People that make you an offer on gear you have for sale and then vanish

ZipGun68 said:
The worst are the clowns that your coordinate a price with, when they arrive they pull the old "I could only pull this much from the ATM" scam. I've had to get rid of a few of those.
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I had that once. I responded with “then you just wasted a lot of time getting here”, and he immediately “discovered” he has another $50.
 
I don’t do free - none of that commie BS, it attracts freeloaders. I’ve found that setting a low nonzero price for things I want to get rid of gets a more reasonable set of folks. If I can’t get $10 for something, I’ll just throw it away.
 
Well, spank my ass and call me Charlie. Now I have to eat crow. I posted my Nashville Tele on CL about 10:00 this morning. Within about 2 hours all the shitposters had knocked me off the front page. About 4:00, a guy sent me an email with a reasonable offer and said he could meet anytime. I said how about 5:30. He showld up, checked it out, handed me the money and we were on our way. Just the way I do it when I'm buying. Sometimes you do get lucky.
 
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plexi59 said:
I don’t do free - none of that commie BS, it attracts freeloaders. I’ve found that setting a low nonzero price for things I want to get rid of gets a more reasonable set of folks. If I can’t get $10 for something, I’ll just throw it away.
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Yeah, I agree with that one. Free also brings out the folks that want you to hold it for them and never show up either. When something's time is up with me, I push it to the road and it is gone in a few hours. Especially anything metal.
 
pharmd07 said:
Years ago, this would happen to me every single f*cking time I sold anything on eBay. It was especially bad when selling guitar amps. A buyer would win an auction, and that would be the last I ever heard from them. I usually had to list an amp at least 3 times due to this.

I haven’t used eBay in years. I got tired of that crap.
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I'm flabbergasted you can actually flake on a eBay buy. How is that even possible without getting black marks?
bikertrash said:
Well, spank my ass and call me Charlie. Now I have to eat crow. I posted my Nashville Tele on CL about 10:00 this morning. Within about 2 hours all the shitposters had knocked me off the front page. About 4:00, a guy sent me an email with a reasonable offer and said he could meet anytime. I said how about 5:30. He showld up, checked it out, handed me the money and we were on our way. Just the way I do it when I'm buying. Sometimes you do get lucky.
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Business the way it should be.

I remember in the early 90's that when you advertised something, people would actually show up. And I noticed that in the late 90's/early 00's ghosting became a thing. Because that was when you no longer reacted to advertisements by phoning people and make an appointment, but by email. And it seemed to me that most people thought that unlike with a telephone, where you talked to a real human, with email that other person was just ones and zeroes. So they felt less remorse ghosting on somebody they had no actual human interaction with.
 
Muad'zin said:
I'm flabbergasted you can actually flake on a eBay buy. How is that even possible without getting black marks?

Business the way it should be.

I remember in the early 90's that when you advertised something, people would actually show up. And I noticed that in the late 90's/early 00's ghosting became a thing. Because that was when you no longer reacted to advertisements by phoning people and make an appointment, but by email. And it seemed to me that most people thought that unlike with a telephone, where you talked to a real human, with email that other person was just ones and zeroes. So they felt less remorse ghosting on somebody they had no actual human interaction with.
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I guess people just don't care if they get negative marks on their eBay profile.
 
Semi-OT, but the drummer in my band sells a lot of stuff on Craigslist and eBay. He puts this disclaimer at the end of every listing. (And he's not joking...he loves to make life hell for scammers, lol.)

