By Diego Oliovares
The popular website Craigslist is one of the most dangerous websites currently on the Internet.
Craigslist offers jobs, cars, homes, pets, as well as a dose of danger.
People don’t realize that if they were to answer an ad from Craigslist, they could actually step into something that could cost them their lives.
This is a topic that East Los Angeles College students, as well as other college students, should really be aware of.
Craigslist has been making news recently, and not in a positive way. Recently, crimes have taken place that relate to the website.
LAPD arrested two gang members who lured a father and his child into purchasing a cell phone from them. They shot and killed the father in front of his child.
The father simply answered an ad on Craigslist, not knowing that this would lead to his death.
In a recent CBS Baltimore story, a man answered an ad from Craigslist about purchasing a car. He was found murdered shortly thereafter. His killer was never found.
The most infamous story of a Craigslist scam is that of Philip Markoff, the medical student turned robber and murderer who used the site to lure his victims.
Using Craiglist, Markoff robbed two women and murdered a third, all of who answered a craigslist ads posted by him.
One of the scary factors of Craigslist is the idea that anyone could post any ad for free, and with no background information needed from them.
After looking into the rules of Craigslist, there was a sense of shock when there’s really no serious vigilance placed on these so-called ads.
It’s these kind of actions that causes unsuspecting people to fall victims to their online traps.
In addition, there’s been no responses from Craigslist about the illegal events their site foolishly allows.
As horrific as this info sounds, it should make people wonder about safety from Internet sites like this. This is especially quite dangerous for college-aged students.
During the school term, students commonly search on Craigslist for things such as jobs, transportation, and places to live. It’s understandable that students are in need of jobs.
Even in today’s job market, it becomes hard to find employment, and people don’t want to look too hard; they would rather search on a website that practically hands them a form of employment.
It is this kind of thinking that allows students to easily be taken advantage of. Students who are looking for a job should think twice about using Craigslist and find safer ways of attaining employment.
Turning to job agencies and actual job hunting is safer than answering online ads from Craigslist.
People, including college students, need to be more aware of the dangers that websites like Craigslist can lead to.
The website managers who are responsible for Craigslist should put more concern into the safety of their users. The safety of users should always be the main focus of web sites.