Best IP/computing solution for Craigslist and more?

108 replies
Hello Warriors,

New here and just wondering what seasoned warriors think when it comes to IP solutions for CL and more? I am a bit confused about all the different things.. I have read up about proxies, vpns and really unsure what do with all this information.

I am open to any suggestions and advice regarding IP and more

Thank you!
#craigslist #ip or computing #solution
  • Profile picture of the author JC Web
    The best solution is to follow Craigslist TOS and not do any of the fraudulent things you are contemplating doing.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    There is no magic IP bullet despite what all the CL freelancer "experts" may have you believe (you can easily spot them by their broken English). Many times, they are just as clueless about IP solutions as you are!

    I have been making a luxurious living off CL with my own system.

    Here is some basic groundwork regarding understanding IPs. I have worked in infosec for over 10 years, so this applies not JUST to CL but to all sites generally.

    Proxies: these are usually proxies you connect via HTTP and enter a username and password to authenticate. Of course, there are IP-based authentication systems and other types of proxies (like SOCKS5), but these are the most basic (what you see on forums). They are created by configuring boxes around the world with tools like Squid. Technically, any person could buy a VPS and start hosting proxies on it. In fact, this is what a lot of people on this very forum do!

    Reason I do NOT recommend proxies as an IP solution is that they only work at the application layer and are quite detectable. When you use a proxy on Firefox, for example, not ALL addons/plugins have to obey that rule. So it's not foolproof.

    They are also detectable. You can look up the ISP hosting the proxy and easily see that they are commercial. IPS are not created equally

    VPNs: these are better in protecting privacy because they enable crowding (multiple people, 1 IP address) and work more low-level. If you turn on your VPN and firewall everything but your VPN*, you are fairly protected against leaks.

    *and route your DNS requests through to your VPN or a neutral 3rd party provider (read: NOT your ISP DNS server)


    Hopefully, that's enough to get you started.
    If you want to talk Craigslist or have any questions, shoot me a privat emessage.
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  • Profile picture of the author vandahumble
    I don't feel like you answered my question. I appreciate the answer but if you don't recommend proxies, are you saying you recommend VPNs? Or something else entirely?

    You've been making a living off Craigslist, could you share more? thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
      Originally Posted by vandahumble View Post

      I don't feel like you answered my question. I appreciate the answer but if you don't recommend proxies, are you saying you recommend VPNs? Or something else entirely?

      You've been making a living off Craigslist, could you share more? thanks
      1. I would not recommend VPNs. While they introduce crowding, it, again, is quite easy for someone to pick up that you are on a VPN and block it. Craigslist is known to block wide ranges of IPs. For instance, they block all Amazon EC 2 ranges.

      2. Yes, I have been making a generous living off Craiglist. I really started from nothing and was incredibly desperate with making money online. It all began with experimenting with IP solutions, then experimenting with my content.

      Craigslist is fantastic for getting leads but you also have to play by their system. A lot of people underestimate the effort it takes to do that.

      I made a post on here about how I did it but it got deleted real fast. Message me if you're looking for some advice from real experience.
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      • Profile picture of the author eashanul
        @Stfenhuse I can't send you message. Can you message me about craigslist. Right now I frustrated about craigslist totally.
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  • Profile picture of the author linda051
    stfenhuse, been reading your trail of posts. Good stuff.... you are definitely been in the industry for a while.. it shows

    But I must disagree about IP solutions being super important. I have been able to post from the same IP with multiple accounts lately. I don't think you should be misleading people into thinking that IP is the ONE and ONLY
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    I never said that IPs were the one and only. I am just saying that it is a big factor.

    Check Bayesian probabilities... essentially what we are talking about is the algorithm evaluating the probability that the IP is spamming. There is a dynamic weighted probability there that you should consider!
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  • Profile picture of the author mrkhan21
    Have been working at it and the OP is correct. Proxies just don't work with CL unless you get good ones...
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  • Profile picture of the author Rajbir1994
    I've been using fresh proxies from different IP sources but am struggling to scale. Any advice?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    If ads are getting flagged as soon as you start to scale, in my experience, that usually points to the fact that your IPs are not clean, and you're leaving a campaign footprint across your ads.

    If your ads are getting flagged as soon as you post with accounts in good standing, that usually points to a content problem.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rajbir1994
    How can I tell whether the IPs are clean or not?

