Comments ( 50 )

• agree. the laws are changing and these guys will get shut down.

• Assholes stink worse than maggots. Perhaps your site stinks the worst

• wondering,

  I take it from your phony e-mail address and the level of intelligence displayed in your comment that you’re in the apartment rental service business.

• The domain is registered to:
  Schreiber, Melissa jeffnmisee@comcast.net
  2302 jfdosos
  roseville, MI 48066
  United States
  2301923949 Fax —

  Obviously a fake street street and Google did not turn up 230 as a valid area code. Could not be sketchier.

  Other info:
  Created on: 05-Aug-08
  Expires on: 05-Aug-10
  Last Updated on: 22-Jun-09

• Fred,

  It gets funnier.

  First, they’re too stupid to use one of the anonymous registrars. Second, if you Google the jeffnmisee e-mail address you’ll find they’re into swingers clubs. Third, I don’t think any phone number begins with a 1.

• Slander and false information. Sounds like sour grapes to me. Business must be pretty bad Joe. Maybe you should work a little harder instead of slamming others.

• If it’s slander, sue me. If it’s false, tell us how.

  I’m out in the open here, not hiding behind a false e-mail address like a creepy little foul-mouthed coward.

• Wow! Sounds like Anger! Kind of like your article. You really need to keep that in check.

• Nice work Joe!

• I like that wondering’s last response didn’t address Joe’s challenge.

• When craigslist starts to charge money per post in Chicago, like they do in NYC, this practice will stop.

• I agree with Brad. Craigslist is an great tool to find an apartment in Chicago (I have used it to rent a place and rent my place). Even if they charged a nominal amount, there would be less riff-raff poluting the website.

  If Rentfortommmy.com was charged $10 per ad, would they really have that many?

• brad, Papu,

  Craigslist has become, due to the efforts of the maggots, almost totally dysfunctional as a way to find an aprtment in Chicago.

  Nearly 2,800 apartments ads were posted yesterday on Craigslist. 650 of those (round numbers) came from Homescout and another 450 (round numbers) from the scammers in this post. The great majority of the rest also came from a small number of rental “services.”

  As long as I’ve been around this industry the maggots have systematically set out to destroy the utility of any site or publication that draws an audience of rental prospects. They’ve succeeded, in my take, at destroying Craigslist.

  Craig doesn’t consider that a problem. Saint Craig is, in my view, really the prince of darkness who revels in a community of fraudsters and encourages them. The net result is that, ever so reluctantly, Craig is “forced” to charge to clean up the mess he created. It’s a great shtick that too many media folk have stupidly bought into and foisted on the public.

  I’ve reported these guys to abuse@craigslist.org. Want to bet that Craig does absolutely nothing to protect his so-called community from unlicensed scammers?

• Papu,

  Self-governing communities almost always devolve into the “tragedy of the commons.” Craig Newmark is aware of this phenomenon and exploits it to the fullest to his ultimate economic gain.

  Reporting abuse in this type of “community” simply makes it morph into another form that feeds Craig’s (ultimately) sociopathic rescue / good-guy fantasies.

  I’m not denying the good that Craigslist and eBay have done by enabling many people to start small businesses. And I agree with you that charging for certain categories is the proper way to go.

  There are, however, short of charging, far more effective ways to prevent abuse if Craigslist and its 25% owner eBay wanted to adopt them.

  The simple fact, as I view Craigslist, is that encouraging vast amounts of abusive behavior is part of the business model that leads to the economic success of these sites. Their cynical owners are acutely aware of this and expect most people to chug the Kool-Aid they proffer as an excuse for allowing the predators free rein for far too long. The site operators are sophisticated people who know better and owe better.

• Joe,

  I have to disagree with your perspective on Craigslist.

  Craigslist is a self governing website that excepts its users to notify the company of bad content. You did the right thing by reporting the abuse by rentfortommy.com. If they have an account it will be terminated. If they want to get another, they just need another email address. That’s why I advocate charging money, because you can’t keep creating Paypal accounts.

