I have heard of Craigslist pinball wars, where competing pinball collectors constantly flag each others ads. There was something like this on the Houston Craigslist a few years ago were two or three collectors would be flagging all the pinball ads. At that time, if you looked for pinball ads on the Houston Craigslist, there wouldn't be anything about pinball machines... Some people certainly have a lot of free time...

In my opinion, WTB ads are spam but I don't go out of my way to flag them.

It can’t be one dip, it takes many reports to finally flag it.

That said many folks just don’t like seeing the same ad (especially if posted daily) pop up so it gets flagged as spam.

The most common reasons are given in the notice Craigslist sent you that your ad got flagged. Most often I've seen wanted ads posted in the for sale area or spammed too often.

It takes multiple flags before an ad is removed.
Try the CL flag help forum.
forums.craigslist.org link

This is pretty much the main reason. People flag WTB ads here within minutes of them going up so theirs are the ones left up.

Are we talking about one of those " SELL ME YOUR BROKEN OR WORKING PINBALLS NOW ! CASH PAID !" type ads? Can't stand them...

How frequently are you posting? If people think you're spamming you'll get flagged.

There was a member here who ranted about "Want to buy" Ads and said he was going to spend the weekend flagging them.
My ad was flagged multiple times and taken down over the weekend. I'm not saying the two events are connected.
I'm saying there are some pinball people who want to set your price for you on a machine for sell, berate you if you don't comply,
and destroy you if you wish to buy old pinball machines without going through them.
My advice is to get your friends together and flag every Ad for buying machines in your local area. Its probably one of them thats doing it,the rest will just have to suffer, they are probably in on it too, its all a mafia-like org anyway....just kidding!

It's only a "problem" to the flippers. Your ad being up means there is a chance you get the call on the deal of the day and they won't make their money reselling it here or on the FB groups.

It's a problem for everyone who has an alert set for the word pinball in the for sale sections. Your miscategorized ad generates alerts for everyone who has one set, they click, see you have nothing for sale, they flag and your ad disappears.

They get alerts even if it's in the wanted section. I don't see the problem in posting a want to buy ad honestly. The people that repost them daily suck though

Well, people miscatagorizing ads is a whole different matter and wasn't something I was talking about. While annoying I guess, if a false positive CL ad hit is something you consider a legitimate problem you should see the rest of the experience...

My ads have been occasionally flagged right out of the gate.
I usually put key words at the bottom to be picked up when people search for something.
I think it is the key words. If they seem at all outside the scope of the ad it is automatically flagged.
I just repost without the key words or with different ones.

Why do you consider WTB ads as spam. A while back I was searching for a particular pin and I placed ads in several strategic CL markets. I did get a hit and was ready to buy but the seller got cold feet. I know two other pinsiders who put up WTB ads and found the pin they were looking for.

Or perhaps you are talking about all of the "I will buy your broken pinball for cash" stuff. In that case I would agree.

Not on my CL. The wanted category is excluded by default. You can include it by checking a box.
YMMV

Interesting that the OP is from Barnstable MA and another who gets flagged is from Boston MA. I'm from Pittsfield, MA and every six months if I get some room I run a wanted ad and it gets flagged quickly and removed as well. I know of one guy in MA. who flags everyone's ad and there must be others. I think it's flippers who want them all to themselves.

This brings up a interesting question. How long do you have to own a game before it's not considered "flipped" when you go to sell it?

John

According to Wikipedia: 4 months, 6 days, 7 hrs, and 42 seconds.

I'm sure everyone has their own definition, for me it's more "you know it when you see it". In our area there are 2-3 guys that regularly post WTB ads up and (presumably) flag all the others, which I'm sure in turn gets people flagging theirs. These are the people that seem to be able to drop everything and drive anywhere to scoop up anything resembling a deal the minute its posted. You'll send a message or call on an ad in the first half hour and get "sorry it's sold" and think to yourself "well that has to be Mr. X Y or Z since it's 2:15pm on a Tuesday". Sure enough, the game will pop up on Facebook or the sales apps about 2 hours later for 3-4 times the "deal" price. That's my definition of the "flippers" I was talking about.

I don't assume some moral high ground (especially as a guy who has scored a few killer deals this year), I wish I had the free time and money these people seem to have, and it's their prerogative to spend both how they see fit, and at the end of the day they got there first with the cash. It's more just a bummer to see games I or others would actually want to keep and enjoy for a while being scooped up cheap (which again, good on em, wish it was me) then being sold within hours for a quick profit. I'm not opposed to anyone making money on games or even flipping them really - more just giving my take to the OP that those types of people in the hobby are going to be the ones flagging his ad 99% of the time.

The want to buy ads get flagged by CL because there are so many of them from so many users that they look like spam. A large portion of craigslist flagging is automated by Craigslist itself. All the want to buy ads are so similar they can get flagged off the bat. You can tell because they can get removed before they are even searchable on CL. It also takes multiple flags from multiple users to influence CL. So it isn't one or two greedy flippers flagging all the ads. Try flagging an ad and see if it gets removed, it most likely won't work.

