The 28th Amendment

It’s not an interesting day on the internet unless someone has threatened to sue you.

Lately I’ve been in the market for a roommate. To facilitate that, I’ve been keeping an eye on Craigslist. Unfortunately, my user experience over there has been negatively impacted by one particular realtor. John Adams Realty seems to think it’s a good idea to repost their half-dozen ads every single day. On top of being annoying, it’s against the Terms of Service . . . so after a week of seeing this particularly annoying habit, I started flagging the posts.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one.

When I finally got around to checking CL today, the Adams Realty posts had already been flagged for deletion. Realizing that this was irritating more people than just myself, I thought I’d send an email to Mr. Adams letting him know why I had been flagging his posts. I had two goals: a) to get him to stop posting the stupid things every damn day, and b) fill him in on how craigslist works, since he’s clearly old and a little out-of-touch with technology. Ideally, he’d have modified his behavior to be less annoying — it would be a win/win: his posts wouldn’t get deleted and I wouldn’t have to see pictures of the same over-priced house every day.

I got an email back that said: “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. . . . I really do not think that all of our postings are getting flagged and if they are then it most be by people doing so unfairly.”

So I wrote back, explaining (with links) what was going on and why. This was apparently not the response Mr. Adams was looking for. I got the following:

Well, so far you are the only one flagging my ads. Most everyone that calls me everyday seems to appreciate the fact that there is a real estate professional taking his time and money to make these posting available. As far as people visiting for the first time or even repeat customers do not want to look back in past dates for ads.

I have every right to post my ads and not be interfered with, so if you to continue to interfer (sic) or flag my ads, then I will direct this to my attorney and to the principals of craigslist. I would recommend that you change your server to not recieve (sic) these notications (sic) and then yourself interest will not be efffected (sic).

Let me caution you, if you continue to interfer (sic) with my day to day busines (sic) you will end up in front of a judge and we will take legal action against you.

I’ll be forwarding this e-mail to my attorney Mr. Kendall Minter today and I will be calling craigslist with your e-mail address.

So govern yourself accordingly
Regards,

John Adams, Broker
John Adams Realty, Inc

cc: Kendall Minter, Attorney at Law

Apparently, while I wasn’t looking, the constitution has been amended to include an affirmative right to spam craigslist.

Tags: Craigslist, John Adams Realty, Lawsuit, Spam