It’s no secret that there are scams in online classifieds. At Oodle, because we aggregate listings from all over the Internet, we are in a unique position to see trends and analyze information about scams before they hit the entire market. Recently, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of online classifieds scams — there were more than two times as many scams in February as there were in January.

With a mission to improve the buying experience around classifieds, Oodle takes fraud, scams, and issues relating to personal safety very seriously. Last year we successfully launched automated fraud technology for online classifieds. Today, we go a step further with the launch of our new Safety Center.

Oodle’s Safety Center includes on a Safety Guide for online classifieds — by following a few simple steps almost every scam can be avoided. The Center also includes up-to-date information on new scams.

To help promote the new Safety Center and to get the word out to as many people as possible about how to avoid scams, we’ve partnered with our local Better Business Bureau.

To learn more about scams and how to avoid them, visit http://safety.oodle.com.