Breaking Scam News

We have seen a drastic increase in job postings claiming to be offering "work at home" jobs. The actual responsibilities vary, but most of the listings promise flexible hours and a generous income.

While these listings are not "scams" in the sense that your identity or other sensitive information could be at risk, they are not legitimate jobs. If you respond to the person who posted the ad, you will receive an email asking you to pay for a book, brochure or other form of literature. Once you receive this literature, it will simply explain how to do exactly what the job poster was doing - selling the piece of literature online.

If you see one of these listings, please report it to us.

We have just launched a new page in our Safety Center: payment methods.

In these pages you will find detailed information about each method, their pros and cons, and the steps to take to prevent fraud.

Check it out!

We've seen a huge jump in the number of scams caught by our anti-scam technology in the past few weeks. Two weeks ago, the number more than tripled from our average weekly counts. Last week, that new number nearly doubled in size. So far this week, we've continued to see an upward trend in removed scams.

While there is no apparent cause to the increase, the fact of the matter is it's happening all across the web. Here at Oodle, we've seen a handful of users who are very dedicated to marking fraudulent listings as scams. These users have helped improve our the algorithm that our technology relies on to remove scams and keep our users safe. So a big thank you to all the users who have been working to make Oodle a better, safer place. Keep up the great work!

Keep your eyes peeled for a brand new scam targeting apartment seekers. The listings we've seen all have the same story: the current tenant has to move to another country immediately, and wants the apartment seeker to pay them a deposit without seeing the apartment first.

As with all classifieds, it is always best for you to see what you are paying for before you pay. If, however, you are moving to a new area and cannot see an apartment in person before moving, a safe bet is to use a rental agency.

We've been seeing an increasing number of laptop scams across the Internet. These scams, like the motorcycle scams, feature a "brand new" laptop (most frequently Sony, HP or Toshiba), selling at a fraction of their retail price. The reason for their low price? Most often, the sellers is "moving to Africa" very soon and needs to sell his or her belongings quickly.

If you see a listing like this, report it as fraud and let us know. The more information we receive about scammers, the better our technology gets and the quicker we can remove fraudulent listings. It's your help that makes Oodle the safest online classifieds site around.

Recent stories about people getting scammed on Craigslist have helped to bring the issue about classifieds safety to the public eye. With the number of scams increasing exponentially month by month, community moderation of fraudulent listings simply isn't enough to keep users safe anymore. To successfully fight scams, there needs to be a three tiered approach: anti-scam technology, community moderation and education for buyers and sellers about how to stay safe when shopping online.

If most sites only use community moderation, why continue to shop there when you can't shop safely?

We've been seeing quite a few scams recently featuring "tricked out" motorcycles that are selling for a fraction of their blue-book price. These are scam listings.

One of the most basic rules of online classifieds that we like to prescribe is that if a listing seems too good to be true, it probably is. Remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

If you notice a listing like these, you should definitely alert us. One of the most helpful things you can also do is to mark the listing as "fraud" -- you can find the flagging tool in the listing's extended details. Our anti-scam technology changes daily and adapts to new scam trends; with the help of users flagging fraudulent listings, the technology can be more accurate and remove even more scams before they hit our listings.

For quite some time now, we have been compiling a list of known email addresses used by scammers. To keep scammers from changing their emails, this list is not public.

While our list is by no means comprehensive, it is one of many ways that we use user-supplied information to filter and remove scam listings from our database.

If you know of any known scammers or have seen scam listings, please tell us.

There are many words within listings that should raise red flags as to whether a listing is a scam or not. Here is a list of some of those "trigger words." It should be noted that there are some perfectly legitimate listings that have these terms; that, if you do see one of these words, you should always remember to tread carefully -- there is a chance that it is a scam.

• "Western Union," "escrow," or "Moneygram"
• Free (but must pay shipping)
• Any large sum of money being left to you by a foreign prince or king
• A need for a "secure deposit" before seeing the item
• Any African country

Here is the word-for-word text of a pet scam we found and removed today. The bold text indicates trigger words that allow us to easily identify scams.

YORKSHIRE TERRIER MALE FOR FREE Please we are looking for a home for our yorkie male.Our landlord is not approving of pets.Shipping would be involved.Puppy is not registered but is sound and upto date on shots and vaccines (name, phone number and email redacted)
Price: $0

This listing falls into the most common scam category: free item, but the buyer must pay shipping. Often, these scams are accompanied with the text "Our landlord..." or "I am relocating..."