Craigslist..Argggghhh!!!

[skooter65]

I am so sick and tired of scammers on Craigslist. The frequency of bogus listings and e-mails has increased triple fold over the past few years. I can't seem to list a single item without receiving at least 10 e-mails suggesting that I "make a living working at home", or "Please verify the amount of insurance by clicking the provided link". The one that threw me over the top today was a guy posing as a Marine getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan. What the hell is wrong with people?

If the program wasn't so useful (in most cases...) I don't even think I would use it anymore. I would be willing to pay a fee in order to get a better monitoring system so I didn't have to filter though 30 bogus e-mails to find the 1 real one.

That's my rant for the day.

 

[lonesoldier84]

kijiji

^

 

[BH322893]

i feel ya, I posted on there looking for a logo design and clearly stated I didn't have a lot of money to spend but would barter my services. I got bids ranging upwards of $500-700 then when I kindly told them they were out of my budget got a few nasty emails back. Then my post got flagged and deleted, jerks!

 

[Geoff]

My favorite is "I would like to buy this item; however, I am temporarily out of the country in Africa and would gladly pay extra shipping." After I have specifically written "No shipping, local deals only."

 

[reiobard]

My favorite is "I would like to buy this item; however, I am temporarily out of the country in Africa and would gladly pay extra shipping." After I have specifically written "No shipping, local deals only."

Dude, i was seriously moving to Africa, I am apparently the heir to the throne to (insert unheard of country here). In return for you allowing me to buy your bike, would you please accept a check for 85 kabillion dollars and then send me back 75 Kabillion dollars so that i may purchase my plane ticket. I will also make you a royal guest in palace whenever you visit. and please keep the 5 Kabillion dollars as payment for your patience.

 

[Hellgate]

I can't stand CL. I've tried to sell several things, at reasonable prices and after I sort through the spam and find a real buyer, they then offer 50% of what I'm asking. Forget it. I'd rather give it to Goodwill and take the tax write off.

 

[Erci]

I used to use eBay to sell all my stuff, but they hiked their rates up to NINE percent from three!!
On top of that, they force you to use PayPal and they take the fee of entire sale (not the what you get back after they take 9%). So.. on my last sale, I ended up losing SEVENTEEN percent!! Still better than CL, I guess.

 

[Hellgate]

Good point Erci. I used to use Ebay all the time but the fees are crazy. Have you noticed that the number of items in a given group seem to be smaller? For instance ALL motorcycles is only about 8,300?

 

[AngelFZ]

So far I have been lucky using Craiglist.

I have also been lucky with the email, even though, it has never been trash free

 

[Tailgate]

I used to use eBay to sell all my stuff, but they hiked their rates up to NINE percent from three!!
On top of that, they force you to use PayPal and they take the fee of entire sale (not the what you get back after they take 9%). So.. on my last sale, I ended up losing SEVENTEEN percent!! Still better than CL, I guess.

Meg Whitman, BILLIONAIRE and former CEO of ebay, just won the CA primary gubernatorial election. She spent something like 60 million dollars of her own money on the campaign! I wonder what she paid ebay employees, probably illegal immigrant wages?

 

[philosopheriam]

I used to use eBay to sell all my stuff, but they hiked their rates up to NINE percent from three!!
On top of that, they force you to use PayPal and they take the fee of entire sale (not the what you get back after they take 9%). So.. on my last sale, I ended up losing SEVENTEEN percent!! Still better than CL, I guess.

I just sold a laptop on Ebay for $550 - long story short, listing fees + final auction fees totaled just over $50 - WHAT THE F**K????

Also, the buyer paid with a C/C via PayPal, So I got dinged almost another $20 in credit card fees. Then PayPal held my funds for 21 days...

So, in total, almost $70 in fees and my money was held for 21 days - I'll deal with the BS on Craigslist, because Ebay will no longer be receiving my business. My last Ebay selling experience made me feel like I got sodomized without any lube...

 

[skooter65]

I just sold a laptop on Ebay for $550 - long story short, listing fees + final auction fees totaled just over $50 - WHAT THE F**K????

Also, the buyer paid with a C/C via PayPal, So I got dinged almost another $20 in credit card fees. Then PayPal held my funds for 21 days...

So, in total, almost $70 in fees and my money was held for 21 days - I'll deal with the BS on Craigslist, because Ebay will no longer be receiving my business. My last Ebay selling experience made me feel like I got sodomized without any lube...

+100 to both accounts!

It is getting ridiculous, Up-Front Listing fees + Final Price fee + payment fee = I no longer use eBay.

 

[zmeiaspas]

Meg Whitman, BILLIONAIRE and former CEO of ebay, just won the CA primary gubernatorial election. She spent something like 60 million dollars of her own money on the campaign! I wonder what she paid ebay employees, probably illegal immigrant wages?

I got the chance to work for ebay for 3 months - from what I saw people were pretty happy, very laid back and well paid

reiobard: I loled! Oh I loled hard!

 

[mstewar1]

I hear you. Though not fool-proof, one of the things I do is insist upon a local telephone number and state that I'll delete their email without one, and if I open an email and don't see a local number, it's gone. That takes care of a lot of the tire kickers. And I call people. People seem to be a bit less flaky about making an appointment to see something when it's done over the phone -- not always, but usually.

I also state that my price is firm and so delete any emails that contain an offer, I just don't bother.

As for the scammers, there's not much that can be done. Those f*cktards will send their crap regardless... I hope they all end up getting nasty crotch rot and die.

Ebay is retarded now. I just sold two bikes for a friend. Ebay/paypal took nearly $200 off the top of the ~$1300 total. I'm sure there must be other auction-style sites by now, I just haven't researched it much.

 

[Kazza]

I used to use eBay to sell all my stuff, but they hiked their rates up to NINE percent from three!!
On top of that, they force you to use PayPal and they take the fee of entire sale (not the what you get back after they take 9%). So.. on my last sale, I ended up losing SEVENTEEN percent!! Still better than CL, I guess.

Bump up your price to begin with, then you don't lose as much.

I prefer Paypal - safe way to transfer money.

 

[Erci]

Bump up your price to begin with, then you don't lose as much.

I prefer Paypal - safe way to transfer money.

I don't understand what you mean. It doesn't matter if I start the auction at 99 cents or $100. If the winning bid is $100, they will take $9 (plus the insertion fee , plus the the reserve fee).

Paypal is great and the fee is more or less reasonable.. as long as you don't run into any issues (they're far from helpful when it comes to dispute resolutions) and they don't hold your money (this just happened to me very recently).

 

[Hellgate]

PayPal is good for off Ebay transactions. The key is to send the funds as a gift, resulting in no fees.

 

[fzme]

I posted my first CL ad last week, and I was amazed at the responses I got. Out of the 15 replies, only 3 of them actually pertained to the ad I posted looking for short-term housing. Three people wrote me asking about wanting to 'buy that thing" and "hope you haven't sold it yet." WTF? This is crazy...

I did find housing BTW, through a neighbor