Fun story. I once put my car on a site called lease busters because my ex and I were looking to get a bigger vehicle and there was 3 years left on the lease.
It’s long lost to time but I had a dude message me saying he would be willing to take the lease but said I could keep the car and insurance under my name.
Like what in the absolute fuck?!
I have bids turned off on eBay for this reason. The only thing you ever get is low ball offers. Yes, I know you can set a lowerbound limit.
Now that I have bids turned off, or if someone wants to underbid the setpoint, that makes the lowballers message me instead. Usually with an insulting poorly spelled paragraph attached, or some sob story. Or both. But since they messaged you, that means you can block them. So, goodbye.
I can’t tell if this is a shitty seller or shitty bidder. It could be a 25 dollar item the seller thinks is worth 350, or it could just be someone looking for a score.
If I’m making a serious bid I take 10-20% off max.
Don’t take low ball offers personally. There are serious bids that deserve conversation and then those that don’t. Move on.
But if you keep getting nothing, maybe you’re the issue.
I used to offload used electronics on CraigsList. I would deeply discount to prevent people from wanting a refund. Then every offer was like this screenshot. I gave up and now I environmentally recycle perfectly good gear that someone could have enjoyed.
Huh. Usually refurb them and offer them up for free. E-waste recycling is a fancy term in my area for “trucking it across the country to a port, loading it on a boat, shipping it across the ocean and then having a 6yr old without PPE burn it and bury it.” Honestly, throwing it in a landfill is less damaging at that point.
The funny thing is that you think everyone else is the problem when zero legit offers means its virtually certain your asking price was nonsense.
People with used obsolete goods often have expectations of value pegged to what they originally paid for it rather than what it’s worth.
Search your own or similar good on markets to see what other people are paying for similar or better goods.
Is Amazon selling something for 20 similar to what you paid 50 for 5 years ago? Shipped to your door tomorrow for free? Well then nobody is driving an hour out to your place next Tues to pay you 25.
There’s a lot of people that think 95% of what they paid is a good discount.
If you actually want to sell something mark it at 50% of retail, because that’s the area most things are worth.
I’m downsizing and have a lot of stuff in marketplaces. I generally price at about 50%, plus 10-15% for haggling. I won’t go lower. When someone lowballs, I don’t waste a minute replying.
Correct the low ballers don’t come up they are pure time wasters
Fuck you. I didn’t leave my goods up for a week and only get shitty bids. I stopped posting when the first bid on day one was insulting. You don’t know shit.
Then every offer was like this screenshot. I gave up and now I environmentally recycle perfectly good gear that someone could have enjoyed.
didn’t leave my goods up for a week and only get shitty bids. I stopped posting when the first bid on day one was insulting
Were you lying then or were you lying now?
If you’re offloading electronics that are going to ewaste center why not accept a $20 offer? Im genuinely interested because i often bid 5-20 on things i consider e waste and people reject it and continue trying to sell it for $100
I was already deeply discounting. I also give hardware away to friends and family (my old Synology NAS just got a new home with a friend). But for strangers to underbid so hard is fucking insulting. I am generous. I am not someone of which to take advantage.
I was already deeply discounting
How in the world would anyone know that!? I’m in IT, use Linux, etc, and still have absolutely no idea what that Synology NAS is worth. Uninformed people are probably even worse, especially for older electronics.
Choosing to be insulted because someone didn’t bid what you think they should have when there’s such a huge variance is wild to me…
Offering $20 on an item priced at $400 (for example) is not someone not knowing the approximate price. It’s someone looking to get a steal.
Do you know the phrase cut your nose to spite your face?
I’m pretty sick of people treating this like I’m harming myself or the market by refusing to let strangers take advantage of me. Get fucked.
Classy…
Okay, I’ll get fucked for $350 or you can submit your best offer.
Nah.
But if noone is buying it for a price higher than the low ball offers, maybe those aren’t low ball offers?