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Unless you have access to the history of ARIN database and other IP blacklist sources, you usually can't

    You can't tell where an IP has been... they get passed around as they're allotted to different owners/providers.

    Hope that helps
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  • Profile picture of the author mrkhan21
    @stfenhuse,

    Thanks for your valuable contributions to the Craigslist knowledge here.

    So far, you've been telling us what you don't recommend, but can you tell us what you *do* recommend, then?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    It's a bit of a cat and mouse game, but what I've found to be most reliable are residential IPs.

    Remember that I mentioned before that IPs are not created equally.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrkhan21
    How about VPNs... I know you don't recommend them but I've had some luck trying to post with them.
    I am currently experimenting with VPNs. Can you give me some advice on how to scale beyond 50-75 ads/day? That's where my roadblock is.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    VPNs will never work in the long-term as CL is fairly advanced in detecting them.
    As I said before, VPN IPs are usually leased from a corporate provider, which means it can be blacklisted immediately.
    Consider the fact that Craigslist postings are usually blocked via the entire EC2 range.

    How do you think they treat other VPN IP ranges ?
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  • Profile picture of the author Rajbir1994
    Stfenhuse, thanks for your helpful advice. The proxies that I have are "virgin" and so that should mean they are clean, right?
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  • Profile picture of the author intellg
    Rajbir,

    I'm using a Craigslist posting service with pretty good support, and I've asked them the same questions regarding IPs.
    They also say that proxies perform poorly because they have been "blacklisted" by CL.
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  • Profile picture of the author minishuu
    Stfenhuse, is there a way to keep track of which IPs are clean and which ones are not good? Thank you for helping me out with Craigslist posting on Skype. You're definitely one of the most knowledgeable people about Craigslist posting.
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  • Profile picture of the author TaxMaster
    You'll get banned real quick doing this and it is not a very good idea, it is strictly against their TOS and probably not a great thing to be discussing around this forum as well .
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  • Profile picture of the author mrkhan21
    Do IPs generally need to match geolocation of the area that you're posting to?
    I've had good luck using proxies that are geolocated correctly.
    Of course, I'm not sure if they have been used before or not.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    IP addresses *should* match the geolocation that you are posting to, or at least nearby. This obviously varies with how competitive the area is.

    I've included some real-world examples of IP address success. This is all *given* that your IP address is clean and hasn't been abused before.

    - A Los Angeles IP address will probably be able to post to Santa Barbara, for example as it's nearby and not that competitive.
    - A Maine IP will have a harder time posting to a popular CA city like San Francisco, but can still post to a smaller CA city like Berkeley
    - Residential IP will have an easier time to post than a proxy IP
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  • Profile picture of the author mrkhan21
    That's very helpful! I'm interested in hearing your take on phone verification processes... how does Craigslist filter out different phone numbers and which ones work?
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  • Profile picture of the author thi angdiar
    I've been working on swapping out VoIP numbers for craigslist.. it doesn't always work.

    Stfenhuse, what do you think?
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    I've had issues with VoIP numbers on Craigslist... but I'm not sure how else to do the phone veirfication. I am stuck. Help? How do I post on Craigslist?
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  • Profile picture of the author intellg
    Recently, Craigslist changed their phone number verification system to block out many VoIP numbers... they won't work if you try them.
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  • Profile picture of the author thi angdiar
    I've had some success with some VoIP numbers, but not all... for instance, Google Voice won't work. Why not?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Craigslist has a database (or they use a 3rd party system they outsource to) that tracks the "identity" of a phone number. For instance, you can easily search up "What type of phone number" a number is... it will tell you if it's landline, VoIP or something else.

    It's most likely that they then blacklist all the VoIP numbers from phone verification.
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  • Profile picture of the author Edmontontech
    Very interesting thread here....

    I've had success having Craigslist phone verify my numbers... but then after a period of time, it "resets" and then I need to enter my email and confirm again. It's a real pain when I'm manually posting... any idea on how to bypass that?
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    From what I've seen, the "resets" are temporary and they happen only every once in a while. I don't post that often though, just my experience.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Yes and no.

