HomeSearchMerchandiseAboutMichael HorowitzMy CNET Blog

Craigs List Gripes Craigslist offers free ads

Drive-By Dialing

June 16, 2005. I was a victim tonight of a drive-by telephone dialing attack thanks to an ad on Craigslist. Starting around 10 PM and continuing past midnight I was getting a lot of phone calls at home from guys asking for Helena and asking the rates. Finally one of them said he saw my ad in craigslist. I placed no ad. 

I searched the New York City Craigslist site looking for my phone number to no avail. Craig does not have a global search by city, you have to search within each of the many sub-categories for a city, one at a time. When I realized this, I headed straight for the erotic section and sure enough, my phone number was in this ad: 

I am all American, I am very sweet and a great provider if your feeling a little loney and want someone to cater to your needs, I really like to kiss and make out, I am the best provider for you because I never rush you, I will treat you like my boyfriend. My stats are 5'6 34c 23 34 toned well, call so I can come by. OUTCALLS ONLY 212-999-9999

Where 999-9999 was my phone number. The ad included naked pictures of a woman claiming to be Helena. 

It wasn't supposed to be my phone number. The person placing the ad made a typo and reversed two numbers. 

It took some poking around, but I eventually ran into an abuse web page at Craigs List which included instructions for dealing with "urgent telephone harassment" which said: 

If someone has put your phone number or street address in a post on Craigslist and you are receiving unwanted calls or visitors, please email the details to us at abuse@craigslist.org.
* Please put 911 somewhere in the subject line of your email.
* Include the URL or post ID number, if you have it.
* If you have not seen the post, or if you are not familiar with Craigslist, please give us as much information as you can. For instance, tell us which Craigslist city and category it's probably posted in, any keywords that might appear in the post . . . 

I followed the instructions and emailed Craigslist and they removed the ad shortly thereafter. They even responded to my email message. 

This was not the first time I had been awaken in the middle of the night by a guy asking for girl (as in "Is Helena there?"), it was just the first time that one of the callers mentioned Craigslist. More than once I have been awaken in the middle of the night by what I thought at the time was a wrong number. Three wrong numbers in the middle of the night seemed strange but who knew why? A few times I unplugged my phone at night. 

A Google search on parts of my phone number turned up hits on three web pages:

   www.escorttown.com/escorts/new_york/female-9.html 
   www.sexyescortads.com/escorts/female/new_york-9.html
   www.escortpictures.com/females-55-9.html

Some guys have all the luck.