Scammers: I will happily send you on a wild goose chase unlike any other you have ever been on before. I am merciless. I will lie to you and give you some ridiculous price like $8,000 for these mugs. I will make you waste your money on a check sent to me via UPS. Once I have your check, I will act stupid and make you explain 10 times how to send a Money Gram. I will then lie to you and tell you I sent it. After 3 or 4 failed attempts, I will ask you if Western Union is okay, at which point I will send you on yet ANOTHER wild goose chase with false Western Union numbers. All this time I will be laughing and sharing screen captures of your email, text messages and bogus checks on Facebook. We will all laugh our asses off at your expense. When I am done I will toss the check and the UPS envelope into a large pile that I use to teach my computer class students how transparent your stupid scam is. So if you really want to go through all this crap, please feel free to text me that you want to know "the condition of the item." I will be happy to tell you that "the item" is in mint condition. Go ahead. Make my day.
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Some people just love to answer ads. I don't understand it, it's just annoying, but some people do. I also wonder why it's so rare for someone to just offer you're asking price without trying to haggle like it's a Moroccan bazaar. I normally research the going price for my item beforehand. I will usually ask towards the lower end of what the item is selling for.

The worst is the constant trade offers. The asking "is this item still available?" and the buyers who pester you with questions that could easily be answered by a Google search. That's why I include a link to the spec sheet for the item I'm selling. I figure even still, 50% of local buyers can't read, so while this cuts down on the annoyances, it doesn't completely get rid of them.

My favorites are the ones who ask, "What's the lowest you'll take for this item?" Um, you're fucking asking me to haggle against myself? Are you high? I normally just refer them to my asking price. Last time this happened, the guy offered $30 less and I told him, "Well, good luck on your search. If you change your mind, let me know." A couple of days later he came back and agreed to pay my price. Sometimes it works that way, other times they vanish. I have no patience for shenanigans.
 
Kamil Kisiel said:
I've definitely noticed this way more with guitar gear than anything else. Synths are the best, usually when people contact me about synth gear they will usually agree to buy right there and be done with it. Studio gear is little bit more haggly, but guitar stuff by far has the highest number of flakes and tire kickers. I'm trying to sell a couple of RGs right now and I frequently get messages on Facebook that are just like "Heyyy mannn,.. sweeeet axe! I don't have the money for it right now, but maybe some day!!". Like.. I'm glad you're enthused about my guitars, but if you're not gonna buy it don't waste my time.
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Spot on about synth gear. I've had guys drive down from LA for gear, and a lot of time, we end up shooting the shit for 3 hours after the deal. They are definitely real enthusiasts. I've had some guitarists like this too, but it's definitely more difficult to sell.

Also depends what it is and where you are. My local market sucks for guitars. I've flat missed all kinds of gear I've been looking for on Reverb. People are buying the living shit out of gear on there right now.
 
ZipGun68 said:
The worst are the clowns that your coordinate a price with, when they arrive they pull the old "I could only pull this much from the ATM" scam. I've had to get rid of a few of those.
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I've taken to actually confirming that they are cool with the asking price. I've had a lot of people say they want something, then you get there and they are trying to negotiate it down. A lot of time they vanish at this point and I've saved myself a lot of hassle.
 
Yes. That is why I used to advocate for my main forum to privatize. I said the only way to make it safe here is if you make every member a referral. Now the admin wanted more web traffic as he ultimately would sell out and sell the site simply for the name after its reputation was solidified but its too bad. What was once a vibrant and great community, with a straggler or stranger who trolled every once and again naturally, degraded into a Russian owned disguised ad-as-your-friend type website forum with 95% Russian bots. It's a shame but I really think reference codes or referral invitations are the only way to make private forums or groups legitimately private.

I also support fees or dues. Not a lot, and not like regularly, but no one is going to fuck around and make a spam/troll account if they have to (a)put money down and (b)if they aren't "really good"scammers, they won't want to put their info down

So please, don't do it just yet, but definitely, by the time Cygnus is the standard and the updates need to be done for it - start charging anyone after that release....IOW retroactively, all members are grandfathered in, but any new members after the final Cygnus firmware option (non-beta) - start either charging a $10 fee OR FREE ACCESS WITH PROOF OF PURCHASE - like every Axe fx 3 would come with a unique personal code to enter so you can join the forum as a legit owner

I think these are fn great ideas - so whoever runs this site, please feel free to ask me for more help
 
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