it’s usually that highly specific fetish porn you’ve been trying to find for years… or it’s a scam on Craigslist. Chandler Cook and Elizabeth Dorscht obviously never had the privilege of overbearing, long-winded fathers who spouted platitudes, so when Lynne Sisto offered them a deal to “lease to own” a house at an unbelievable price, they jumped on it with all the gusto and lack of experience of a 16 year-old on prom night.
Unsurprisingly, when Cook and Dorscht showed up at their new “house” they found it wasn’t actually for sale, did not belong to Sisto, and Sisto had taken their down payment and vanished. Surprise!
Face-Punching, Pepper-Spraying Strippers
The “Adult Services” section of Craigslist often gets bad-mouthed as a thinly-veiled prostitution racket. But for some it is a completely legitimate way to hire strippers to turn a bachelor party into a horrible, tear-stained pile of regret. An otherwise innocent man in Huntington Beach, California hired a couple of strippers from Craigslist for his buddy’s bachelor party. This noble paragon of manliness then paid the strippers cash up front. They proceeded to tease, titillate, and disrobe in accordance with the customs of one of the world’s oldest professions.
Oh no, wait — they took the money and bolted. When the angry and blue-balled bachelors tried to stop them, the strippers pepper sprayed and punched the men in the face. Any man can attest that it takes a special version of low-down and rotten to use promises of sex to steal money (from anyone you’re not married to)… But perhaps the strippers were onto something, because the men were so embarrassed by their ass-kicking that they refused to cooperate with the investigation.
I’d Like to Sell You This Picture of a Camaro
At a certain point a set up is so obviously a scam that it’s sometimes difficult to feel truly sorry for the person who lost gobs of money. There’s a well-known unholy trinity of online scams, part of which Craigslist posts on their actual site, that goes something like this: Don’t buy from someone A) With bad English B) Far away and never, ever, ever C) Wire money. Perhaps if your old chap Dr. Livingston is caught up in the British Colony of India in 1905, it is excusable to wire him money… but other than that, wiring money is a method used exclusively by scammers, criminals and poorly-written spy novels.
But apparently in Nebraska enough people are getting scammed into buying nonexistent used cars by wiring the money to out of state strangers on Craigslist that the Nebraska State Police felt it necessary to issue the retarded warning of ”…if you can’t see it, touch it, or drive it, you may not want to buy it.”
New, Never Used Mattress (Ignore the Mold)
Mattresses are that warm, comforting indulgence we all hope to go home to at the end of the day. They are also probably the most likely items in your house to contain mold, mildew, parasites, and years and years of encrusted semen. Like a 14 year-old’s sock drawer, used mattresses are a treacherous thing, and one would hope any “new” mattress would be suitable and devoid of flesh-eating bacteria and love juices.
Well sleep tight if you bought your mattress off Craigslist, because it turns out people have been pulling old mattresses off street corners, wrapping them in plastic, then re-selling them as “never-used”. And if you’ve ever observed the general state of mattresses that end up on street corners, apologies for guaranteeing you’ll never sleep again.
Julissa Brisman and the Craigslist Murderer
No list of Craigslist crime would be complete without mentioning perhaps the most infamous felony associated with the site. Julissa Brisman was a “masseuse” who advertised her services on the Adult Services section of Craigslist. In a series of events that’s pretty hard to make a joke about, a client of Brisman’s used the isolated environment of the massage to murder Brisman and rob her blind. On top of that, it appears as if this particular murderer has been using Craiglist for a while to select his victims.
The only marginally funny part about this was the publicity firestorm that it ignited. Apparently when the words “prostitute” and “murder” are thrown around, most people’s hilariously depressing response is “good riddance”. And when the word “murder” and “internet” are thrown together, misinformed grandparents the world over seem to think that just because something happens through a service offered on the internet, this newfangled technology is to blame. Even though we all wish real-life crime happened like internet crime, maybe then the mugger would offer us a chance to access a Nigerian prince’s lost wealth instead of beating us with a tire iron.
There’s Jealous Ex-Boyfriends, Then There’s This
We’ve all experienced the pain of rejection. Most people drink a fifth of bourbon and move on. Some people resort to petty, but ultimately harmless recriminations, like posting nude pictures of their ex online. There’s a particularly twisted type of crazy that has the following thought process:
1) Man, I really want to get back at my ex
2) I know, I’ll pose as her on a Craigslist ad saying I want someone to break in to my house and rape me at knifepoint!
Sadly, this actually happened.
This Wyoming man apparently had much more sadistic glee than rebound sex because he did exactly that, posting an ad that said “Need a real aggressive man with no concern for women.” A depraved — but what we hope is an otherwise innocent man — accepted the offer, broke in to the ex’s house, and raped her at knifepoint. There are times when the argument that anonymity on the internet leads to callousness and dehumanization seems like old people complaining about something they don’t understand. As inane as YouTube comments are, there are times that argument rings true.
