CL rant

[standingpilot]

Cautionary tale back story: So I went to go pic up a KDS18 Superba DW my friend had located for me. All went fine, and the price was good...Whenever I travel more then a couple hundred miles I scan CL for other vintage items that may interest me, and On this trip l located a 1950's built-in cooktop. The ad had been up for a month and had a particularly bad picture (not whole item/bad lighting/etc)...but it was only a 1/2 hour past my destination so I went for a look. Well it turns out it was a very rare CT indeed. These jerks had removed it from the counter themselves then proceeded to stash it out in the weather for what looks like a couple winters (decomposed leaf and about a cupful of wet rust inside) then she lied to me about the storage conditions and blamed it on the house being vacant for 15 years. In reality they are just house hackers and pulled this stuff out for a remodel, denting the rare items and exposing them to unnatural corrosion.
This couple was in their late 60's, and I suspect the husband was just going to trashheap them anyways (until wifey placed a CL ad upon urging of her sons who convinced her she was sitting on a goldmine). Sound familiar? They had turned these into just parts units and poor ones at that, but her idiocy wouldn't let her get past that fact.
So I get the feeling the CT was destined for the trash and she felt the pot of gold was in the oven (the same model I see sell for less than $50 in usable condition), but since I'm already there and the travel expenses were covered I make a way too generous offer that the husband was ready to jump on, and then she pipes in and wants quadruple that and says I wouldn't believe the response she got when first placed. I just told her that no one has come by have they? There is a reason your items are sitting on CL for a month and you've had no visitors (and it's not your remote location), then turned around and started walking.
Second time a novice female CL seller has wasted my time this week and the disgusting part is the oven will end up in a landfill. Be wary of things that sit too long on CL and the time wasters on the other end of the phone...end Rant.

 

[ken]

Just goes to show there are many different kinds of people in the world and many are plain aholes. As you say the appliances were nothing until she thought she could get big bucks for them. So much so she had them overpriced and no one was willing to fork over what she wanted in spite of the many "responses" to her ad. The real proof of her stupidity and greed was in not even thinking enough of those big money making items to store them inside so they wouldn't deteriorate.

 

[blackstone]

The worst part of that story? The fact that the seller would demand an increase in the price once the customer is already there. Completely dishonest. The only negotiations that should occur are to decrease the advertised price.

Gone are the days when business was done with a handshake.

 

[standingpilot]

I would have been real upset had it been the lone item I drove for, If you are going to drive distance, demand quality pictures first...There is no excuse for lazy or no pictures in this day and age. Only if they have something to hide. She sounded like a nice LOL on the phone, but there was one tip off I should have picked up on. She said she no longer had the CT but then changed her story after I kept asking and she said it was still there but not great. So I knew it had problems, I just didn't think it was recent problems that they caused, and then she was dishonest with me about the cause. What probably happened was they classified it as useless junk (which is not unreasonable in itself), but then went on to treat it like junk, then realized "oh crap", these might still have value to someone, then overestimate the value to the point of turning distance customers away.