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Thread: Craigs List morons

  1. #31
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
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    Deep South
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    3,970
    I have found Craigslist to be an excellent place to buy and sell tools, boats and automobiles. I always determine as best I can what the item I am selling is worth at a retail outlet and I list it at a slightly lower price and specify that the price is firm. I am an advanced amateur photographer and I make sure there are plenty of crystal clear photos that let the prospective buyer see exactly what he is getting. I provide a thorough and accurate description of what I am selling. I almost always get what I am asking and I usually sell quickly. It is amazing to me how many people will try to sell a boat that is worth $40,000 and they list it with one or two blurry cell phone pictures that don't provide any useful information.

    If I am buying something, I expect the same sort of pictures and description I provide in my ads. After looking at an item, I tell the seller I don't negotiate and then I offer him what the item is worth to me. If he doesn't take it, I leave immediately but I do give him my phone number in case he changes his mind.

    I hate negotiating and refuse to do it.

  2. #32
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Jacksonville, FL
    Posts
    859
    I won't fool with selling on CL. I prefer to give things to relatives or friends. And if no one wants things then I put them out early in the afternoon on the day before garbage/trash pickup. I live in a really nice neighborhood and there are several scrappers that drive around and collect things from the trash at the street. Don't know what they do with it but I can guess that some ends up on CL. But I don't care. If they sell it for $10 or $10,000 I've helped them and got stuff out of my garage that wasn't of any use for me. So now I can put some woodworking something in there and start the process all over again.
    Marshall
    ---------------------------
    A Stickley fan boy.

  3. #33
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Upstate NY
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    3,789
    Lets not forget there are CL buyer morons.

    My son listed a xylophone and then went off to college, so I handled it for him. A guy came out with his 10 year old son to look at it. His son loved it, so the guy offered me 75%. I declined. He said I had to give him a big discount because he had driven 45 minutes to get it. I again declined. He said it was just as well, because there was a much cheaper one right near him he would get. So he drives 90 minutes for nothing, his son misses out on a promised xylophone and thinks his father is an idiot, and I sell it for full price 2 days later. He wrote a very long email to my son about what a horrible person I was.

    I found a small, but new-in-box, sump pump when my MIL died; and put it on CL, giving a link to the item on Amazon.
    A guy bought it and then complained it didn't pump fast enough for his use and wanted his money back. I asked him what I had done wrong; nothing, but he couldn't use it and wanted his money back. I explained that I sold him a new pump and he wanted to return a used pump; no one would buy a used pump, so he was asking me to take a complete loss because he bought the wrong pump. He sent me a 5000 word email (which I only read the first and last paragraph) about how Jesus was going to get me for what I had done.
    Last edited by Wade Lippman; 07-19-2018 at 11:13 AM.

  4. #34
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Longview WA
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    No comment on the idiots, but I must say that I have gotten a few really good deals from ads that were from 'misinformed' people who didn't list correctly, or had no idea what they had inherited, they just wanted it gone.
    This used to be one of my strategies on ebay. It occasionally made me feel sorry for folks who paid more for shipping than what the listing called for plus my winning bid. Usually it was less than a dollar, so maybe a cheap lesson for the seller. Another way to find 'low competition' bidding is to look for misspellings. Be careful, some sellers will misspell on purpose with a higher 'Buy It Now' price.

    I provide a thorough and accurate description of what I am selling.
    Same for me, if there is a defect, it is in the description. Some of my old tools are fine workers, but they are problematic enough in my opinion to not be worth the cost to ship them. If a tool of mine is going to lose significant value by being used, it goes up for sale.

    One of the crazy things that bugs me at times is when someone inquires about a "part" they need and are looking for a source. It is a part that they will not describe. Sometimes it is for a "secret" project they do not want anyone to know about.

    How can one help a person who won't disclose what it is they want?

    jtk
    Last edited by Jim Koepke; 07-19-2018 at 2:30 PM.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  5. #35
    LOL, the pump thing reminds me of a couple of people who have asked if they can return an item if X. Where X might be that it doesn't fit, isn't what they want after all, etc etc. I just laugh. I'm selling at a discount because this isn't Walmart, you don't have a 90 day return policy. I've also had someone e-mail me a month later and say something failed. Yeah, it's used. It was as described when I sold it, right? Even had this happen with something new in box. I've just learned to be careful and clear in ads, and as Art said, include a lot of details and perfect pictures. I can't believe how many CL pictures seem to have been taken with a potato. To Art's example, I sold a $34k boat to someone in WA who knew she wanted it just from all the photos and clear/plentiful description. In fact it got her so excited I felt stalked as she tried to find me and nail the deal via Linkedin, Facebook, and the marina manager.