If I’m selling a thousand dollar PC (that’s a year old) and someone offers me $50, that’s a shit offer. Like the image that headed this post.
Who determines that it’s worth $1000? 😅
I tried to give away a clothes dryer one time and no one wanted it. Put it up for $30 and the offers came flying in.
I figured it’s an issue with hagglers that haggle for haggling sake, and not about the value of the item.
If I want to sell something on marketplace, I put the price up, because I know somebody will ask for a big discount for a quick sale. I’m happy to move this faded couch set for $100, then I’m listing it for $200… and selling it for $100 to a person who offers to pick it up, too.
It’s that kind of reasoning and makes haggling pointless imo, because sellers either don’t take your lowball or they knew you’d lowball and charged high to start with so they have room to negotiate.
But as that one JC Penny guy accidentally proved, people love the illusion of good deals more than they love good value.
well there’s a bit of human psychology at play here. if you see an item listed for lower than market value the seller has already implicitly devalued the item in the listing to the audience. it isn’t surprising some rational agents would then proceed to either ignore the listing out of fear of low quality or attempt to haggle for a lower price due to the already admittedly lesser value of the merchandise. it doesn’t make objective sense at all, i agree, but it makes a whole lot of systemic sense.
edit: idk maybe this is part of why sales signs are always so flashy?? they try to get dopamine and shit flowing to overcome this initial reaction? maybe you could emulate that with your listings somehow next time. i hate the hype culture too but ig you gotta play the game.
edit pt2: i also have a bunch of stuff in my collection if you ever wanna trade! not to be weird or soliciting or anything. always like seeing what people have in their curios.
Very similar boat. I just find neighborhood kids and nieces and nephews and give it to them to play with. My nephew now has a test machine instead of destroying his main laptop with crap.
Why not switch to a different platform? The screenshot in the post looks like eBay and I’m pretty sure you can disable the offers option there.
Understandable but people like you are the problem. You are so petty you’d rather take a loss on the item than sell at a price that matches demand.
Ha!!! The issue is that people are not willing to pay the price that matches demand. You could list it for 20% of the going rate and still have people offer you pennies. This negging method has become a side hussle.
The last 3 things I sold online all got sold in a day for roughly what I asked for, but for every good offer there are at least 10 of these scams. Its why I now use a local auction to dump unused stuff, I don’t need the threats and bullshit.
The issue is that people are not willing to pay the price that matches demand.
Uh… doesn’t that just mean that the price doesn’t match demand?
No that is what you are missing, there is a bunch of people who do nothing but gaslight to get things for next to nothing then resell later.
For example I sold a car last year for $1500, I could have maybe got more but eh that was fine. I know what the market price is more or less but I when I listed it I got about 50 offers under $100, keep in mind I could scrap it for $300.
This is a scam that has come up from online listing, these people put bullshit offers in across many many listings and some even try to threaten and trick.
I don’t mean the low ball offers. I understand that is annoying. Just mean you essentially throwing the stuff away instead of just selling it for a lower price than you wanted.
Edit: not you specifically. I realize you are not the original commenter
You HAVE to leave room for someone to ask for it $20-50 cheaper, just the way it goes. They NEED that “deal”
I used to list things rounded up a bit just for that. If I list something for $500 then I likely would take $400 for it. But when someone walks up to my house loads the thing in their truck and then knocks on my door and tries to force a $20 into my hand to buy the thing… Yeah fuck that.
I have self respect enough to take a loss rather than be taken advantage.
Wut?
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You replied to the wrong person methinks.
Yes
I once had some dude offer me $2K under blue book for a car and then taunt me when I told him it wasn’t a serious offer. “yeah right like you’re ever going to get that for it” he said. Got that price within a week and since I’m petty sometimes, I let him know
On the rare occasion that I make an offer for something it will be very low because that is what I’m willing to pay to deal with the whole ‘male an offer’ process. A low bid is a low bid, not an insult.
Then it would seem you are not like the person I’m taking issue with.
