Can You Find Out the Real Name Behind a Craigslist Ad?

Craigslist offers three options for displaying email addresses: First, a user can elect to display his actual address. In this case, the real name of the user may be readily visible. Second, a user can choose to hide his email address. Third, a user can employ a completely randomized and unique email address associated with the posting. This email address is associated only with the ad in question, and will expire when the ad expires. It contains no personal information.

After you have emailed the creator of a Craigslist ad, he may respond through his personal email address. If this happens, his real name will likely be visible in the address or in the body of his messages. However, even if you have entered into dialogue with a Craigslist user, he may be using an email account that is still fairly anonymous. In this case, the only way to determine the real name of the user is to ask him or eventually be given it. If he is using an anonymous email address, it is likely that he wants to withhold certain personal information. In this case, it is important to respect his wish for privacy.

Sometimes, the content of a Craigslist ad contains the real name of somebody closely associated with the ad. This is especially true of postings made through a business. For example, many apartment listings on Craigslist are posted through management companies. In this case, the manager or contact person for a specific building is often listed in the ad. Some other users of Craigslist still elect to leave their names in the bodies of their ads. In certain cases, these users will also list their phone numbers and email addresses. Due to the nature of spam on the Internet, many Craigslist users will spell out numbers and symbols in their email addresses or phone numbers in order to prevent automated bots from gathering their information.

Even if it is not possible to discern the real name of a person behind a Craigslist ad through email or the message body, there may still be ways to find out information about him. If you read a large number of ads on Craigslist, you may notice similarities in voice, capitalization tendencies, or style among many ads. It is possible that these similar ads were written by the same person, especially if they are all found in the same section. Furthermore, if you have entered into email dialogue with a user who writes from a relatively anonymous email address, it is possible to find more information about him by searching the Internet for other appearances of that email address. Again, the user likely wishes to remain unknown in these cases, and it is important to honor that wish. However, these tactics of determining information leading to a user's real name can be useful in order to weed out scams and other suspicious ads.