    CL is a very useful tool, and I even enjoy using it. I've met very interesting people. Another woodworker couple came to buy something once and ended up spending three hours drinking beer and talking shop with us.

  6. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Wade Lippman View Post
    They do that on purpose. It is cheap and easy to post the scam, but time consuming to deal with people who reply. They don't want to bother with people bright enough to figure out the scam, so they make it really stupid so only morons reply.
    Geez. That actually makes sense Wade. What a sick way to make a buck.
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  7. #37
    My mom died in October, as did not want to deal with a estate sale most of the stuff in the house was donated to a local spay & neuter group, Habitat for Humanity ReStore, & the Salvation Army, she had a vintage (Hobart) Kitchenaid mixer that was going to offer for sale on CL for $85 & drop to $75 if they wanted to haggle, decided did not want to deal with the hassle & just donated it, plus still have stuff in the house that needs to go so the house can be finished. She liked the spay & neuter group so I think a lot of the household goods went to the right place & stuff was gone quickly.

  8. #38
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Minneapolis, MN
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    5,427
    Quote Originally Posted by Wade Lippman View Post
    Lets not forget there are CL buyer morons.

    My son listed a xylophone and then went off to college, so I handled it for him. A guy came out with his 10 year old son to look at it. His son loved it, so the guy offered me 75%. I declined. He said I had to give him a big discount because he had driven 45 minutes to get it. I again declined. He said it was just as well, because there was a much cheaper one right near him he would get. So he drives 90 minutes for nothing, his son misses out on a promised xylophone and thinks his father is an idiot, and I sell it for full price 2 days later. He wrote a very long email to my son about what a horrible person I was.
    You have to wonder why he didn't just buy the cheaper one in the first place?

    I don't get the whole thing about people expecting discounts just because they drove some distance to buy your item. A retail store doesn't adjust their prices based on how far you drove to the store. I have driven 1,000+ miles round trip to buy something listed on Craigslist. I didn't expect a discount due to distance and factored my trip cost into determining if the item is a good deal or not.

  9. #39
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Upstate NY
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Elfert View Post
    You have to wonder why he didn't just buy the cheaper one in the first place? .
    Because the cheaper one never existed.

  10. #40
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
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    Anaheim, California
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carlos Alvarez View Post
    I absolutely would never post a phone number on CL, and will never call someone who doesn't give an e-mail address. If you can't communicate intelligently by e-mail, I don't want to deal with you. Every single "must call" has resulted in idiots wasting my time. You'll get my number when we have a deal and specific time to meet. But then, I do answer my e-mails.
    True that.

    Then again, I wouldn't mind putting up the phone number if people would respect the 'text only' box instead of calling.
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

  11. #41
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Menomonee Falls, WI
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malcolm Schweizer View Post
    IMy favorite is the guy renting an apartment in St. Thomas. The ad said rent included snow plowing the driveway in winter. If it ever snows here, there is another ice age.
    Maybe was in St Thomas Ontario?

  12. #42
    When my wife was looking for a puppy, I wanted to slap some pet "adoption" outfits. They post a picture and give a rosey description and then once you see the animal in person, then they tell you for the first time, that they want a $500 "re-homing fee"

  13. #43
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    Mar 2003
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    SE PA - Central Bucks County
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    65,685
    Quote Originally Posted by Lee DeRaud View Post
    True that.

    Then again, I wouldn't mind putting up the phone number if people would respect the 'text only' box instead of calling.
    You could do a free Google Voice number to receive texts and not have it "ring" on your phone if someone "calls"...
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  14. #44
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    Mar 2005
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    Quote Originally Posted by W Craig Wilson View Post
    Maybe was in St Thomas Ontario?
    The ambiguity between CA (Canada) and CA (California) still jumps up and bites me in the butt every so often, especially when interacting with people back east.
    Doesn't help a bit that there's a city named "Ontario" about 20 miles away...
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

  15. #45
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Anaheim, California
    Posts
    6,903
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Becker View Post
    You could do a free Google Voice number to receive texts and not have it "ring" on your phone if someone "calls"...
    I'll try to remember that one next time I use CL.

    But after a long career of dealing with nonstandard standards, the idea of that sort of interoperability actually working still strikes me as improbable.
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

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