  You cannot blame eBay for the Nazi garbage being sold on their website either, they allow people to report violations and they do their best to remove it quickly.

  Craigslist has helped many people launch their business including: maids, handymen, painters, musicians, and yes realtors.

  Not every Realtor or Apartment Broker is scum. Websites like yours, Cribchatter, and Yelp help making sure everyone has the opportunity to be informed of who to look out for.

  I love internet and Craigslist for making my life easier and better. I even like this website for helping me learn more about Chicago Real Estate market.

• Joe Z, you had me for a minute here, but you kind of lost me.

  “There are, however, short of charging, far more effective ways to prevent abuse if Craigslist and its 25% owner eBay wanted to adopt them.”

  What are they? I’ve seen charging work in other cities. If there are other effective controls for abusive behavior, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on them.

  Back on topic, thanks for pointing out this Tom Tully guy. I’ll make sure my friends scouring Craigslist stay away. I’m always disappointed by the posters who put all sorts of zip code and related key words in their searches. It really mucks it up for everyone.

• > Craig Newmark is aware of this phenomenon and exploits it to the fullest to his ultimate economic gain.

  Come on now. Like not having ads all over the site? (cough*yochicago*cough). If Craig wanted to exploit his site for his own gain, he would charge $1 to post a listing. Or $10 like he does in NYC. He does not charge anything in Chicago, yet he is somehow exploiting the tragedy of the commons for his own benefit? Does he enjoy lots of web traffic without a revenue stream?

• Tom Tully? Isn’t he an alderman? Or is he related to Tully Bascomb of Grand Fenwick?

• How recent a phenomenon is this carpet bombing of the craigslist rental site by a few realty companies? I only ask because my fiance and I both own condos (south loop and west loop) and last year when we advertised on craigslist (in late summer) for rentals this didn’t seem to be a huge problem. Now, it seems like there a few companies out there that post the same ads for the same apartments over and over and over. Very frustrating.

• SheridanB,

  You’re thinking of Tom Tunney, the 44th Ward alderman.

  The more famous Tom Tully (no relation to this one, per this one, because I asked) was Cook County Assessor from 1974 to 1978.

  Brad,

  Craigslist’s revenues have been estimated at in excess of $100M a year, which gives him plenty of resources to police the site if he wanted to, and is all the proof anyone needs that his current strategy is working very well.

  Charging $1 to post any listing would quickly dry up the number of postings in many areas of the site. Free listings, if done well – as Craigslist has – creates a marketplace that can be monetized one segment at a time. It’s the same strategy followed by a number of alternative newsweeklies in the late 60s. The old-timers out there can remember when classified ads in the Reader were free.

  Joe,

  The offenders here either have licenses or are legally required to have licenses. If they evade safeguards that a site puts in place (IP filtering, credit-card based registration, automated callback schemes associated with listed numbers, etc.) they become easy bait for law enforcement, assuming that a site is both able and willing to devote resources to pursuing enforcement.

  Try registering a business on Google Maps or Yelp and you can see how simple it is to validate a poster’s identity. Try getting a validated identity at Google Knol as another alternative.

  Craig simply has no interest in protecting the consumers on his site. I’ve lunched with Craig in San Francisco and jousted with him on another one of my blogs and he’s simply unwilling to confront any of the moral or ethical issues that are raised by his behavior. Make no mistake about it: it’s all about the money behind a polished mask of “community” that too many have bought into without any reflection.

  Todd,

  I hadn’t paid attention to Craigslist for at least a year. This phenomenon appears to be significantly worse since the last time I looked.

• Some updated info.

  Craigslist, as expected, has not followed up on my abuse report – other than in the form of an auto-responder message after its filing.

  The company is now posting under the name of “High End Rentals Inc.” This corporation was registered with the Secretary of State on 8/4/09. It does not have the brokerage license required by law.

  The registered agent for the corporation is one “Hymer Mohammed” of Morton Grove. Campaign contribution records describe Hymer Mohammed of Morton Grove as a “self-employed physician.” The state databases do not reflect that Hymer Mohammed is, or has ever been licensed as a physician in Illinois.