    Craigslist asks you to reset every once in a while. This involves reconfirming your email... this usually happens when there has been an IP change... for instance, if you try to log in with your account from India, for example. This combats freelancers who buy accounts and then try to post with them. Low hanging fruit.
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  • What are the best ways to acquire phone numbers for phone verification? VoIP numbers don't work, as mentioned before. Any other ideas?
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  • Profile picture of the author justincamp
    I've had success finding smaller known websites that offer VoIP but that Craigslist somehow doesn't classify as VoIP
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  • Profile picture of the author mrkhan21
    I've also had the same experience... the trick is that you have to find CLECS that don't have enough numbers that they are classified by Craigslist. You need to know where to look!
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    All the above is correct, in my experience. Craigslist tends to look at NPM-NPX for VoIP classification. And it doesn't seem to classify transfers as the new result, either. So there's one way you can get phon verifications fairly easily.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    Stfenhuse, can you talk more about what you mean by transfers within the context of phone number verification? How do I get VoIP to work?
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  • Profile picture of the author roy mag nuson
    I've been trying Callfire and Google Voice among some other VoIP providers, but none of them work. Anybody have any other suggestions?
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    • Profile picture of the author craigsposterpro
      Originally Posted by roy mag nuson View Post

      I've been trying Callfire and Google Voice among some other VoIP providers, but none of them work. Anybody have any other suggestions?
      CallFire is definitely a higher profile provider and on Craigslist's radar and blacklist
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    Just friendly advice here... any working phone verification solution won't be disclosed so easily to the public. It would get patched really quickly.
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  • Profile picture of the author yellowmedia
    There is a small trick to reuse the same number over and over with phone verification. You need to make sure that it is unassociated with other accounts and you can reuse them every 30 days. So just have 30 phone numbers lined up and you're good to go.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    If you're interested in learning more about phone verification processes, I would recommend learning about various CLECs and NPM-NPX codification. The trick is to find smaller CLECs that are not classified as VoIP. Twilio also has a phone type checker, though nobody really knows what service Craigslist uses for their phone verification.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrkhan21
    Stfenhuse, you're going to have to slow down or else there won't be any more knowledge for us insider posters to have.
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  • Profile picture of the author opensourcenetork
    [DELETED]
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  • Profile picture of the author Rajbir1994
    Prepaid phones used to work but not anymore. Of course it depends on which carrier/services you go with.
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  • Profile picture of the author cd banzkz
    Stfenhuse, is Craigslist able to tell which DNS you are connecting to in order to filter your IP solution? This is what I've heard from a few reputable sources.
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  • Profile picture of the author karenjohnson
    If you frequently use Craigslist then you are probably aware that IP is a big issue when it comes to posting ads on Craigslist. Craigslist tracks and logs all IP activity. This is done by Craigslist for a variety of reasons, the main one being to stop spammers and others who want to abuse and overpost their ads on Craigslist. This includes people from within the United States and those who live outside of the United States. The downside to this is that sometimes this also affect people who post on Craigslist but are not spammers. If you happen to be using the same IP range as a spammer is, then you will find that you are also blocked from posting on Craigslist. Luckily, there are a few ways that you can get change and get different IPs so you can keep posting ads on Craigslist.
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  • It would simply be impossible for Craigslist to "filter by DNS" as you said. That would require access at the network level.

    Craigslist only has access at the browser level. So you're able to look up a lot of "browser-specific" fingerprinting that they do.

    For our clients, we diversify the footprint across the browser level and network level, so everything is covered. Content is still a tricky part and perhaps something that us internet marketers should focus on more.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    Wait, so the solutions like Hide My Ass and other private proxies just don't work? This is certainly interesting information for a lot of us new to Craigslist posting.

    Can you say more on the browser-level fingeprinting? I've never heard of this. As far as I know, Craigslist just checks the IP.
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    • Profile picture of the author Hatuko
      As for VPNs, it is very easy to detect IP addresses in use by public ones like HideMyAss, ExpressVPN, etc. It's much easier to use IaaS providers such as Amazon AWS, DigitalOcean, Linode, and so on.

      Most of these services offer APIs and even though perhaps Amazon (being the biggest) could be easy to detect as someone said, I doubt that the smaller providers are all taken into account.... Writing a script that, by using these APIs, provisions a virtual machine in the target country and sets up a VPN (easiest to use is PPTP, or alternatives are L2TP over IPSec, OpenVPN, etc) is very, very easy. Plus these "cloud" providers usually charge by the hour so for a virtual machine you spend just for the time you use it and deleting the virtual machines is also very easy and can be automated with API.

