Chicago’s sleazy rental services pollute Craigslist and other websites with 1,000s upon 1,000s of ads every single day. The goal: confuse and frustrate renters into using their “free services.”
Rental services a/k/a apartment locators a/k/a apartment finders lure mostly young and uniformly naïve recruits with empty promises of “unlimited earning potential” or the prospect of earning $175K a year. The rookie recruits – and some of the veterans – pound away at their keyboards placing ad after ad. They do this without regard to whether they have the written authority to run the ads that’s required by law, and in flagrant disregard of the terms of service at Craigslist and other websites prohibiting multiple, abusive ads.
I’ve spoken, in person and by phone, to many of these rookies and veterans who acknowledge that what they’re doing is illegal, and then whine that they’d have no way of getting customers if they didn’t do it.
Before you respond to a rental service ad on Craigslist or another site, set aside a few minutes to consider the implications of doing business with someone who reached out to you by wasting your time and breaking the law and is cold-blooded and callous about doing so.