  If you click on the image for High End Rentals in a Craigslist ad you’re taken to RentFromTommy.com.

• Joe this is a very interesting story, are you going to report this group to the City of Chicago or whomever oversee the Leasing Licenses?

  A follow-up story would be great and may get picked up by a larger publication.

• Papu,

  The state would have jurisdiction over licensing and enforcement against unlicensed agents. Previous attempts, involving other companies, to get follow-up have been unavailing. State law enforcement involving real estate is virtually non-existent. Some of that, I’m told by a former Commissioner of Real estate, is due to a very thin enforcemnet staff an to that staff’s being ill-versed in anything involving the Internet.

  There are serious public safety issues involved in dealing with unlicensed operations: think having trusting young (or elderly) people getting into a car and going to a vacant apartment with just anyone. And, of course, there are the financial risks of writing a sizable deposit check to a no-name business.

  You’re on the right track by suggesting I ally with a larger publication on this story. Our local publications have had their investigative reporting staffs gutted over the years, or unwilling to take on stories involving industriies like real estate. I’ll be out of town next week, but will make some contacts with the dailies when I return. This is exactly the kind of consumer protection issue that they ought to be putting resources into, and recent stories like the U of I scandal demonstrate their power to command public attention and bring about change.

• Joe,

  Just want to say I commend you on your efforts regarding this issue.

• I don’t know what your beef is against RentFromTommy, but its not a scam! I rented an apartment from him several months ago and had a great experience. He was hands-on in helping me and my roommate find a great place. In fact, we had such a great experience we recommended his service to several friends who also leased through his service.

  Sounds to me like you are a pissed off former employee who is out of a job with too much time on your hands! Why else would you go to the extent of investigating his broker license? He is doing business in a tough economy – what the hell are you doing trying to cause problems?

  Get a life. Get a job!

• Kerri,

  You should provide your testimonial to law enforcement authorities so they can lock the turkey up for doing business without a license.

  Next, since you’re having dificulty understanding who I am, find yourself a remedial reading program.

• Joe,

  My testimonial for law enforcement will actually support the legitimacy of working with RentFromTommy. I confirmed that he in fact had a sponsored brokers license (sponsor was Continuum Realty) when we worked with him last December 2008. You should check your facts before making slanderous defamatory statements – not to mention use a dictionary for difficult words such as your misspelling of “difficulty”. Anyone who reads your blog will know just what kind of a person you are.

  As far as your statements calling Homescout “maggots” it sounds like you are just trying to bring down hard working businesses. Find a hobby!

• Kerri,

  I do my homework, and I do it carefully. According to the state database Tom Tully has never held a leasing agent, salesperson or broker’s license.

  So – you’re saying that Continuum Realty employed an unlicensed agent. And, you’re saying that December 2008 was “several” months ago.

  I heard the Continuum story directly from Tommy when I spoke with him on the phone – and he gives different dates and evasive BS about whether or not he understood he needed to be licensed and whether or not he’s continued his unlicensed activities.

  Your attempts to spin Tommy out of this just don’t cut it.

  No one should do business with a liar and a law evader.

  One of my hobbies is crushing maggots.

• What kind of swingers clubs are they into?

• Joe, quite the posturing. You are well aware of the number of licensed contractors who defrauded condo buyers with false promises, shoddy construction, selling units without occupancy permits, shorting funds due the HOA, etc. Why no publicity on these thieves? All you do is shill for the developers. Case in point-Warren Barr, Jr., Legacy Development. Used to be in the steel business until he went BK, suddenly became an “award winning” builder. Stuck all those people in Chicago, now appears to be doing the same in Milwaukee. Of course, if you actually tried to help consumers, rather than shill for the developers, how would you ever get a mind-numbing story about “Flair Tower seeks LEED certification?”

• Kramer,

  We’ve ever written or linked to stories on everything you mention. Is tu quoque the best you can do?

