Craigslist is one of the biggest online communities hosting free classified advertisements that feature different sections about jobs, services, sales, forums, discussions, among others. It has become a popular hotspot for people in all walks of life ranging from a budding writer to professional product advertisers. It has become a potential gold mine, especially for product ads and commercials. The site has therefore become a target for spam and all kinds of online scams so account verification was created to counter them.
One may have heard or seen Craigslist verified accounts. Most commonly known as verified accounts or PVA, these are phone verified accounts that posters use in Craigslist. Phone verification was initially, not a requirement for posting ads in Craigslist. With rapidly increasing traffic to the site, junk or spam advertisements became common so the need for PVA was introduced.
The erotic services section was the very first section where this system was tested and started. The main objective was to see how PVA would affect Craigslist in general. After testing Phone Verification on this section, it was expanded to other services sections for further tests. It was found to be effective and was eventually introduced to all of the services sections in the site. Now, posting in Craigslist under the services section requires a valid phone number for real time, accurate verification. This process may be carried over to other sections but to date, only the services section has this requirement.
To successfully set up an account, one must have a valid and working phone number. This may sound easy but can actually be a bit annoying because Craigslist needs a real phone number based in the United States and not Voice over Internet Protocol or VOIP or any other easily disposed phone number. This is to avoid scams by using anonymous phone numbers. Plus, Craigslist only allows posting an ad for 48 hours with proper account verification. Posting ads or commercials beyond this timeframe can make your account be put on hold indefinitely. This actually means that an on hold account has a very slim chance of being re verified.
One of the aims of this strict process in account verification is obviously to minimize and control spam. Any posting under the services section needs good working phone number to fully verify the account. This system has proven to be an effective countermeasure against spam and junk ads proliferation in the site. Bypassing the system is almost impossible unless one chooses to use an IP to register an account.
There are cases that an IP (Internet Protocol) can be used to register or verify an account. It should be Craigslist that should determine if a PVA is needed for one s IP. If an account is after the screening of the IP the poster can start posting ads. However, there are IPs that are filtered and flagged and when this happens, the only thing to do is to get a fresh one to start posting once more. Craigslist normally compiles a list of IPs so hopefully, the new IP that one s computer can get is not on that list.
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