I tried to edit to clarify immediately after but there might be some timer before editing.
Your guy was much of a dick about you not taking the offer as the OP seller was about getting a low budget. People who treat ‘make me an offer’ as some kind of preset range and get mad that others don’t agree make the whole offer process painful.
There’s no “preset range”, but I would agree that if something is worth anywhere near $300, an offer of $20 is akin to saying “come on stranger, I want this for free”
In my experience people will often offer $20 for anything worth up to $1000 and as little as $50, any less and they want it delivered for free.
The number of people who offered me $20 for my $1200 TV was staggering, and one woman wanted me to pay her to take my beanbag chairs.
That is some brazen shit.
Odds are just as high that the example $360 is an insultingly inflated price just like the $20 is likely to be far lower than what someone else is willing to spend on whatever is being sold.
I gave up on marketplaces years ago after looking for a reasonably priced PS3. The number of people who thought their original model with 7 Madden games was worth $500 was absurd.
Maybe I just tune out the high prices, but I don’t notice as much of that
It’s an insult you are too ignorant to understand is an insult. You wasted their time with your bs
If people don’t want to be ‘insulted’ by low offer then they shouldn’t present it in a format that allows for offers that are ‘too low’. It would take less time to reject the bid they allowed to happen than to write a response.
I have personally purchased at least one thing for 10% of the asking price (around $500) because I was the only one who wanted it and they wanted to get rid of it. That was what it was worth to me, I wasn’t trying to haggle or anything, just made an offhand offer when walking by.
None of this makes you any less of an asshole
Seems fair.
Fair? I’ll have you know that that spoon was once in a window through which a Duke once browsed. An actual Duke!
At least he isn’t offering $0. When I put things for sale I occasionally get people PMing me begging to get the item for free and occasionally writing 200 word sob stories.
Do they ask for delivery 40 minutes away too. Then get mad when you say no
I had some leftover diapers from one of those giant boxes you get from Sam’s/costco. The bag was sealed. Easily about 40 diapers. I was giving them away for free. 3 separate people asked to meet up on the other side of town. I said sure but I’ll have to charge you $5 for gas. They all ghosted me after that. 🤣
Like come on I’m already taking a loss on these I’m not gonna pay money to give them away.
You mean 200 word AI results?
Reply with a 600 word sob story
that’s when you send the new offer of a whopping $21.37 and add “I’ll even throw in half a jimmy johns sammich if you accept in the next 30 minutes”
Then five minutes later, “The sandwich is no longer on the table. You may smell the wrapper.”
The sandwich is no longer on the table
Is this the art of the deal?
And about two gulps left in the drink. Is it coke? Diet coke.
that’s when you send the new offer of a whopping $21.37
Pffft. Next offer goes in at $19.50
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Weird. That works all the time on Pawn Stars
We just got an offer for a conglomerate worth €700, that we had put in for €350. The first offer was someone who only wanted some of it (basically all of the good parts, which is 90% of the value), and only offered €100.
Ironically, the bid was for a gun which the buyer wanted to shoot himself with.
In the offerers defense that is probably a price at or above current retail for a product with massive deprecation and in moderate to good condition.
When we were looking for a house, we put an offer in on one and the seller replied that they thought the offer was “insulting”. We thought that was rude but it was nothing compared to this.
I put in an offer on a house that had been on the market for months at 97% of their asking price. I was pretty familiar with the market, and the offer was probably more than the house was worth, but I had seen 80ish homes by that point, and this was by far the best fit. It was still very much a buyer’s market at this time, and people would crow about getting offers so close to their asking price. Well, my realtor came back and told me the guy said my offer made his wife cry and they refused to negotiate further. Well ok, I moved on. About six weeks later they came back and asked if my offer was still good. I guess they finally got another offer and it was much lower. We did close the sale, but I found out later that his selling agent said he was one of those nightmare clients that just had totally unrealistic expectations about the whole process. Facebook marketplace is basically this without the agents to facilitate the process, so its pretty messy at times.