• Say, that’s the first time I’ve heard someone toss around the “s”-word in a while..

  For the record, Erik and I have never had any luck reaching a real live person with Flair Tower’s development team, nor have I ever received any information from its marketing folks. I wish this weren’t the case — there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge about these homes, and I too would like to have a well-rounded report on the building before it’s finished. We’ll keep you updated, Kramer.

• “We’ve ever written or linked to stories…” Huh? Do you mean “Never?” How about a little investigation before you tout these “developers?” How about some background intel on Garrett Kelleher, the Spire developer, supposed billionaire? He was a painting contractor on Cortland Street in the early 1990’s. Sound fishy? Or the Russian mob converting all those buildings in Rogers Park? Why? Or following up on which buildings the city inspectors falsified records on, what happened to the builders and what problems the tenants are having? Is merda fuit the best you can do, Cicero?

• Kramer,

  Drop the “ever.” Should have said “We’ve written or linked to stories on everything you’ve mentioned.”

  Can you substantiate any of your wild-eyed charges? I didn’t think so. We’re not in the business of making up poison or irrelevancies – we’ll leave that to you and the other malicious anonymice. Don’t you find it curious that no other reputable media have covered your “stories?”

  Here’s my Ciceronian question for you. Quousque tandem abutere, Kramer, patientia nostra?

• Joe, you are a dolt. Google “Warren Barr,” pull up all the info. you want on his disaster in Milwaukee. Federal bankruptcy court records from the late 1980’s have all the info. you want on Warren Barr Supply, dba Barr Supply. He stiffed me out of a small fortune. Garrett Kelleher himself has mentioned his “humble beginnings” in Chicago as a painter. Story just today on the crooked building inspectors on ABC. Vos es a inflatus assentator Joseph.

• Kramer,

  I can only assume that your take on developers is as accurate as your take on me.

  What kind of gutless creep goes on the Web to defame people anonymously? The lowest of the low.

• Ah, Joe, you must have been an ambulance chaser. If it’s true, it ain’t defamation. Bring it.

• Kramer,

  If it were true you’d slither out from under your rock and make your case with a real name. For the record, I was a corporate lawyer at one of the city’s largest firms. You don’t have much regard for the truth, do you?

  I’ll let you have the last word after this. You’re not a very interesting species of troll.

• Ignoring the fact that I have no idea why a Craigslist post topic is doing on YoChicago.com…Joe you’re way off on this.

  The last thing Craigslist needs in more “admins” dictating post content. Craigslist started out as a community and should be maintained as one. Just because there are a few spammers and bad apples doesn’t mean they should ruin it for everyone else and start charging. I’ve posted sublets and ballgame tickets and sold plenty of items on Craigslist with minimal personal information revealed OR STORED on Craigslist servers. On Yochicago you freely comment that you look up commenters IP address and personal information and challege or insult people so that they list their real name an email. What else are you doing with IP address info and why isn’t it discussed in your privacy policy?

  Craigslist does not run banner ads, pop ups, pop unders, or any other kind of commercial ads that litter this website and bias the posts in yochicago.com.

  Craigslist has 50 million+ users and 30 staff and you’re surprised that noone replied or addressed Joe Z’s abuse submission?!!! Become part of the community learn who the mods are, and how to recognize them (hint go to forum #8). Then you can send them your complaint directly. I’ve personally had direct emails from Jim and one from Craig back in in the past few years.

  Sorry, Joe the Internet doesn’t need another policeman, we need more innovators. If you can do it better than Craig, stop talking about it and telling him what to do. You do it yourself and create your own classifieds etc. website.

• Talk about having zero sense of irony or self-reflection. While prattling on about how I should police this site you contend that “the Internet doesn’t need another policeman.”

  YoChicago has no pop-ups or pop-unders. Craigslist hosts 10s of 1,000s of fraudulent and misleading apartment ads and you find Yo cluttered by the occasional banner ad.

