So, I publish a private party ad for my car last night. The link shows the view and categories just fine. Do a search for the ad with others .... nothing, not this morning, not tonight, not on my nieces computer. You send a note, get an unhelpful auto response. No phone number to call. Craigslist pretty much stinks right now. I've seen other people complain about publishing but not finding their ad listed. Lame.
I believe that Craigslist ads are free, if true, you sorta get what you pay for.... Now if it were a paid ad, that would be different!
That pretty much hits the nail on the head! Now, for a free service, it's not bad at all. If your ad disappears, you can try again. It's still free.
Check you spam filter on your email. Sometimes you have to confirm that you did, indeed, publish the ad (as opposed to some joker publishing the ad under your name).
You do need to confirm the ad before it is published unless you already have a confirmed account set-up, so as others have suggested you need to dig around your email and click on the link in the email. As for your statement that Craigslist stinks - I think that you are completely off base. For what it is, I think that Craigslist is pretty darned amazing. You can list just about anything on it and for most things is completely free.
The best thing about Cragslist is the Rants and Raves section under Personals, check it out but be prepared to be entertained: craigslist | personals
Your ad has been "ghosted". That means CL lets you go through the motions of posting your ad,, and you think it's been published, but it hasn't. This is one of the sneaky techniques CL uses to combat spammers, who usually don't go check to see if their ad is live. Chances are you either 1) reposted the same ad multiple times or in multiple cities, or 2) used word(s) that CL associates with spam, or 3) put a link in your ad. As CL has gotten tougher on spammers, many legit ads are getting caught up in the same net. As a car dealer/broker trying to post many ads on CL, this is a constant problem for me. I think they will eventually have to go to a paid model, where you pay a few bucks and have less hassle.
I spent 3 weeks, various paid ads and had the car in a sell it yourself lot for 2 weekends trying to get a reasonable price for my wife's last car. I gave that up and put it on Craig's list and had a buyer for more than my minimum acceptable price in 3 hours. The people responding to the paid ads and the show it yourself lot were flakier than the Craig's list shopper that bought the car.
i have sold many items on craigslist, but lately; my ads haven't been published.... i have resubmitted them, but still not published.... nothing out of my pocket, just wasted time