Holy Crap!

Well, this is a new one. A man came home to find his house being ransacked by people waving a fake Craigslist page that said all his stuff was FREE for the taking. Even though he caught some people in the act, they refused to return his stuff -- some even argued that if it was in print on the internet, that made it legal for them to take things!

The ads popped up Saturday afternoon, saying the owner of a Jacksonville home was forced to leave the area suddenly and his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking, said Jackson County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan.

But Robert Salisbury had no plans to leave. The independent contractor was at Emigrant Lake when he got a call from a woman who had stopped by his house to claim his horse.

On his way home he stopped a truck loaded down with his work ladders, lawn mower and weed eater.

"I informed them I was the owner, but they refused to give the stuff back," Salisbury said. "They showed me the Craigslist printout and told me they had the right to do what they did."

The fake ad was apparently placed by a disgruntled tenant, but c'mon people! What on earth makes you think that because a page on the internet says so, you can ransack someone's house while they are standing there telling you no. What sort of person actually tries to argue about that?

Even if the sign says "FREE", if the person there tells you that the offer is rescinded, you go your merry way, you don't argue that you're allowed to steal their stuff just becuase you have a printout!

This isn't the first time it's happened, either. At least this time, the owner was lucky enough that some honest soul had the decency to think, "hey, this seems too good to be true!" and called him.
I want to believe that people are basically honest, good people. That given the opportunity to steal or hurt someone, that they will not take the bait. But obviously, there are people out there who don't have any compunction about doing either one, if they think they have permission to do so (a print out, or someone else telling them they can do something) and if they think they aren't going to get caught. That really sucks.