

The Mysterious Case Of The Craigslist Writing Gig Scam - antr
http://www.theawl.com/2011/08/the-mysterious-case-of-the-craigslist-writing-gig-scam

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davidu
I do not think this is an advance fee scam. I think the pay-per-call commenter
is closest.

Here's what I think is happening. A marketing firm has told some local
businesses that it will do online marketing and other marketing activities to
drive leads in the form of calls to the business. The marketing campaigns will
focus on specific issues (like insurance coverage for weight loss).

It's not atypical for a marketing agency or demand generation company to
guarantee a certain number of leads per campaign -- eg, if you spend $1,000
with us, we will guarantee you get 50 leads.

I think a call-based / real-world demand generation agency is stuffing the
leads for their customers because the actual campaigns aren't delivering.

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ilamont
If it's a lead-gen scam, shouldn't bogus contact/address info be the central
part of the scheme?

Also, the six-minute requirement on the first call doesn't fit with a lead-gen
scam. It actually seems like it would really drain the resources of a small
company trying to drum up business.

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badmonkey0001
The phone number and extension is probably what's used to identify where the
"sales lead" came from. As for the long-calls, there's probably a minimum
connection time before the lead is considered "valid". "aaron" is probably
telling everyone 6 minutes keeping in mind that this is a Craig's labor pool
and they will probably only really do 2 minutes on average.

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eric-hu
My vote is for "advance fee scam" as mentioned in the comments of the article.
It plays out something like this:

He shows up at a coffee shop after a few days worth of work with a check for
$1000. The actual "work" done was worth $700, so he says "just give me $300
and we'll call it even". He'll be nice and wait for OP while he goes to the
ATM, but the check will be a dud.

If I'm right about this, I think there's a powerful psychological force at
play. The time invested for the work will cloud the OPs judgment about whether
this is a scam or not. A feeling of loss is much more powerful than a feeling
of gain (I can't remember the exact psych term for this)

The OP probably scared off 'Aaron' with the "is this a scam?" email.

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yarian
If you read carefully, I think that email was sent after they were supposed to
meet at the coffee shop.

~~~
eric-hu

      After the five reviews, Aaron asked for my phone number
      and said he’d call me the next day with a meeting place. 
      It has now been three days and I have yet to hear from 
      him. He’s also stopped responding to my emails, including 
      one in which I asked him, “Is this really a scam?” Which 
      means, obviously, I’ve been duped.
    

I think you're right, the email looks like it was sent after the intended
meeting time.

I still think that a waiting time and a 'missed' appointment could've been a
part of the scam. After all, when you've been on hold with customer service
for 10 minutes, do you _really_ want to hang up at that point?

~~~
yarian
10 minutes? What planet do you live in and how much is the rent for a one
bedroom? :) If I wait 10 minutes I consider myself lucky, usually more like
30.

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elliottcarlson
Personally it sounds like a creative way of lead generation. Guys personal
information gets submitted to the lead generation system, and the follow up
call, with the scenarios that are played out make them "legit" leads. Scammer
then cashes in on the leads. Keep in mind that these leads can pay from $20 to
$150 easily per legit lead and it's a shady business (worked at a company
dealing with lead gen at one point). Could be wrong but personally it makes
the most sense to me...

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badclient
Pay per call scam. Chances are the phone number or extension maps to "aaron"
who is an affiliate of said companies, except instead of sending legit leads,
he's sending fake ones. Still, any company worth their dime should be able to
track actual conversion from their affiliates and spot scammers. That's
affiliate 101.

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ltamake
> who has trouble with Paypal?

I can't tell you the amount of times I've had trouble with that shitty excuse
of a company.

~~~
JacobAldridge
Not a Pal. Occasionally, will not Pay.

Actually, I do have pals like that.

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wilkenm
This sounds like a creative way of scamming a pay-per-call advertiser. But, I
can't imagine any of the 'big boys' in the pay-per-call market risking
something like this.

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eridius
Doesn't make much sense given that one of the companies was a free service.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Lead generation for universities makes the most money of any of them, why do
you think University of Phoenix ads are (or used to be) everywhere.

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wccrawford
I'm throwing my vote in with the guy who suggested maybe he's getting money
from the companies for getting more people to call about their services. Both
ends are getting scammed, but it costs one of them time, and one of them
money.

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pyoung
In the comments section on the blog, someone mentioned that the scammer might
be running a call-center for the companies, where they get paid by the minute
for their services. I think that would better explain the 6 minute requirement
than the 'lead generation' argument.

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a3camero
Call center profit would probably be too low to make this worthwhile.

$15/hr * 0.1 hours = $1.50. Seems like the complex Craigslisting wouldn't make
sense with this little profit at stake per call they manage to finagle.

~~~
pyoung
I agree that it seems like a lot of work for little reward. However I think
you ignored the fact that the OP made multiple calls that lasted over 6
minutes (in the comments section he also mentioned that the phone numbers he
was calling were fairly similar to each other). So $15/hr _0.1 hours_ 6 calls
= $15.

The fact that all of the coordination is done through e-mail means that the
scammer could have multiple people per day doing this. Which would add up to a
small chunk of change, enough to keep his operation going, especially if
business is slow.

It is almost like an old-school version of click fraud.

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SimHacker
Well you still have the phone numbers of the businesses you called. Call them
again and ask them who's handling their lead generation.

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StavrosK
Given the minimum-time requirement for the phonecalls, I'd say it's a DoS
attack on the companies.

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diN0bot
lots of people just have fun playing with craigslist. this really could just
be that.

a friend of mine used to write beautiful 'perfect girl' ads (written from the
perspective of his version of the perfect girl), just to see what kinds of
responses he got.

i don't think i'm explaining very well what's interesting here about this kind
of social interaction. anyway, making money isn't the main goal in my head
when it comes to craigslist.

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maren
My vote is for the furiously masturbating idea