      Not long ago I had to do something similar for some other reason. I wrote a script that would automate provisioning a VM, setting up the VPN, use the IP address to do its thing and then destroy the virtual machine and create another one.

      Originally Posted by Stfenhuse View Post

      Craigslist has a database (or they use a 3rd party system they outsource to) that tracks the "identity" of a phone number. For instance, you can easily search up "What type of phone number" a number is... it will tell you if it's landline, VoIP or something else.

      It's most likely that they then blacklist all the VoIP numbers from phone verification.
      They likely use a service like Twilio to get information about phone numbers and if they are VOIP - https://www.twilio.com/lookup
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  • Yes, most websites are able to glean basic information about your machine just from a few Javascript commands + other stuff.

    For instance, consider the User Agent string. It already reveals your Operating System and possible version of browser. That's basic, though.
    Craigslist is also able to pull information on your timezone, what kind of monitor you are using among other things.

    Like I said, when I was starting out with my clients, we worked on diversifying a lot of the software. Until we realized that we needed to diversify the hardware too.

    That's what a lot of the other Craigslist posters don't get.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    While what Hatuko is generally correct, it's difficult nowadays to find clean IP ranges that aren't automatically classified as "commercial" via databases that ARIN provides.
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  • While VPNs may work for some, they won't work for a majority of users. Especially if you are trying to scale the accounts yourself.

    Why? VPNs provide crowding by routing the traffic through one (or multiple servers). So if you have 20 accounts all sharing the same IP, it doesn't matter if the "IP range" is clean, that's a clear campaign footprint you have.

    I always advise my clients to just use our built-in IP solution, instead of trying to roll their own.
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  • Profile picture of the author debite ful
    I tried using the Twilio API to do phone number reverse search (by type) and it seems to work well. Would it be possible to leverage this to figure out what Craigslist is doing behind the scenes with respect to phone verification?
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  • The Twilio API phone number search isn't comprehensive enough to be a commercial tool, in my opinion. Go ahead and check for a few landlines and it doesn't seem to report them as landline and instead reports them as VoIP.

    This would definitely be on Craigslist's radar.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rajbir1994
    I have been working on some different IP solutions.
    To me, the best ones that work are

    - residential IP
    - small providers of VPS, big providers don't work
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    Do you have any advice on how to find "relatively unknown" VPS? And what do you do once you acquire them?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    The best way I would suggest of finding good "unknown" VPS is to check out the various VPS forums for new offers (like lowendbox etc.), then do a reverse IP search to see what their ISP is.

    You can usually tell what kind of ISP they are using this way, and whether it is a "good" one.

    Best of luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author debite ful
    The interesting thing about proxies is that you can't really tell which ones have been used before in what context or not.

    Stfenhuse, would you recommend using proxies from sources that show up high on Google? If they rank well, they are probably of high quality, no?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    That's probably not the best idea.... proxies that rank well on Google generally have enough inventory and marketing funds to focus on SEO / Adwords. In that case, they are probably relatively well-known, which is what we are talking about -- you want to find proxy providers or VPS providers that aren't well known.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    Hey stfenhuse,

    I wanted to follow-up on my question earlier regarding how to get phone numbers easily that pass the phone verification test. You briefly mentioned finding smaller CLECs, but can you elaborate?
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  • Profile picture of the author intellg
    Prepaid numbers are still working, contrary to what the others have said. You just have to find the smaller providers that aren't classified as VoIP yet.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Yes, I can elaborate.

    Essentially, phone numbers are classified into 2 different categories, as far as I know. These categories are:

    1 - Landline. These are usually the "highest quality" numbers, meaning that the numbers are fixed and cannot be transferred. These will pass the verification.
    2 - VoIP. These numbesr can be moved around and obviously programmatically operated, so they will be blocked

    The trick is to find #2 numbers that are classified as #1 numbers by the 3rd party database that Craigslist uses.
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  • Profile picture of the author cd banzkz
    I have been using prepaid numbers for a while to some success. I would say about 40-60 percent of them do work.
    However the rest are blocked. Any advice on how this relates?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    If you have prepaid numbers working, then they fall under the #1 category, and not the #2 category
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    Interesting, but how are they filtering down on which category the phone number is? That must be difficult as I can't even find information on it.
    From a simple search engine search at least.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Usually, the classification of numbers are quite commercial, so it's hard to find comprehensive ones. as I said before, for example, Twilio has a phone number type identifier, but it's not comprehensive.
    You can see, just by the API they provide, that it's possible to do so and you can bet they DO filter