I Need A Bomb for… uhm… A Project
Anonymity on the internet can be a wonderful thing. It allows us to watch whatever depraved porn we like, and have open, honest, frank exchanges of “ur a fag” without fear of repercussion. Unfortunately, some people take this a little too far, like a man from Madison thinking he could ask for a “mechanic or technician to construct an anti-personnel explosive device,” and think no one would notice. According to police, this man wanted to build a box that would explode when the top was opened, which he planned to mail to a friend of his estranged wife.
It’s a testament to just how insane too much exposure to the internet can make people that a conceivable knee-jerk response to this story might be “Well if only he had done his research he would have known that he could hire someone to rape his estranged wife or invite her to an exotic massage in a secluded location and no one would ever know.”
Hey Everybody, I’m Buying DRUGS!
As more and more states allow access to medicinal marijuana, the poor deprived souls of less enlightened states and doctors are clamoring for a taste. Unsurprisingly, this has led to the emergence of a black market for medicinal marijuana licenses and product. Somewhat surprisingly, some people think it is a good idea to conduct what amounts to a drug deal in the eyes of the law on a publicly accessible website. This results in the predictable “resigned goddammit” from police as they bust clueless 18-year-olds all across Colorado for illegally obtaining a Schedule 1 drug.
Gulf Oil Clean Up
From 9-11 to the Haiti earthquake, there’s never a tragedy too egregious for terrible people to make money off of it. The latest iteration of this has scammers offering “jobs” cleaning up the BP oil spill in the Gulf. The trick is, well-meaning people pay for “training” in advance, then show up to nonexistent work sites wearing adorable hardhats and very angry expressions.
On the list of red flags, having to pay to get a job ranks pretty high. While the concept seems reasonable, (why wouldn’t I pay for a job that I will make even more money at?) the practice is kind of, well, really illegal. Employers are required to pay for training and paying to land a job is otherwise known as “bribery”. Generally if there is something that seems incredibly unfair about a job, odds are some union has gotten red in the face about it and now it’s covered by OSHA. Except for your boss being a general dick. There’s no law for that, sorry.
This Woman Will Satisfy Your… uh…
There’s no end to the number of prostitution rings that operate through Craigslist that are busted every week. All it takes is an undercover cop who can operate a computer with the proficiency of a 13-year-old and an offer of sex for money. So despite the enormous client base of single, lonely men, perhaps the internet isn’t the best place to sell sex. But take a look at the woman in that picture. That woman is selling sex. Allow that to sink in for a moment. Either that woman is completely innocent, or gender equality is a myth. Not only is that woman getting laid, but she is charging actual money for people to have sex with her. At times like this you are inclined to believe that the internet is one giant joke perpetrated by sadistic, sex-starved nerds. Of course, fat but willing prostitutes kind of pales in comparison to…
Outright Sex Slavery
Ha Ha Ha! That internet is so wacky. What with its pictures of cats doing silly human things with Impact-font subtitles, its goofy video sites, its advertisements for sex with women forced into sex slavery. Wait, what? Yes, apparently Jin Hua Cui of New York would recruit women for her nail salons, then use fear and intimidation to force them into performing sex acts on paying customers. If they tried to leave, Cui would threaten to tell their families or have them killed by Chinese gangs. One can only imagine the scene where this hard-boiled Madame threatens her employees with death, then fires up her Apple Notebook and posts ads on Craigslist for their services. She actually made millions doing this. While non-coerced prostitution and bomb-making solicitation seem like hilarious, relatively victimless crimes, there is something unnerving about the ease and banality with which one person can use lies, intimidation and (let’s not forget) the internet to perpetuate a practice that was outlawed 145 years ago.
Hate Your Neighbors? Sell Their Stuff!
We’ve all had that terrible neighbor who never trims their lawn or leaves that precariously half-dead tree looming over your house. Most people grumble and let their dogs shit on their lawn. Smart people with too much money sue their neighbors. Rednecks apparently just put their neighbor’s property up for auction. Vaness Kimball, who was tired of looking at her neighbor’s dilapidated trailer, decided to not only get rid of the ugly thing, but to make a buck while doing it.
Unfortunately, like so many hilariously naïve criminals on this list, instead of asking around quietly or posting a sign in the front yard (out of view of the neighbors), Kimball decided to make money off of tricking someone else to steal the trailer on a website that is regularly viewed by millions of people. Predictably, she was caught and charged, but not before police held an applause for her entrepreneurship and go-get-em spirit.
Discount Dog Bone
There is a particular type of ingenuity that is so batshit and twisted that it’s difficult not to respect. One such distinction goes to Michael Sianez of California, who was already in trouble for operating a Private Investigator business without a license (and also defrauding almost all his clients). In a spiral of the utmost insanity that kind of makes really messed up sense, Sianez decided he wanted to get in on the profitable business of selling sex on Craigslist. Did he operate as a pimp? Sell himself as a gigolo? No. Sianez decided it would be much more worth his while to sell the services of his Labrador Retriever. To women. Who wanted to have sex with his dog.
Bestiality is illegal in large swaths of the country. It’s also not exactly the best charge to pair with “rampant fraud” when going before a judge. The worst part of the story? Sianez received multiple replies to his ad.