A friend of mine put in a offer on a house a year ago - at their asking price - and got a similar response. Like don’t make that your asking price if you’re going to get angry when people offer that? But I guess all the houses around that area were selling above asking and they probably already had much higher offers, still doesn’t excuse them being a dick.
We bid 10k under asking price because the owner ripped the place up and it needed tons of work. They said they would not accept any offers under asking. We thought about it and decided the house was in the perfect location and made the offer at asking price. They also were not happy about that because this was in 2021 and everything was selling for a ton over asking price. Thing is, those houses you could move into with minimal changes. This house needed abatement and a gutted bathroom and kitchen. We were the only offer and they begrudgingly accepted and tried every which way to nickel and dime us before closing.
Some sellers are delusional and think their house is special and that it will sell for more than they list, even expect it.
There have been times where I made an offer and the seller countered and based on their contingencies, I got the vibe that they were going to be an asshole through closing.
One seller even threatened to sue even though I was fully within my rights to walk away. My response to my agent was “tell them to serve me papers.”
Never heard from them again.
Jesus wept. “Let me sue someone for not treating this ruinous housing bubble like I’m royalty for deigning to receive offers of fabulous wealth”.
I’m so glad we got our offer accepted before the market went bananas. The sellers were a retired couple offloading their rental properties and when accepting the offer asked to delay the actual sale for a few months so that it would occur in the next calendar year. In that time frame interest rates continued to fall and the housing market rapidly heated up so we got our house at a lower rate and lower price than we should have. It also doubled in value over the following 3 years thanks to the hyperinflation and overheated housing market of 2021-22
People have overbid 10-20% or even more here in NL in the last few months for all kind of houses and apartments. Including once that need a ton of work.
probably
Based on… ? My experience indicates more of an issue with people basically wanting free stuff. I had a woman once haggle me over a refurbished in-box phone that sold new for $600 at the time. $100 (which she already had agreed to) was worth haggling over. Like do you want it for free?
Bro, it’s even worse if you try and give away stuff for free. I tried for months to offload a sectional that I had no room for in my house and I got so many fucking bullshit calls about it. Finally, I decided that it wasn’t worth selling and I was just trying to avoid paying a fee to dispose of it, so I relisted it for free. It was FREE and I had people get upset that my one condition was that they take it away on their own. I would go whatever it took to get them to take it - I’ll shrink wrap it, I’ll put each piece on a pallet, I’ll even help them lift it onto their van or truck. Even if it takes them multiple trips. But I wasn’t about to go rent a truck to deliver it to them if they weren’t going to pay for it.
The description was very clear, but every reply was “I want it, but can you deliver it to me?”. When I told them no, they’d always get aggressive and call off the “deal”, as if I care that they don’t want the thing I’m giving away for free. The people who did agree to come get it never showed up, which made it frustrating since I would have to take off time from work to be home.
I’ve basically given up on trying to use online marketplaces to sell used things. They’ve been completely taken over by the most frugal cunts imaginable.
You should have listed it for cheap but let them have it for free if they come get it right away.
They would have felt like they were getting over on you and you would have avoided the worst of the assholes
I’ve always heard this is the right move. List the item for next to nothing then either accept the $20 or just give it to the person for free if they don’t hassle you too much
I guess I just don’t understand the way they think. I once gave away an old bike for free on craigslist and the lady who came to pick it up was super nice, she even gave me a bottle of wine in exchange, and she totally didn’t have to do that. I miss interactions like that. I wish people didn’t always feel like they need to get a deal when bargaining for secondhand stuff online.
Why wouldn’t they when it works
I have had somewhat similar experiences at times, but not as bad as yours I think. My worst one was this woman who kept claiming to almost have arrived as I stood outside in below-freezing temperatures for over 20 minutes to give her free stuff.
Finally left the item on the sidewalk and went inside. 40 minutes later she sent a text thanking me for it. I don’t understand why she lied over and over about her location. So stupid and inconsiderate.
