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Comment by chankstein38 | Hacker News Reader

Why though? If a listing has been deleted, I know that it's no longer available, which I see as a feature. Is this just for meme or funny listings?

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A friend of mine was a victim of a false Craigslist listing inviting people to come by his home and take "free" items from his property. The listing was removed before he got home from work and realized what happened. It would have been useful to have an archived copy of the listing.

The value of being able to see the deleted posts is so you can recognize the posters or their telltale phrases in future:

a) Too-good-to-be-true accommodation listings on CL/FB listing artificially low weekly/month-to-month rates on nice-looking properties, in order to "acquire" unwitting customers for marketing RE or 12+ month leases to. RedFin and/or their affiliates seemed to be doing a huge amount of this throughout 2022.

b) Deposit scammers on CL, FB advertising properties for which they are not the landlord; meet in person to pretend to take application and deposit. (Someone I know was scammed $1400. Obviously be skeptical, check owner, never give cash to strangers - but this still happens).

c) Another telltale is when the identity of the "apply to" URL is disguised using shorteners (or rendered as image).

d) Nuisance landlord(/roommate) scammers on CL/FB who repeatedly post a similar generic ad under different names/ addresses/ userids; then don't know which property in which country you're responding to, won't reply by phone, are in a different timezone/country, and insist you fill in their third-party application form incl. your contacts and SSN.

Yep! Sorry to hear that but it certainly stands as a use case for this.

I really hate these scammers.

I've moved quite a few times and when it gets to be a week out and I still have so much stuff and no time, I've often tried to give it away, but people are so suspicious that they could get a free couch or desk that we have to go through 10 messages for them to trust me. I can't be bothered to exchange that many messages with 20 people just to give something away.

I want an apartment equivalent of a garage sale for good stuff, not junk

just put in on the street with a sign. At least in my area this are gone quickly if they are still good quality

Write "estate sale".

Oh dang I never even thought of that. That seems like a solid use case. Sorry to your friend!

I've personally wanted to reference an ad after purchasing something or in other situations and it's gone. Again, think of physically clipping a newspaper ad. Pretty much just like http://wayback.archive.org/but on a more granular/niche scale.

I can relate to that. I live in a different country but we have a similar site site here.

Reasons I personally like to revisit old ads sometimes:

- Seeing prices that people asked for an item at different times, and the full text of the ad and pictures so I can compare extras included and condition of item

- Something I bought and I don’t remember how much I originally paid for it

- Things that I did not buy, but I want to remember for the future and perhaps buy similar item from someone else in the future

- As a substitute for buying the thing. Instead of buying an item now I can keep a copy of the ad and over time I can think about whether I really need that thing, or if it is not as necessary as I impulsively had imagined

- etc

Exactly these reasons as well! I've had them all too.

Makes sense! Thank you for the explanation!

A decade ago I rented an apartment that was advertised on Craigslist as having laundry machines, that we only learned would cost extra after signing the lease.

The broker who rented it to us swore the ad didn’t specify it was included. Thankfully I’d taken a screenshot, and caught the broker in a lie directly in front of her boss. They paid us cash right there to make up for it!

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