Flaky Craigslisters

[TromboneAl]

Help me to understand some of the people who sell things on Craigslist.

On May 20, I see a dresser that we are interested, selling for $300. I email him saying I'm interested if there's no musty smell, and also leave a phone message. I do this several times, and leave several messages. No response. And then today, I see the item reposted for $275.

On another dresser, I send an email within an hour of its posting. The person calls me four days later. I understand that not every checks their email every day, but you'd think if you had something on craigslist...

 

[REWahoo]

Al, I've had some similar experiences on Craigslist. Unfortunately I don't think what you are describing is limited to Craigslisters - the world is full of kooks who don't behave in rational ways.

 

[Amethyst]

Well, if they had to pay $50 to $100.00 for a newspaper ad, they'd have some skin in the game, and would think twice about listing something they don't really care about one way or the other.

Since anyone can post anything on Craigslist for free, there is no real penalty for people who list stuff, then get distracted and forget to police their listings. (Other than the penalty of not selling their stuff quickly).

Amethyst

 

[Nords]

Help me to understand some of the people who sell things on Craigslist.
On May 20, I see a dresser that we are interested, selling for $300. I email him saying I'm interested if there's no musty smell, and also leave a phone message. I do this several times, and leave several messages. No response. And then today, I see the item reposted for $275.
On another dresser, I send an email within an hour of its posting. The person calls me four days later. I understand that not every checks their email every day, but you'd think if you had something on craigslist...

This is the part of Craigslist that makes it worth exactly what we pay for it.

The first guy probably doesn't know how to check his spam filter-- it never seems to occur to them that they're going to get e-mails from people they've never heard of. But that doesn't explain his lack of response to your voicemail. Maybe, like our teen, they ignore calls from numbers they don't recognize.

Many sellers will not respond to any of your contact attempts until they've worked through all the other buyers first. I have no idea why they do this-- my feeling is that sellers should promptly respond to everyone and let the buyers race each other to complete the deal.

I usually respond as briefly as possible with "We'd like to take a look at your ____. Please let us know when & where." I don't ask any questions or make any other comments unless it's absolutely essential to our research-- for example I'll ask them to provide dimensions, brand, or model # if I'm trying to figure out whether it fits or what it's worth. Even then their response is frequently worthless-- their dimensions don't match the website data or they provide the SKU instead of a model #. It's hard to understand how they got the ad up on Craigslist in the first place.

The payoff is that no one else has the patience to deal with these alleged "sellers" either. One of our greatest Craigslist bargains came from an absolutely incompetent young adult. She was a gofer for a contractor doing a kitchen renovation, and when the client changed the specs she'd been told to get rid of a custom refrigerator. She didn't respond to our queries for nearly three weeks, she'd dropped the price by over half since then, and she ended up selling us a $2800 (retail) fridge for $750. But she couldn't use a tape measure or find a model #, and when we finally got it in our kitchen we were almost sure that the police would be following up.

I've also learned not to ask leading questions like "Is it shorter than 50"? or "Do you have a Kenmore?"

 

[youbet]

I generally note very high prices on Craigs List here in the Chicago area. Oh, bargains pop up from time to time. But the listings are packed with high priced junk that folks just keep relisting again and again hoping for a sucker. If it wasn't for the search function which can help weed though all the crap, I'd never waste my time scanning the listings.

I've had one good experience with Craig's List. I gave away a couch. Two young fellows came to pick it up for their college apartment. While they were here, they nicely helped me move some heavy furniture around. It only took about ten minutes, but it really helped me.

 

[calmloki]

What ticks me off are the robo answers. Posted this ad yesterday:
"Looking for a good solid six cylinder BMW station wagon to replace my older BMW touring. Looking for a 1999 to 2002 525 or 528 touring from a private party, hopefully a long time owner. Sound car only, not looking to buy your problems. Non-smoker's car. I'm a private party cash buyer, not looking to trade you anything, not shopping depending on my ability to get a loan. Just a simple straight-up cash purchase of a good quality car. Will pay Edmunds private party True Market Value for your car - look the value up yourself online. If you have the car I want, in the condition you say, we both get a quick, no-dicker sale. I get the car I want without playing games, you get a fast easy sale, fair price is set by a disinterested party. We both win. Sound reasonable?
"web site called Edmunds - dang right I'm serious but ok" ** car shoppers - good ammo, er, info: http://www.edmunds.com/tmv/index.html **

Got a short inarticulate answer this morning, which I responded to, because I'm shopping for a car, not a penpal, and got this robo-ad:
"You don’t have to sell this!

I used to sell stuff on CL just like you are doing to pay my bills. I ended up realizing a lot of people get ripped off, its over-all NOT SAFE anymore to meet people from Craigslist. A friend of mine told me about an amazing website and said I should check it out so I did. I made about $4000 last month. I’m making more than I was at my regular job. If you want to try it visit http://www.blahblahblah [MOD EDITED]

If you need help getting started please let me know".

 

[REWahoo]

Hey calmloki, how about editing your post to remove the live google link. Someone might misread your post and think you are serious...

 

[calmloki]

Hey calmloki, how about editing your post to remove the live google link. Someone might misread your post and think you are serious...

