Craigslist has so many criminals using it that it makes it hard to want to use.

One of the things she told me was that you should always check the applicant's driver's license and make sure the picture on the license was actually the applicant (because tenant applicants who are criminals occassionally pretend to be someone else to pass the screening).

Instead I look for stability in employment, credit, no criminal background and so on.

I've discussed this with a lawyer, I am able to evict based on my zero tolerance for criminal activity addendum, but an eviction with a physically aggressive person doesn't sound like a great idea.

Phone screening includes number of people, pets, income, when can they take possession, smokers, and criminal history.

Finally, make sure you look at the applicants eviction and criminal history.If you need any recommendations on screening software, please feel free to reach out to me directly!

If they do not score enough points (or just blatantly miss a stated criteria, like no prior evictions) in that initial subtotal I do not move forward.Use objective criteria, like how long they have held their job, % of rent to income, how long they have lived at past addresses, how long they intend to stay, stated criminal history, whether they provided bank accounts, etc to put a score to your hunches.You can also drag your feet on denying, I normally wait until I have an applicant who has accepted to deny the rest of the applicants. 

Outside of real estate I work professionally within the Cyber Security realm and find fairly entertaining when dealing with malware or plain old email based scams :)

I use a separate website for performing a criminal and credit and eviction background check as well, which to me, has me covered, but curious how others handle it.

Here's some more reading on that: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/04/472878724/denying-housing-over-criminal-record-may-be-discrimination-feds-say