    As for HOW they know, they probably check the DID number to see who owns the NPA NXX X number block.
    And if it's owned by, for example, Level 3, then you know it is a VoIP! Ta-da!
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    I have a lot of research that I need to do to crack this problem I tried getting a few prepaid numbers from my local store, but they all didn't work. Any advice on finding #1 numbers that are assigned as #2?
    Is it a simple mistake on the classification provider part?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Yes and no. Once again, the answer is a bit more nuanced than that.

    When someone does classification, they are either usin ga heuristic to QUICKLY determine the type of number, or they are looking at the history.
    In the latter case, there are lots of margins for error. For instance, you could easily make the mistake of looking at the original NANPA assignment and not take inter-provider ports into account.

    I would recommend researching what the NPA NXX X schema is like and how ports work if you want to know how to phone verify
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  • Profile picture of the author mrkhan21
    I'm currently using a posting service that posts very well. Recommended to me by another member from this forum, actually.

    Any idea what they are using for their IP solution? It seems like almost every ad they post for my niche goes live, and I'd like to cut costs down.
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  • Don't forget that IP solution is only one part of the equation. You also need aged accounts, reputable posting history, etc.
    A good IP will only get you so far, where as a bad IP will get you flagged immediately.

    So while trying to find a good IP is a worthwhile pursuit, it only works if you can reach the economies of scale (1000+ ads/day) required to make it worthwhile.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    I would recommend using standard desktop lines and resetting the MAC address as mentioned in other posts. I post many, many ads a day this way.

    This will get you a new DHCP lease that Craigslist identifies as a unique IP. Now, how you get that assigned to a different account consistently is a different question
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    I've been creating some PVAs, but when I use the technique you mention, it seems that my posts get flagged immediately while I have a different IP. Any ideas?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    I would check to make sure that your campaign fingerprint is different. Things to check:
    - Are you using different IP per account (you mentioned yes)
    - Different browser per account?
    - No correlation between accounts? (different phone numbers, different lead funnels etc.)
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    What do you mean by different phone numbers and different lead funnels?

    I'm using different numbers to phone verify, that is.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    Winnipeg, where are you getting the phone numbers to phone verify? This is the part that I'm struggling with. I think I have the IP solution down, but not really getting the "idea" of phone numbers that stf listed before.
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    All the information I used to get my Craigslist campaign going was on this thread and various other ones. STFENHUSE seems to be the resident Craigslist expert here.
    Check out inter-port providers and VoIP accounts (you need to do a few things before working with them)
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    Many people here have said that prepaid numbers still work but I can't seem to find any. Do you purchase them online or do you purchase them at the store?
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  • Profile picture of the author intellg
    One hint I can give is to avoid the "big superstores" that vend the big prepaid numbers in bulk. You should look for your local mom-and-pop shops that are able to sell lesser unknown prepaid phone numbers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Keep in mind that the phone number verification game is probably the toughest part of Craigslist posting. This is why I advise you to go for a reputable outsourcer. It will save you a lot of difficulty / headache in the end.
    It's a big endeavor to take on, trying to figure out IP solution / phone numbers etc.

    However, I'm always here to advise as I'm a big DIY guy
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeChrest
    Have been following a lot of advice here and here's my feedback on it.

