Archive for the 'Craigslist' Category

Toronto Prostitution Sites

Published on September 30, 2011 in Canada, Craigslist, Methods, Private Investigator and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

As an Investigator, I often have to search for references to a certain telephone number.  A few years ago, these searches started to involve looking for a possible prostitution involvement.  This is a search for which I frequently get requests.

Doing this isn’t rocket science, so here is my current list of sites.  Of course, I have devised a way of automating the search process and I’m not going to tell you how I do that.  Just remember, you must document your search method and the results properly if this is could end-up as evidence.

Censorship: You be the Judge

Google Ad-sense sent an automated notice that their machines were going to stop serving ads because I listed the sites that we often search for telephone numbers as explained above.  Of course machines can’t read, but they can find links. Now Google is censoring content because they don’t like to place ads on anything that has links to sites that they don’t like, in this case so-called ‘adult content’.  I can understand not wanting to be involved in promoting pornography or the sex trade, but this is only a machine telling me what to write and there is nobody to talk to and no living person at Google ever read this article.

Taking the Offensive Against Craigslist Scammers from Online Doctorate Programs

Published on September 21, 2011 in Craigslist and Fraud. 0 Comments

It used to be that when looking through the local classifieds, we would need a magnifying glass to read the fine print of all of the offers, job postings, and personals. Now with the widespread use of Craigslist and the diminishing relevance of print media; everyone seems to be turning to Craigslist for their online classified needs. When I say that everyone is turning to Craigslist, I don’t just mean the innocent and affable local traders looking to promote small business; I mean international scammers and con-artists who prey on the gullible and ever-trusting.

Remember all of the reports on the news about Nigerian princes with extensive bank accounts. Poor grandmothers and unsuspecting marks across the Internet were duped into wiring money into an account in hopes of striking it rich.

While these types of attacks have decreased over the past couple of years, there are still people out there trying to fool you into wasting your money. They might not be as obvious as the Nigerian prince example, but the new breed of scammers seem to be incognito graduates of online doctorate programs in influence and manipulation. Continue reading ‘Taking the Offensive Against Craigslist Scammers from Online Doctorate Programs’

New Craigslist Search Engine

Published on September 7, 2011 in Craigslist. 0 Comments Tags: .

Search Tempest searches all of the Craigslist sites within a definable radius of a town or city. With Canadian sites, you can choose all of the Canadian cities for your search. However, you must be careful to select the correct category to search.  The best feature is being able to create an RSS feed for your search.

Search Tempest seems to work well when searching for counterfeit goods, stolen items, and telephone numbers.

Getting a Phone Number from an Email Address

Published on April 22, 2011 in Craigslist, Methods, Search Engines, Search Strategies and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: .

You have an email address, and need the subject’s phone number.  No repository exists that correlates an email address with a phone number.  This requires some investigative work.  First, use the free reverse email look-ups to help in your search.  To find these, use the search term email reverse lookup in your favorite search engine.  Normally, these are of little use, especially with anyone who lives outside the U.S.A..

The following represents my usual process before resorting to confidential resources.

  • Check the email address in Google. Use it as a reverse email search. You may find an associated cell phone number that is still in service.
  • Do reverse email search using Pipl.com this finds content that other web crawlers miss. Go to Pipl, click the “Email” link, enter the email address. The results may display online sites and documents where that email address appears and you may find an associated telephone number at one of those sites.
  • Kgbpeople.com and SocialMention Search in social networks using Kgbpeople. Enter the email address in the “Name:” field at the top of the page, select the country in the pull-down menu and press the “Search” button. Select one of the four tabs at the top of the screen — Social networks, Search engines, Photo and video, or Personal — then review the results for a cell phone number associated with that email address.  Do a similar search using SocialMention.
  • AllofCraigs and Search All Craig’s Search Craigslist ads. It’s a handy place to conduct a reverse email search. Enter the email address in the field and press the Hopefully, you will find some ads that reveal a phone number connected to that email address.

Escorts, Incalls, Outcalls, and Massage Parlours

Published on January 26, 2011 in Canada, Craigslist and Private Investigator. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I have to add the following 3 sites to my list of sites to search for hooker ads in the Toronto area:

Censorship: You be the Judge

Google Ad-sense sent an automated notice that their machines were going to stop serving ads because I listed the sites that we often search for telephone numbers as explained above.  Of course machines can’t read, but they can find links. Now Google is censoring content because they don’t like to place ads on anything that has links to sites that they don’t like, in this case so-called ‘adult content’.  I can understand not wanting to be involved in promoting pornography or the sex trade, but this is only a machine telling me what to write and there is nobody to talk to and no living person at Google ever read this article.

Craigslist Scam Fighting

Published on February 19, 2010 in Craigslist and Fraud. 1 Comment Tags: , .

Top Craigslist scams and how not to be bamboozled

Craigslist does offer very sensible advice on how to recognize and avoid scams. The problem is many victims apparently don’t heed the advice. Don’t want to become one of these poor schmucks. Then pay careful heed.

Exposing scam artists who use Craigslist

I created this blog site to expose the scam artists, crooks, and their tactics that prey on honest hard working people on craigslist. I encourage you to share your stories and experiences with other people so that we may better serve the craigslist community, by making it a safer place.

Searching the Personal Ads

Published on August 14, 2009 in Craigslist, Search Engines and Search Strategies. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

CraigsList Search Engine

AllofCraigs is another CraigsList search engine built on a Custom Google Search.

It also  allows you to query specify all Craigslist and  other ad sites and get results pulled from a custom Google search.

A Twitter stream tool allows you to see tweets that contain the word Craiglist.  However, you also get Tweets that  just mention the word Craigslist not ones with links to ads.

A search for the words toronto incall returns  many, many hits in this fast changing type of ad, while Search All Craig’s returns none. This might be useful for searching Craigslist for telephone numbers. My early searches for telephone numbers seem more successful using this than Craigslist itself.

Craigslist Search Engine

Published on October 20, 2008 in Craigslist, Private Investigator, Search Engines and Search Strategies. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

A new Craigslist search engine using a Google custom search has surfaced. Supposedly, that means no more searches using  site:craigslist.org “search terms”.  Search All Craig’s puts a convenient front end to a cross-city Craig’s search that uses Google on the back end.

I can’t really recommend this thing. If you do a search for the words toronto incall it returns only 2 hits. If you go to the Toronto erotic services section and do a search for  incall you get over 1200 results. The flaw is the rapid change that occurs on Craigslist and how Google updates its index. This isn’t the tool to use if you are looking for a telephone number used in a Craigslist ad. The search  site:craigslist.org “search terms” searches has the same flaw. However, in the case of site:craigslist.org toronto incall, this search string provided more results than Search All Craig’s (9 with this search and 2 with Search All Craig’s).