You can refresh and flag multiple times. The threshold is set by a percentage of flags/views. So when an ad is brand new, 3 or 4 flags is enough to knock it out. This is super common in the real estate industry and car industry. Competitors spend time knocking the ads of their competition off. Some folks run bots to do it automatically.

And the funny thing is flippers flag flippers.

This one gets up here daily and I wonder what the story behind this is:
washingtondc.craigslist.org link

"Pinball Wanted or Provide Free Assistance"
I have worked played and worked on pinball machines in the 1990's, would like to get a few machines again. I have followed the prices over the years, even if you do not sell to me, I can provide you the fair value of your machine, fix or recommend an honest person to fix your machine. A lot of resellers are taking advantage of pinball owners; I suspect I may be flagged for that comment. If you have a machine for sale, please provide the name and price. Again, I am not a reseller, but have a truck and can pay cash, thank you.

Robert

*If the person who continually flags my ad would like to speak with me, please contact me directly. I am glad I was able to help those who had contacted me with questions and able to keep you informed with many cutthroats out there looking to take advantage.

Deserves to be flagged. Just like all the generic wanted ads: gold, cars, motorcycles etc etc etc

If you want to be a pawn-broker, put on your big-boy pants, open a store-front and hang three balls outside.

It takes a ton of flags to remove an ad.

Disagree.
"northern virginia > wanted - by owner"
It's in the right category. May have been posted too often. Could have other problems like keyword spam. But nothing in the quoted text seems amiss.

And the number of flags required to remove a post varies by CL city, category, and other variables tied to the poster.

I don't mind the content of the guy's DC/NoVA ad, but sometimes it gets posted like 5 times in 30 minutes. I thought CL would block duplicate posts?

It is heartening to know that only effective Ads get flagged. The Ad was too honest, by a real individual, that reached potential Sellers too effectively.

Yeah I had 2x bogus scammers I dealt with today. Anytime you hear a story that comes with the Pinball table, that’s a red flag. If you want sympathy for a dying child and that’s the reason you need to sell a Twilight Zone for half price, then start a Go Fund Me instead and leave pinball machines out of your scam

Here is this clowns response:

“Hello

Thanks for your interest in buying our game, It's in excellent condition, no ware or dent from the cabinet,like new and is ready to be shipped out through a NAVL or FEDEX find the pics in your attached file and get back to us if you are ready to proceed, I’m currently here in Littleton,Colorado due to my job because I’m in a missionary and my daughter was in critical condition right now,because we just go out from Los Angeles due to my job,so I’m trying to do this on trust with any honest person to know how I feel for selling my stuff because of my daughter condition

The price for the machine is $2750
Fill in the info below on where you want the game to be shipped to

Your Full Name:
Address :

Am selling this game due to my daughter condition i have to do surgery for her she's in hospital right now that is the reason why we are trying to sell it out, please get back to me ASAP with your address on where you want the game to be shipped to and let us know the amount you can come up with as a down payment before the game can be shipped to you

Regards
Jacob and Family”

Total Ass-clown

Tell him you want to know the serial number of the machine & a photo to document it.

I don’t flag listings, but I would have to guess that the bulk of the wanted listings are flagged for too frequent listings and because they are full of lies by obvious flippers. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Not saying it’s right, but what do you expect-people resent having opportunities taken from them

washingtondc.craigslist.org link posting/flagging war

This is pretty much the case. I had one up last year because I wanted a project game. Wasn't trying to buy up every operator in the area or rip people off, just trying to find a project game out there. I posted it and it was flagged in an hour, same thing the next two times I tried. I just gave up after a week - clearly someone with more free time than me.

I happened to me very often when I was both listing machines for sale and wanted ads on Craig's List. A few "jack asses" trying to control the local market was my guess. Anyway I went to war with them and just kept putting new ads up as fast as they flagged them. I did that for about a month working at it like 4 or 5 hours a day and they finally gave up on flagging me.

I had a two for one rule at the time - every time they flagged one of my listings I would just put two more up. At one point I had over a dozen wanted ads running just staying ahead of the flaggers. I used several email accounts & phone numbers, different servers & computers, etc just to mess with them. I finally won and they just went away.

These days I do ZERO posting on Craig's List either buying or selling. Not because of the flaggers but because I already have too many machines. And typically my regular customers buy pretty much everything I have for sale so rarely do I need to list machines for sale either.

All you have to do is hit refresh on your ad 50x or so to get the view count up, then it will take more than a couple flags to make it disappear.

Is there a way to see who flags your ads or who responds to your ad bring a asshole?

You can trick the low-ball assholes into revealing themselves if you act like you are interested in their offer.

If you have questions about Craigslist the Craigslist forums are a better source of information than a pinball forum.
forums.craigslist.org link