Yer too fast for me - I did but you got it first. Car shoppers may enjoy using the Edmunds TMV site to check car prices BTW. no affiliation.

AHH! I get it - you were talking about Robo-lad's site! Not the Edmunds site I listed. I didn't bother going to Robo-boy's site - didn't occur to me anyone really would.

 

[REWahoo]

It wasn't me, it was one of Andy's crack mods (they swear they'll stop smoking any day now) who made the change.

 

[Gumby]

Yeah, that was me. Robo-boy was quite a piece of work.

PS -- I can put the edmunds reference back in if you would like. It is useful.

 

[bbbamI]

On May 20, I see a dresser that we are interested, selling for $300. I email him saying I'm interested if there's no musty smell, and also leave a phone message.

Maybe there was a musty smell and he didn't want to admit it....

 

[Purron]

Maybe there was a musty smell and he didn't want to admit it....

 

[haha]

That is a good site. On Dec 31, 2005 I bought a new 2006 Subaru Impreza wagon stick. It has been a really nice trouble free, fun to drive, great snow and rain and hill traction, and inexpensive to operate car-all for depreciation of $130/mo.

That strikes me as very good performance.

Ha

 

[Gumby]

This is one of my favorite craigslist stories. Enough stupidity to last a lifetime.


Man Accused Of Placing Fake Sex Ad Gets New Charge - Courant.com

Fake Craigslist Ad For Sex Answered By Man Who Goes To Wrong West Hartford Home - Courant.com

 

[Nords]

This is one of my favorite craigslist stories. Enough stupidity to last a lifetime.

"Um, hey, honey, sorry to bother you, can you come bail me out? Yup. One phone call. Yup. Uh-hunh. Well, it's kind of embarrassing and I really don't want to talk about it right here in front of the pay phone. Uh, yeah, DUI, sure, that's it, DUI. When can you get down here? Love you!"

 

[tryan]

Flaky? you be the judge ... Dropped a large tree and posted on Craigslist that I had "free fire wood" . Took pictures of the pile, stated I didn't know what the wood was. just com'n get it!

15 responses in 4 hours ... wood was gone the next day (2 different trucks/trailers ).

Now, I said I didn't know what the wood was - and I didn't - but what I DID know was I will NEVER burn this crap in my house again. Smelled like skunk piss when it burns.

Had a lumber man in my yard a month later. So I asked him what this stump was ... he said "locus".

 

[winger]

Whenever I start feeling good about the future, I cruise around a big-city CL for a while.

Always brings me back to reality........................

 

[growing_older]

I saw a story about a craigslist ad that invited people to steal everything. They apparently did.

Local News | Tacoma woman's house emptied after craigslist hoax | Seattle Times Newspaper

 

[heyduke]

I sell stuff on craigslist all the time as I am downsizing to practically nothing... my biggest complaint are the flaky buyers... I will be there ... don;t show up etc etc ...

 

[Stevewc]

I tried several times to contact people on items I was interested in buying.
They never returned my e-mails or got back with me.
Not sure if the items were already sold or the sellers not doing what they should have.
Steve

 

[harley]

Al, I've had some similar experiences on Craigslist. Unfortunately I don't think what you are describing is limited to Craigslisters - the world is full of kooks who don't behave in rational ways.

I'm pretty sure that from a "rest of the world" point of view, this would describe most of us on this forum quite nicely.

 

[Bimmerbill]

I have similar issues. I actually change the email subject line when I respond to an ad. If not, it gets picked up as junk mail in the SPAM filter. Sometimes I get the response a few days later, and sometimes I never hear anything.

 

[ksr]

I've run into some flakes on FreeCycle, too. I've given a lot of stuff away, and I've had lots of good experiences, but a few frustrating ones too.

I always put in my ad "no phone calls please". Then I get a response from someone saying "Call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx". Yeah, right. Or a response from someone asking me for my phone number. Um, no.

But the worst are the no-shows. It happens so often that I think anyone who gives stuff away on a regular basis learns to take a couple more people as backups. I always say something like "if you find you can't get here to pickup, please send me an email so I can let the next person in line have a chance at it". If they've gone through the trouble to ask for the item, then make arrangements to pickup at a certain day and time, you would think that it wouldn't put them out too much to let me know that they can't get here to pick up the whatever-thing-I'm-giving-away-FREE.

Sorry if that sounded like a rant. I mostly find it confusing and frustrating, I don't really get angry about it.

 

[powerplay]

And then there are the downright dangerous people responding to a CL ad -

Craigslist Diamond Ring Ad Leads to Father's Murder in Home Invasion, Say Wash. State Cops - Crimesider - CBS News

This guy lost his life!!

 

[grumpy]

In April I sold my '97 Lexus on Craigslist. Dealing with the flakes was annoying (no shows, low ball offers, etc.) but I got about $2000 more for the car than CarMax was offering so it was worth the trouble. I also recently sold an old TIVO, a cable modem and wireless router, and six old dining room chairs on Craigslist. Everything sold in just a couple of days with no problems. I have also bought two laptops from Craiglist ads with no problems. Given that its free, I have no complaints.