Craigslist.com Craig as the vigilant Customer Service Rep

Craigslist.com Craig as the vigilant Customer Service Rep Ingrid: Hi, everybody. This is Ingrid Vanderveldt. You’re on the road with Ivy back with Craig Newmark of Craigslist and we just wanted to go ahead and provide a quick intro because what just happened was Craig and I were actually in the break and while we were in the break, Craig continue to work and he was doing what he calls customer service but he was actually getting rid of someone who was abusing the system which I found fascinating. And so, here you’re about to see what has happened there. Craig, thanks for letting us keep rolling on that. Craig: Sure! Ingrid: Okay they’re saying Halt! How are you Craig? You’re doing okay on time? Craig: I’m doing now just fine. Ingrid: Awesome. I've been telling—go ahead. Craig: I'm doing a work as we talk. I'm getting rid of the, I would say unscrupulous apartment to a broker in New York City but that won’t be very long and yeah I think I might get rid of this stuff because it maybe cheating people. Ingrid: Oh why? Well, gees. You’re telling me the start in segment number three but that’s actually something I wanted to ask you about and is that somebody they just have been flagging that person in New York and you now need to get involved to get them out of there? Craig: Well in this case, it’s basically some on us reported as a guy who’s been pretty abusive. I checked the guy in our system and our internal tools and the person we’re putting the problem is completely right so I just got to read a whole bunch of stuff and that’s working out pretty well. Yeah, it looks like there is some definite accepted bad advertising in here. Ingrid: And what does that mean? What do you mean and how is he abusing the system? Craig: In this case, the person is apparently an apartment broker but they’re posting in the owner section because in that way, people look at those and they go the other section first in many cases since there are no fees in all but when you are renting from the owner directly. There are fees frequently when you’re renting a bit of a broker but in this case, they will hack a broker which is supposed to get on the other section. That way they can avoid paying for the ads which is well, you do need them to pay for those ads.. Ingrid: You know Craig, it’s interesting because I'm listening to the story actually. I have a colleague, John and he runs Sentinel Tech. John Cardillo and essentially, you know how John. He has to see a company but where he spends the majority of his day is actually customer service and he works with MySpace. He invests security for them, getting rid of child predators but what I found fascinating about it is that he’s not spending his time on management of the business necessarily. It is on customer service and identifying people who are abusing the system and that seems to be your real kind of key to your success that you are so hands-on involved with business like that. Craig: Well, I think you’re right there! The idea somehow is my primary gig is customer service. I did a better break because some of that can get pretty ugly. You know I do have since I stop I wish I haven’t but that’s the job. Ingrid: And when you say it’s the stuff that you wish you haven’t. What do you mean by that? Craig: I’d rather have heard and ask the races and in some cases pictures of a real and other nature being posted that kind of thing. Ingrid: How do you keep yourself then from getting—I mean how do you stay focused on truly you’re doing a lot of positive things? But when you see very difficult things because I know you’re working with the national standards for missing and exploited children and I actually met with them last spring. But some of those things have to be very difficult to see and how do you deal with that? Craig: I just deal with it and if I see something pleasant. I wish I haven’t seen it and then it’s go back to work.