    The inter-port providers and VoIP accounts are a good lead... but it's difficult to find the right ones. You might move from Verizon to VoIP, for instance but a lot of times, Craigslist will still detect.
    The question of how to phone verify is an interesting one, and after trying out these suggestions, I do believe there is a scalable way to proceed.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anek Sartitos
    Mike, I've been working on a phone verification solution for a while. At this point, the best way to phone verify on Craigslist is to find friends and family who are willing to phone-verify for you.
    These Craigslist phone-verified accounts will usually last multiple months so that you're able to just refresh.
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  • Profile picture of the author nomel
    I've been having a lot of good luck using friends/family to phone verify as well. The best part is that due to Craigslist's policy... a phone number can only be linked for 30-60 days, so after that, you're able to register another PVA.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    While definitely an interesting approach, have you done the calculation and maths on that?
    If you want to post 10-25 ads/day, how many PVAs do you need? If your live ratio is a good 50% (say you are in a competitive section), then you'll want to have at least 2X the amount of PVAs to get your live ad rate.
    On top of that, you'll also want 2X THAT because you're only allowed to post once every 48 hrs.
    So 4x PVAs. So for 10-25 ads/day, you'll need 40 numbers / 100 numbers.
    A tough and unscalable solution.
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  • Profile picture of the author debite ful
    Thanks stfenhuse. I went to the local store and picked up some prepaid SIM cards. To my surprise, they worked! I'm now on my way to posting.
    Something I've noted is that you'll need to try various SIM cards in order to find one that works.
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  • Profile picture of the author laraku
    Yes, don't go to Target or Wal-mart. All of the prepaid numbers are "known" so they won't work for Craigslist. You need to find CLECs that just aren't known.
    If you want advice for that, you can simply google -- that's how most of the best Craigslist posters do it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    Stfenhuse, for the Craigslist IP solution, do you think that residential DSL lines work? Meaning, will I get a better live ratio or optimal one if I use that.
    Is Craigslist monitoring what type of connection I have? Can I use something cheaper? They are pricey.
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  • Profile picture of the author yellowmedia
    I have been using proxies and normal VPNs for weeks now with no issue. Not sure what everybody else talking about here. Craigslist proxies work absolutely..
    I am proof that they work
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Proxies and VPNs won't work, as I said before. If they are working for you, then my guesses are:
    - You are using extremely aged accounts so that the reputation of an account is balancing out.
    - You are not posting that many ads / day for the IP to count against you.
    - You are posting in a non-competitive section
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  • Profile picture of the author yellowmedia
    The interesting thing is that I am posting in a competitive section of 10 ads/day. It's not a lot of ads but it's a decent amount that the cost of proxies are able to work for me.
    I would recommend anybody looking for this route to check out IPs and proxies that are dedicated to Craigslist, and not shared.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Residential ISP generally have a higher IP quality reputation than simple proxies or virtual private networks. Craigslist IP address solution-wise, they are a good fit if you're able to accommodate enough IP ranges for your posting needs.
    What i mean by that is ... even if you have a good quality IP, certainly no more than 10 accounts can share the same IP.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeChrest
    I've been messing with the IP solution for so long - there are so many things you need to understand. STFenhuse hit all of them. The most important are:
    - IP quality
    - how many people are using the IP at once. Is it dedicated or not?
    - if it is dedicated, then how many accounts can share the IP.

    these are the most important factors for posting. After all that, I just decided to go with a posting service. And I haven't looked back.
    50-75 ads/day... and still going. Instead of messing with all these details, just find an expert!
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  • Profile picture of the author nomel
    If I am going with proxies or residential DSL to post, what are the pros and cons of both?
    Also, what is the pricing like for each?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    On average, a proxy that is truly dedicated to you will cost about $2-$3 per IP. So do the math... if you want to distribute mlutiple IPs to the same account, then you'll save on costs but increase flag rate.
    Best case, you have 1 unique IP to 1 account... and you have to assume that the IP isn't going to flake on connnectino.
    Even on a financial calculation, it's not worth it. Not to mention, that proxies won't work if you scale

    I've written bout this in my posting history.
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  • Profile picture of the author debite ful
    Just an update to the thread here as I mentioned going out to purchase different SIM cards. It seems like it's harder and harder to find SIM cards that are not already blacklisted by Craigslist.
    Unfortunately, the economics are quite tough because if I'm not sure which "brand" of SIM card works for Craigslist, I end up with many, many SIM cards that are useless.
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  • Profile picture of the author Winnipegtech
    I ran into the same issues with not knowing which SIM cards work and which ones don't. The best advice I can probably give you is to go to mom-and-pop stores to find SIM cards there.
    I tried going to Target/K-mart/Walmart and all of those SIM cards are uniformally banned.
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  • Profile picture of the author cd banzkz
    Let's be real guys. Finding SIM cards obscurely is not a scalable campaign. If I have a good niche and just trying to post 15-20 ads/day. What's the best solution for that?
    I'm not looking to try to go to different stores in search of SIM cards.
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  • Profile picture of the author yellowmedia
    I was using VPNs and proxies for the past few months to post on Craigslist. They were working fine until the most recent update. It seems that craigslist has tightened its filters recently on IP solutions.
    Can anybody comment? Anybody have this experience as well? It really sucks because things were going so well too...
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Our posters and our clients are not aware of any drastic IP solution changes. I would check on the following:

