I cant do Craigslist anymore!
 

A certain breed of buyer lingers there ,example buyer calls sets up to look at car ,finds car much to his liking ,we work out some hagleing ,not unnormal,come to a price ,needs to go to the wifey ,normal ,calls back latter that day , wifey oks deal ,on for the morning at 9am .Next day I prep the car for an hour for the trailer he said he would be bringing ,no show at 9 am, comes 11am ,no show ,call leave message , 2pm ,no show ,call leave message .I wasted a day waiting around and what really irritates me the most is the message center wall that was up .Anyone have better success elsewhere ,the CL lurkers and jurkers tells me its time to move ship.

First and foremost, it's free and has a wide reach. There are just as many bad buyers as there were when you had to pay for classified ads in the newspaper. Even "higher echelon" websites and sales forums have bad buyers, so if you don't like dealing with the public, then selling in public isn't for you. ;)

x2
No shows are a problem in most businesses of this sort. You just have to roll with the punch and not let it ruin your day. Have something else to do if they don't show. I won't stick around after fifteen minutes late. If I can call I do and tell them to call me if they are running late etc. Then I move on.

you post it here yet, need a oil burner for my daughter headed to college

Put everything in writing. Agreed price time, to complete the sale after a reasonable CASH down payment. If no cash down at agreement time it has not been sold, keep showing it. The first one with CASH down gets a very little time to complete, no wife is out of town unless he wants to buy those days with CASH say $100. per day. He looses it if it never gets sold. Or if you feel like being a nice guy and sell it fast enough return half.

Had a few PITAs (PsITA) but sold plenty also. It is amazing the way some people can flake out.

If a price has been agreed then I will ask for a deposit, say $50. No deposit, no deal and would not wait around. If no show and no communication then forfeit the deposit. Thank you very much and move on to next CL caller. CL is great but flaky. Get used to it.

Where things went wrong was you said he had to have his wife okay the deal after he negotiated it. Anyone who negotiates with me and then says "gotta run it by the wife" I delete their number out of my phone and it's on to the next.


He wasn't ready to buy when he was negotiating and he wasn't ready to buy when you were sitting around the house waiting for him.

x2

Unless it's a drop everything the steal of the century or under $500, the Wifey's going to know about it beforehand.

I determined a long time ago that the 8.8% of the unemployed population occupy their time by wasting other people's time on craigslist. What's worse is that I recognize the Email address of some of those habitual offenders as members of this forum ...You know who you are :mad:

Eat the fees and sell the stuff on ebay, you're life will be a lot less complicated.

eBay is a bunch of idiots too, but the exposure is much better, the money is bigger, and the sales are more frequent. If you look up "necessary evil" in a dictionary, you will see eBay and PayPal prominently featured.

Ebay can be frustrating but there is no viable alternative. I've had some people swindle me by breaking something on install and then filing a claim or returning things items with missing parts where you know that the missing part was all they wanted. That said, you don't spend time waiting and only have to react once you're paid. Fees are becoming obscene but it's still a better deal the CL by far.

Bottom Feeders Anonymous could be a name for a CL support group.

It works great to sell local stuff, sometimes, when it works. It fails miserably too.

Lots of other CL and eBay threads here, nothing new.

And people will be asking you to ship stuff all over creation.

International buyers pay more, I have wholesale accounts with UPS, Fedex, and USPS, turn shipping into a profit center. I PRINT money sending parts all over gods creation. "Seller ships overseas" is the goose that lays the golden egg on eBay. More than half of my sales are overseas.