Dad Puts His 4-Year-Old Son for Sale on Craigslist for $5,000

• What the hell kind of a person does something like this? If you ask me they need to put that sick f*** in jail!!!

• That had to be a joke. "... He doesn't fuss very much but when he does he just screams for hours. I usually just put him in the closet until he stops and that usually works." That can not be serious. I mean, I suppose it could and this could be a sick bastard we're dealing with here, but I have a feeling someone had a morbid sense of humor and thought this would be funny. Im glad the cops are investigating though, you never know what people are capable of these days. And if someone did buy the little boy, they'd have to be a sick person because a good person would have turned "Rick" into the police.

• Pete, If the link I'm about to post is in any way a conflict, please feel free to remove it. Don't wanna start a true crime pissing match or anything. J, You'd probably be very interested in reading this: http://crimene.ws/craigscrimelist/ Obviously, Craigslist has problems. They did vow to do away with the adult services section a while back, but they ended up not doing it. Of course the didn't, it makes them money.

• From their FAQ: Q: Who runs craigslist? A: Jim Buckmaster has been CEO since late 2000. Q: Is Craig still involved with craigslist? A: Craig works in customer service, in addition to fulfilling his iconic responsibilities. Q: Is craigslist a nonprofit? A: No, craigslist was incorporated as a for-profit in 1999. Q: How many job listings does craigslist receive? A: More than 1 million new job listings each month Q: How many employees does craigslist have, and where are its offices located? A: About 30 of us work out of offices in the Inner Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco Q: How does craigslist support its operations? A: Ad fees for jobs in 18 cities, brokered NYC apartments, adult and therapeutic services. Q: Is there a connection between craigslist and eBay? A: eBay acquired 25% of the equity in craigslist from a former shareholder in august of 2004. THAT'S A LOT OF FRIGGIN $$$! With only 30 employees? Tell me someone is not making a killing! From their Terms of Use: 7. CONDUCT You agree not to post, email, or otherwise make available Content: a) that is unlawful...or is harmful to minors in any way. b) that is pornographic or depicts a human being engaged in actual sexual conduct including but not limited to (i) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex, or (ii) bestiality, or (iii) masturbation, or (iv) sadistic or masochistic abuse, or (v) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person; What's the point of having policies you're too small to enforce? Maybe it's time to hire a few people, craigslist!

• If I'm not mistaken, another criminal case prompted the owners of craigslist to claim they were going to remove the erotic services section. Then I think they backpeddled and said they were just going to remove it for certain cities or something. I kinda doubt they took any action whatsoever, though. Because they don't really have to, I suppose. As far as the company not having the budget to filter every ad, they could at least start with some kind of software to weed out several key phrases. Easier said than done, I suppose, but that would be a start. They would end up having to respond to a bunch of emails, but really, who cares and how negatively is it going to reflect on them if Joe Schmoe in Omaha has to wait a couple extra days to post his stash of vintage porn on there? I believe the original developer of that site somehow got rich off of it, didn't he? Presumably after selling it, because I don't recall seeing any paid advertising. On the other hand, having placed several want ads, the site DOES have income, and that would amount to a LOT aggregating all of the help wanted ads at $25 per pop or whatever it is. Think of how many of thousands of those run every day. I guess I'm not entirely buying that there isn't some strategy that could be employed to fine tune it a bit. I just think they don't want to because they are being purist about it. And I suspect they secretly liked the idea of being a venue for prostitution that went under the radar for so long, but that's pure speculation on my part.

• i understand, pete. i'm delivering the deli trays too! i expect the economy to be looking up by september after the elections. but i still feel strongly about the web building itself up as the other industries such as print are waining. all us print people will need jobs soon, and we're all looking to the net to find them. ~ fellow buckeye

• We'd love to, Jaden, but you can't raise prices during a depression. Everybody's taking a beating, no matter how big they are. I think this will change as the years go by, but web advertising is still in its infancy, relatively speaking. Besides, my company wisely doesn't consult me on financial matters. The only way I'm getting in a board meeting is by delivering the deli trays.

• pete, true that print advertising is more expensive than web. since print advertising is going away, its time for web folks to start raising rates. corporations have budgets, and if they spend less, they get less the next year. it's the only american thing to do. sorry for being off topic, but maybe you can bring that up at the next board meeting and make some ceo's happy!

• I think the problem, J, is that Craigslist simply can't afford to moderate ads. This is a massive site, and would likely need hundreds, if not thousands of employees just to moderate 24/7. Plus there would be huge delays in ads publishing. My guess is it would make the company no longer viable. The other option would be to kill the sex ads and those kinds of things, but I would imagine people would just begin posting elsewhere on the site. I think that's the problem with most heavily interactive sites these days. Internet advertising doesn't yield anywhere near the revenues of conventional prints advertising, etc., so it just isn't enough to compensate for large staffs.

