Back in the mid-2000's I was dating via a paid chatline, and what an adventure that was! But when that started dying out because of online sites, I being thrifty, checked out the Craigslist personals. I met 2 actual ladies, BUT I got a lot of bot messages. They seemed to key off whatever you sent them, but not exactly, several to a few back and forths before I realized... I'm sure they were some kind of scam. This was some type of AI, not a person.

There's another scam using people that is current to Cragslist involving rental properties and I almost got scammed. They advertise a home for rent with real pictures and they have a legit phone number for a Real Estate company. Thank God they only got my e-mail and phone number. I was cautious enough to cover up details of my credit score. They have you go to a website where you get your credit report for a dollar by signing up, then when you try and cancel their website freezes up. I disputed the next months charge and canceled with my CC company sending me a new card with a new number. That company is a side scam, but will not fight anyone that disputes.

The main scam is probably off shore and they clone a legit companies number and make a private server that seems to go with the legit company. When they were persistent in wanting more info, but sketchy on setting up an appointment to view the property I started investigating. The legit real estate company was a canadian firm that has no business in the USA and their website was nothing like the one the scammers had set up. Still to this day I get scam e-mails, and texts/calls from where they must have sold my info on the dark web, luckily they only had a phone and e-mail.