I’ve gotten some more responses from CL people. I posted this ad last night before I crashed, in hope that I would get the late night pervs to give me info:
Crazy USF Chick
You’ve all seen the posts, they are random but all end in (go bulls!). Basically some college chick whoring herself out. I’ve wondered what the fuck this person/company is thinking. If you’ve had any responses with it, I would be interested. I’ve been documenting some of the more entertaining posts, let me know your thoughts. broseph.wordpress.com
Responses
DR:
hey, wtf, who cares?
RG:
hey i think its localsexfinder.com or you can just reply to one of there BS post and they have a link in the email
TM:
Dude, that is just some stupid scam. I emailed her wondering the same shit. Just a scam to get you to register for some sex site.
I got an email from craigslist too!
Sunday, July 5, 2009 11:36 PM
From:
“craigslist”
Your posting has been flagged for removal.
Approximately 98% of postings removed are in violation of craigslist posting guidelines. Please make sure you are abiding by all posted site rules, including our terms of use.
My final action
I wrote this letter to the craigslist people after I got flagged, and pretty much lost interest after reading their automated response:
Sir or madam:
A sophisticated spamming operation has cropped up in the tampa CL personals section. An off site webpage has been posting personal adds, all ending in (go bulls!). Do a search of personals “go bulls” and you’ll find over 500 bunk posts in the month of June.
This is a misuse of CL personals. I am impressed at the content of each ad, and the sophisticated system used to implement it, but their actions violate (my conception of) the CL spirit. Thus, I think steps should be taken to limit/remove these ads.
I have documented many of these ads on a separate webpage and I am happy to share the evidence I have gathered. Thanks.
Conclusions
I think we all can deduce that these “go bulls” posts are bait for some freaky sex/hookup website. Mystery solved. But other questions remain:
a) The posts are pretty well written. I argue humans wrote them, and then “go bulls” was added along with a major. Does the website employ people to write these personal ads? Are they genuine ads but headhunted for and taken? Are they disingenuous posts but the authors compensated?
b) All the posts use the majors: music, history, philosophy, art and theater. WTF? Why not use all majors. Personally I find hooking up with a physics major pretty enticing, especially if she’s a freak. Also, language majors such as french, English, Chinese, ect are just as notorious for sleeping with people. Usually education and psychology majors are whores, generally speaking. The point is, there are few majors not associated w/doing it (math? Engineering?) Why only use those four majors!!!? I find the major thing hilarious as I have degrees in history and philosophy from USF.
c) This all leads up to the biggest question: why say “go bulls” at the end of every post. I suspect that not making yourself known as a spam dating website in these ads is the intention. The use of 500+, unique, decently composed personal ads as bait makes me think the company behind this is smart enough to be inconspicuous. Yet, for some reason, they put the same basic tag line at the end of each post. WTF?? Anyone who visits that site regularly picks up, as evidenced by my e-mailers.
Possible reasons include inventory. I was able to search for all ads by simply searching “go bulls”. Maybe they want to keep track? Also, if this dating site hopes to attract users, perhaps their target audience are not regular CL people, but n00bs with no idea these are spam ads (I was one of those people). Perhaps the hope is these horny n00bs join the freaky sex/hookup site. Honestly though, this last question confounds me.
This is as far as I’m willing to go to solve this mystery. It was fun while it lasted, but was never going to be anything special. Sort of like a CL personals hookup.