• $5000.00??? For a snot nosed little brat that will soon grow into and ingrate teen? Hell, no! $22.75 and that's my final offer...

• What a moron. It makes me sick that these people think kids are disposable. DONT BE A FOOL WRAP YOUR TOOL you idiot!

• I have to agree with J here. The problem with letting the inmates run the asylum the way Craigslist does is, people looking for sex with under-aged prostitutes aren't going to report ads for under-aged prostitutes. People looking for rims for their car aren't going to venture over to the adult section and most likely won't see the illegal ads. So, we're counting basically on pervs to report other pervs, it doesn't work. Not to mention, I've heard lots of stories of people putting other people's stuff on Craigslist under the free section. Usually, the cops don't do much about it. Yes, some dumbasses do get busted because of Craigslist, but like J said, after years of answering warrants due to the criminal activity on Craigslist, it's time for a change. The current system doesn't seem to work quite well enough.

• What's shameful is if the Spokane police haven't answered this question of whether it was serious or not, and who the hell posted it already!

• I don't know....honestly I think this guy may have been for real. I'm an adoptive mom hoping to adopt one more time and I have run into people like this (one in particular comes to mind after they find our website (a legit one called Parent Profiles...ours is on there). I am not kidding...we have been contacted at least 3 or 4 times in the past 6 months by parents wanting to rehome boys in this age range who are out of control. It's sad but it's reality.

• That strikes me as a rather dumb battle for craigslist to pick, that the mission is to keep it completely unmoderated. In that sense, he's only inviting people to use it for prostitution, etc. It makes it look like their position is "if you can get away with selling child pornography or pimping a child, go for it." You would think a decade or whatever it has been of having to appease warrants like this would make him reconsider whether it is really that important to his vision.

• Sounds like a poor attempt at humor. First of all if you are trying to sell anything you do not talk about it's bad features. Children who scream for hours I would not imagine to be hot commodities to people who run normal homes. Also the line about playing with balls is just an attempt at being clever. Just my opinion, and the world is a sick place so hey I could be wrong.

• @ Val, LMAO and I'm sorry. You might want to wipe that Google search before you end up a story on this site. :) lol To Craigslist's defense, they don't need to moderate classifieds, if it had removed this as a 'joke' and we somehow find out it WAS REAL......ooooooohhhh LAWSUIT. So like mcr said, the people dumb enough to post illegal shit on Craigslist are usually caught by authorities quickly...and besides, I kinda like the fact that I can buy anything on Craigslist...that's the point, just so happens I'm not in the market for 4 year old boys, now if he had a 4x4 ATV with mud-tires we might be talking...LOL :)

• Craigslist doesn't need to moderate their posts! You know why? Because in just about every city, police use Craigslist as a way to catch criminals (or who they think are criminals), and if you report someone's post, it's taken down. The readers are the moderators. Besides, do you know how many posts Craigslist deals with on an average day? There's a page for hundreds of cities around the world. Each page contains a board for hundreds of different things. It would be impossible.

• I think it was a joke. I really do.

• Geminimist74: I recently heard an interview with the guy that currently runs CraigsList who said that "monitoring the site" would go against everything the site was originally made for. I agree, they should do it, but it seems that they have considered it and dismissed the thought.

• Hmmmm...the idea of moderating posts? Interesting.

• This is unreal! If it's Fake, Craigs List need to authorize EVERY Ad before allowing it to be posted that is just COMMON SENSE!

• I'm guessing either the baby+kids section under "for sale" or household items.

• I am curious what section on craigslist he attempted this in. Someone reported it after seeing the ad.

• Wow...the cops in Spokane seem really stupid. This was likely a joke. They were probably trying to get nominated for "best of Craigslist" or something. Jeez.

• Bacon, you just made me google NAMBLA at work. Yuck. This is disturbing - when I saw the part about locking him in a closet, my first instinct was that it was a sick joke, like iLLusionS said. But, I think all of us that read any amount of news everyday can, unfortunately, believe that there is someone sick, and dumb, enough to do this.

• I saw a link to this on CNN and I still find it inconceivable that the police, with that warrant, were not immediately able to track the guy down. Craigslist should have been able to tell them who it was within minutes. If he used the kid's real name, that alone narrows it down to a minute percentage of possibilities in that town. What the hell, Spokane police? What is taking you so long?

• I think it sounded a little more like a joke than a serious add. I could be wrong, cause it is'nt that I am suprised these crazy people of the world would do something like that. I don't know it just sounds a little sketchy.

• Where's the mom? I hope this was a joke, locking any age child in the closet as punishment is UNACCEPTABLE. Hopefully he didn't sell him forreal...plenty of NAMBLA members out there with deep wallets...SCARY!

• Ever heard of adoption?

TotalComments: 30