Rant What is it with buyers on eBay?

I'm in the process of selling some camera gear on eBay and the almost constant messages I'm receiving offering me ridiculously low prices are starting to really get on my nerves. The best so far have been a chap offer me £80 for lens worth at least £100, which I turned down, only to then have another message a day later from the same chap saying "£60 i will buy instantly thanks" (yes that's right - £20 lower than his initial offer). Then this morning I wake up to find another chap offering £150 including postage for two lenses that are worth at least £250... (one alone should sell for £150 plus postage)

 

You just have to ignore these. Even if you accept the offer they just disappear. Or allow best offer to be sent and have it auto-reject at stupid levels.

 

I have had pretty much the same issues on Gumtree (gave up eBay years ago), I guess thats just the way things are these days.

 

I have accepted offers like this in the past (which is a bit naughty I know) but only when people have offered sensible amounts. It's just gettin on me wick that's all

 

People seem to want everything for nothing on eBay and Facebook is even worse.

Guy shows an interest in a mobo, CPU and ram combo, asks me if I will post it, I say no but he is from minehead and I'm going there on friday so I can drop it off. Then says he is only interested in the mobo so initially I say no as I don't want to split but relent and offer it at a reduced price hand delivered to his door.

Haven't heard anything since, I only wanted £15 so how much did he think he was going to get it for when in the first instance he wanted it posted which obviously would have cost more money.

He also stated he didn't have the money to buy the whole combo but within hours he had placed a wanted ad for an £80 processor and showed interest in a £225 GPU.

Not going to use Facebook to sell anymore it's full of people taking the p!ss.

 

To me, it's a case of you don't ask... you don't get!

Got the two CPUs in my sig for £110 delivered using best offer. Seller was originally asking £120 each

 

^ Fair enough - although I hope that if you had an offer turned down then you wouldn't come back with a lower counter-offer!

 

I try and avoid selling high value items on ebay.

Bunch of chancers and piss takers.

 

Gumtree is the same but I usually get what I want by being brutal with people. I will take control if there's a sale going on and it usually comes with a - "And if you come to my house with one penny less I shall be showing you the door".

And it seems to have worked well. However, I hate selling things for these reasons so I usually give lower value items away and just sell the higher value ones all in one go to take the sting out of it.

Had a funny one a couple of weeks back. Put the Fury X Up on Gumtree for £270. Got an offer of £230. He used all of the usual tactics like "It's not worth more than that etc" I replied and said "Well I have already had a firm offer of £250 so you will have to beat that" to which he replied (after being all cheeky) "But I only have £230".

Hahaha like it was my problem.

 

I had a double din headunit on with a make offer option but still got emails with silly offers!

I don't like doing stuff through ebay messages but for I got a decent offer for it so just took it off ebay and discussed privately, worked out well but the guy seemed genuinely decent, most seem to be p**s takers.

But like TheStockBroker said, you don't ask you don't get, it's the nature of buying and selling.

I do like winding up the idiot chancers though

 

I'm really not bothered about even very silly offers. I just have a couple of stock polite-but-firm responses which take no time to send off. I pay them no heed.

The bother of firing off a few quick refusals to chancers doesn't even register compared with the worry that I might get screwed by the buyer/ebay/paypal post sale.

 

Anything I list on Ebay has two things written at the bottom of the listing.

Postage within the UK only.
Buy It Now requests will be ignored.

Just sold a bunch of Oakleys on Ebay, got stupid low ball buy it now requests and requests to post to everywhere from Lithuania to Chile.

These were all read and then deleted without response. The world is full of chancers and time wasters, they aren't even worth telling to go away.

The one message asking for serial numbers on the X-Metal frames got a polite response and I updated the listings to show them. Real questions get real answers.

 

I don't use ebay to sell anything anymore. By the time they take a cut for commission, listing fee and then take a cut from postage it really isn't worth all the hassle or bother of selling.

Same goes with local groups on FaceBook, I listed a Samsung soundbar for £130, I got some really silly offers on it. One guy offered me £30 ! It just seems to be a culture of offering people silly amounts before they see the goods on those groups, I had something listed before, the price was agreed before the guy came to buy it only for him to offer me another £20 off the agreed price.

He was told rather nicely he either stuck to what was agreed or leave without it - he left without it.

 

There's an element of ego in it. It's only worth buying if they can screw you out of a few bucks.

 

The worst is when they persist, after you declined their offer... I just put those in my blocked list.

 

Absolutely. My favorite nutcases are those who feel insulted because you refused their offer...

 

Hi,



would you consider shipping to Canada?



Best regards. loll

 

That's nothing. I needed a new laser measure for work, so I had a couple in my watchlist. One of them sold for over £400 - £100 more than Screwfix charge!

 

You can get lucky both ways in ebay; not sure how. I have both bought cheaply and sold well, but there's no rhyme or reason why tho'.

Annoying buyers rant:

Selling floor standing speakers on eBay (ended today), marked collection only. Couple of people asking this am whether I could send, even though I marked them too fragile/heavy to send and therefore collection only.

Selling an item on Gumtree. Guy emails and says he'll collect. Emailed again this morning when I was driving, so couldn't reply.
Before I could get back to him, he turned up at my house (looked at which road I live in on Gumtree map) and started hassling my wife as to why I didn't get back to him and tell him my address before we'd agreed a collection time.
He paid for the goods and left before I got home, not happy that he randomly piched up and gave my wife the 3rd degree.

/Grrrrrrr