5 Craigslist Shopping Safety Tips
With the news of the recent Milwaukee Craigslist robberies, it is important to keep some safety tips in mind when using the classified ad website. While most Craigslist transactions happen without incident, a small percentage end up in the headlines. By using commonsense, you can avoid potentially dangerous situations.
1. Meet in public during the day
If possible, meet the other party in a public place – a shopping mall, coffee shop or fast food restaurant. The chances of being robbed while in public are much less than if you were to meet at at a private residence.
2. Bring others along with you
The more the merrier - bring at least one other adult with you. Again, your chances of being robbed are less if there are more people around.
3. Don’t invite strangers into your home
If you’re buying or selling a large item like a refrigerator, it would be impractical to meet in public to finalize the sale. If you need to meet at a private residence, there are still precautions to take to protect yourself. As mentioned above, meet during the day and have other adults with you. If you are the seller, do not invite customers into your home. Instead, move the item outside of the house and into your garage or on to your porch.
4. Avoid Scams
The Craigslist website has several good tips for avoiding scammers. The #1 tip is to deal locally. A common scam is for an overseas criminal to send a legitimate looking cashier’s check for more than you’re asking for. They ask you to refund part of their overpayment by sending a wire transfer to them. By the time the bank realises that the cashier’s check is phony, the scammer and your money are long gone.
5. Trust your instincts
The bottom line is that no amount of savings is worth putting your safety at risk. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Trust your instincts and stay away from a deal that just doesn’t seem right.
Yard Sale Treasure Map: A Great Tool for Finding Rummage Sales
Spring finally decided to show up! For bargain hunters, springtime also means rummage sale time! Check out this awesome tool for finding rummage sales in your area. The Yard Sale Treasure Map is a craigslist/Google Maps mashup that searches for all of the nearby rummage sales on craigslist and then plots them on a Google map. It even lets you plan your route to make sure you hit all of the rummages in your area.
Other functions of the Yard Sale Treasure Map allow you to:
- Search for particular items in a sale
- Map sales within a radius of an address
- Manually add sales you want to check out
- Arrange the order of your route based on your preferences
- Print route directions
The best part of the Yard Sale Treasure Map is that it is free! Will this change the way you shop at rummage sales? Leave a comment and let us know!
Thanks to Green Bay Consumer for the tip on this great resource!
Tree Removal Needed?
Have the neighbor’s leaves, political yard signs, and flower pots all blown into your yard? Hopefully that is the extent of any of your problems. It could be worse. JSOnline is reporting that more than 10,000 residents are without power this afternoon. Undoubtedly, there are many trees down throughout the Milwaukee area too.
Hopefully you don’t find yourself in the position of needing to call a contractor to take care of a tree that has blown down due to the wind storm we are experiencing. But if you do, some resources are listed below. We posted these last December when a big snowstorm hit and damaged a lot of trees and a number of our readers found this information to be valuable. If you have any other suggestions to help our readers find a contractor that is right for their situation, please feel free to leave a comment.
Angie’s List – If you subscribe to Angie’s List
you’ll receive access to local reviews and live support from their company. If you have a bad experience with a contractor, you might be able to utilize their free Complaint Resolution Team to help resolve your issue. An advantage of Angie’s List
is that all reviews are checked in order to prevent businesses that try to submit reviews on themselves or negative reviews on competitors. This is a big advantage over free sites on the internet where fabricated reviews can easily be submitted.
Craigslist – Consult the Milwaukee Skilled Trades page on Craigslist. Advantages of using Craigslist is it is free and it’s easy to navigate the website to find services for tree removal, tree pruning, etc… However, the downside is that there aren’t any pre-screened reviews and you may need to take extra care in how you select your contractor. At the top of the page on Craigslist there are links to articles such as “When does your contractor need a license?”, a reminder to ask for references, and articles on personal safety tips and avoiding scams and fraud. Be sure to read these if you are selecting contractors using Craigslist.
Service Magic – Service Magic
is a website that provides free matches to pre-screened service professionals, such as arborists. The Service Magic
website also has articles on tree trimming advice, including the best time to trim, basic trimming suggestions, and trimming safety (most important – you should never trim trees on a ladder. Instead, you should secure yourself to the tree from at least two points using a harness and ropes).
We also recently asked our Readers Panel for their advice in selecting contractors.
Suzette said “When my husband and I need services around our home, our first line of resources are recommendations from friends, co-workers, or friends of friends. Many times this is through conversations but I have also sent out emails asking for recommendations.” She finds that on websites one can usually find good and bad information about each contractor, and prefers to dig deeper to ask about contractors, including their personality. Suzette also wisely states “It just isn’t about price and doing the job. It is about price, time, and quality. They are interelated and usually effect each other.”
Renee responded stating when she needed some work done around the house such as landscaping, she used a free group on Yahoo! called Milwaukee Cafe. The group is fashioned after the Milwaukee Freecyle group. Renee stated “I found a great handyman who charges me $8/hour and has done a fabulous job helping me out.”
Resources for Tree Damage Services in Milwaukee
The recent snowstorm we had in the Milwaukee area on December 8th and 9th led to a lot of tree damage, especially evergreens. In an article on JSOnline reporter Joe Taschler wrote that experts state that it is not a good idea to knock snow and ice off trees that are bent to the ground, as it could cause even more damage.
If you are in need of an arborist or a service to clean up damaged trees, there are several resources you can consult to find the contractor that is right for your situation. Here are a few ideas:
Angie’s List – If you subscribe to Angie’s List
you’ll receive access to local reviews and live support from their company. If you have a bad experience with a contractor, you might be able to utilize their free Complaint Resolution Team to help resolve your issue. An advantage of Angie’s List
is that all reviews are checked in order to prevent businesses that try to submit reviews on themselves or negative reviews on competitors. This is a big advantage over free sites on the internet where fabricated reviews can easily be submitted.
Craigslist – Consult the Milwaukee Skilled Trades page on Craigslist. Advantages of using Craigslist is it is free and it’s easy to navigate the website to find services for tree removal, tree pruning, etc… However, the downside is that there aren’t any pre-screened reviews and you may need to take extra care in how you select your contractor. At the top of the page on Craigslist there are links to articles such as “When does your contractor need a license?”, a reminder to ask for references, and articles on personal safety tips and avoiding scams and fraud. Be sure to read these if you are selecting contractors using Craigslist.
Service Magic – Service Magic
is a website that provides free matches to pre-screened service professionals, such as arborists. The Service Magic
website also has articles on tree trimming advice, including the best time to trim, basic trimming suggestions, and trimming safety (most important – you should never trim trees on a ladder. Instead, you should secure yourself to the tree from at least two points using a harness and ropes).
We also recently asked our Readers Panel for their advice in selecting contractors.
Suzette said “When my husband and I need services around our home, our first line of resources are recommendations from friends, co-workers, or friends of friends. Many times this is through conversations but I have also sent out emails asking for recommendations.” She finds that on websites one can usually find good and bad information about each contractor, and prefers to dig deeper to ask about contractors, including their personality. Suzette also wisely states “It just isn’t about price and doing the job. It is about price, time, and quality. They are interelated and usually effect each other.”
Renee responded stating when she needed some work done around the house such as landscaping, she used a free group on Yahoo! called Milwaukee Cafe. The group is fashioned after the Milwaukee Freecyle group. Renee stated “I found a great handyman who charges me $8/hour and has done a fabulous job helping me out.”
Do you have any suggestions on where our readers can turn if they need a contractor to help them cleanup tree damage from the storm? If so, please feel free to leave a comment.