  I’ve met Craig and tangled with him in comments. You simply don’t get it: he has zero interest in running a “community.” He’s a vicious money-grubbing shark behind the Saint Craig shtick. I’d love to see him actually walk his walk rather than just talk his talk. Craigslist could be a useful tool for apartment hunters. The maggots have destroyed it, and Craig’s comfortable with that because he’ll eventually be “forced” to charge for ads – his goal all along.

  Craig’s not an innovator. He’s following the well-trod profit-maximization model pioneered by alternative weeklies back in the sixties, just porting it to the Web. The one thing you’ve got right is that his business model is working well.

  What’s your real interest in this topic, Jim? Are you one of the predator maggots who has free rein in Craig’s “community?” You can’t have a community that allows free rein to predators.

• God, that’s funny. Should I be impressed because you are a former “corporate lawyer at one of the city’s largest firms?” Uh, no. Tell you what-why not call Warren Barr Jr., ask how the Association lawsuit against him is going in Chicago, ask him about Milwaukee, and then casually ask about his former life as a deadbeat in the steel business, quickly ruining a business his father ran for decades. I don’t think he was going to place any ads on your sister site anyway. Oh, and Joe, the comments about Craig of Craigslist? Unsubstantiated drivel, possibly defamatory.

• Well I think we can end the debate on whether Tommy Tully is legitimate or not. Someone finally shut him down. Link to the news article below; summary here:
  Thomas Tully is named in the complaint filed by the Illinois Dept. of Financial and Professional Regulation. In addition to seeking a $25,000 fine from Tully for unlicensed practice, the department has requested an order denying his pending application for a license. The department is also seeking disciplinary action against Naval Ghai of Palatine, a licensed real east salesman; licensed real estate broker Yelena Bernshtam and the firm she owns; Continuum Real Estate Brokers Corp. of Chicago; licensed real estate broker Angel Morales and his firm; and Agency Real Estate Brokerage of Chicago.

  http://cbs2chicago.com/local/apartment.rental.scam.2.1271234.html

• One maggot slowed down. Swarms to go.

  A $25k fine is not much of a deterrent.

• Yo Joe, Glad to see the news on Tommy. I wondered how long he could operate so brazenly before catching the eye of IDfPR. Sometimes they move at a glacial pace. Though they do jump of a consumer complains they’ve been robbed. I bet that happened. I also appreciate the stats on the junk on Craigslist. Can I use some in a blog post over at WC Guide?

• Tom Tully sounds like a dangerous rascal. Joe, why don’t you call up his Mom & tell her he was trying to find people apartments for a fee. Sounds like, how life works ;this whole story is lame Joe.

• “Rent from Tommy” is the name of a business? Wink, wink, nudge nudge.

  Why am I picturing a pinky ring, strong Chicago “axcent”, and a porkpie hat?

  “Hey, dis is Paddy over at Rent from Tommy”. You wanna list your apartment from us.”

  This isn’t a question of dancing around the “line of the law”.

  This joker didn’t even acknowledge that the law exists.

  $25,000 strikes me as being an overly lenient fine. Of course I would bet the State will have a difficult time collecting it.

  I believe we have far too many laws in society but reasonable regulation of Real Estate Brokers seems prudent.

• Paul,

  My editor got a kick out of your mug shot and your having been charged with forging license plate stickers.

  Read the linked article, folks. Tom Tully was allegedly threatening to break people’s bones – that would make him far more than a rascal.

• […] Joe at YoChicago notes: Craigslist has become … almost totally dysfunctional as a way to find an apartment in Chicago. […]

• Joe

  BRAVO on bringing Tully to justice!

  Isn’t it amazing how MILLIONS of dollars are being transacted over Craigslist with NO oversight??!! What other industry would allow this??

  I get a kick out of knowing that smart kids from good colleges take their first jobs and must post 300 ads a day! HA! And I thought cold calling and canvassing was rough in the 90’s! This is a whole new level.

  What ever happened to getting out and meeting people and building a clientele???

  Keep up the GREAT work Joe!

• Bob Darrow,

  Of course you can use the stats.