    - Make sure that your IP address is dedicated and hasn't been leased to anybody else. It's easy for a proxy provider to re-sell your IPs to other people and still claim it's dedicated. They just want to increase margins.
    - If you are using a VPN, then the above doesn't really apply because if you are using the same server as others, Craigslist will see the same thing. So how to post on Craigslist? The best way is to avoid proxies/VPNs altogether.
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  • Profile picture of the author nomel
    I have been finding that reseting the router for a different IP address works fine. It's just very time-consuming.

    Stfenhuse, do you have any ideas on how to automate the resetting? I am wondering if there is some kind of router software or firmware that can do it periodically. That way, things can just post smoothly.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    I am not aware of any kind of router resetting software. The fact is that even if you do reset it enough times, that still restricts you to the geographic location of your IP address.

    However, if your campaign is local, that might not matter to you. It wouldn't be too hard to write a headless browser script to automate.
    Point PhantomJS script to your router address and just automate via xpath or some other DOM traversal pattern.
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  • Profile picture of the author ocomok
    Stfenhuse...

    What is the best way to see if a proxy is virgin or dedicated? If I am looking at a few proxy providers, is there a good way to discern which one will perform best?
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    • Profile picture of the author craigsposterpro
      If you want to post 10 ads/day, you need at least 20 accounts because of Craigslist terms of service (48 hours per post)

      Each account will need to be phone verified ($2 per SIM card using the method described on this thread).
      Then on top of that, you need a $1-2 per clean proxy.

      So each PVA comes at the cost of about $5 when you include the email and amortize the server costs.
      And your math doesn't even factor in any flagging that may occur requiring you to replace those PVAs or posting during during periods when Craigslist rolls out an update across he country which manifests an unstable posting environment. The hope is that you get to renew the posts from Day #1 on Day #3, etc and repeat the renewal cycle to better amortize your expenses.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stfenhuse
    Unfortunately, there's no easy way to distinguish which ones are virgin and which ones are dedicated.

    The reason is that too many resellers will tell you something is dedicated to you but not actually. The only way to know if a proxy is virgin is to lease them from the source yourself and then control the proxy software.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    What is a practical example of setting up the proxy server yourself so you can ensure that a line is virgin/dedicated?
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  • Profile picture of the author shoarma
    The best way to do this for Craigslist, in my experience is the following:

    Rent a virtual private server. You can find tons of these websites through a simple google Search.
    Then, you can set up a Squid server, you can find many configuration files online.
    Then, you can apply for an IP lease from various service providers.
    When you have a number of IPs, you can then configure it yourself. Be sure that it is virgin and not leased to anybody else.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anek Sartitos
    I have tried the above route for getting proxies and IP solutions for the purpose of posting on Craigslist.
    Here is why it just doesn't make sense economically.

    If you want to post 10 ads/day, you need at least 20 accounts because of Craigslist terms of service (48 hours per post)

    Each account will need to be phone verified ($2 per SIM card using the method described on this thread).
    Then on top of that, you need a $1-2 per clean proxy.

    So each PVA comes at the cost of about $5 when you include the email and amortize the server costs.

    What will your margin need to be in order to have that be worth your while?

    The best way in my opinion now is to lease PVAs or to use a posting service, like stfenhuse said.
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  • Profile picture of the author yellowmedia
    I cannot concur more with what Anek said. It's all a matter of economics. At the end of the day, if your niche isn't providing enough, you need to either decrease costs or increase margins.

    If I am paying $5 per PVA, you are also taking on the costs of managing the PVA and re-confirming it every time. And also the man-power for phone verifying.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevetickolo
    I see - so these posting services generally tend to have economies of scale when posting.
    I'm trying to post and so many of them are quoting $2 per live ad and it's ridiculous.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anek Sartitos
    It's not too difficult to find some reliable guys to post for less than $1 an ad. You just have to search for them.
    Anybody offering to post for $2 per live ad is probably a scammer looking for short-term Craigslist profits or a middleman and trying to take a cut.
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