A Craigslist price experiment

[Diosoth]

Im sick of my actual items never selling to the drooling idiots of craigslist, so I got pretty pissed at them and listed a fake ad.

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/tag/1188875870.html

Desired item, low price. My plan had been to jack people around and get their hopes up, waste their time, as so many phone buyers have done with me. No fraud intent, of course. I'd never reply to emails, never take any money, etc. Just do to them what they do to honest sellers.

First email comes from "Mark Jones"


HI YOU DOIN, MY NAME PHIL, IF YOU STILL HAVE THE PS3 FOR SALE PLEASE CALL ME ASAP @ REMOVED @ ANYTIME & I MEAN ASAP, THANX

Okay... name in email and from sender don't match. Horrible grammar and all caps.

Second from "oluyemi oluwaseun"


Is It Available For Sale ? ? ?

Generic message, possibly Nigerian name. Typical.

Third from "Brandon Bisnette"


is the item still available?

Another generic message. They work in pairs.

Fourth from "Alden L. Miller"


take 200 for it?

A very lowball offer. According to his email address and tacked on sig info, he works for US Bank. A banker. Typical cheap banker. I used to use US Bank and the whole company is scummy, so this fails to surprise me.

Fifth from "Jerod Martin"


How long have you had the ps3, is there still a warranty on the machine and would you happen to have the original receipt?

The only one so far to show a brain.



So out of 5 people... 1 dumb guy, 1 real cheap jerk, 1 smart guy, 2 scammers. So out of the people who browse Cincy craigslist, about 20% of them are intelligent and 40% are from Nigeria. Probably a percentage that will hold up as emails roll in.

Seriously, someone offered $200 for that. Even if I did have such a thing for sale and needed the cash, I'd tell them to drop dead. Guy probably makes more a WEEK than most do in a month.

Guess I'll be junking the Genesis to get rid of it. No goddamn way I'll spend $8 gas money to go trade everything in for $15 store credit and waiting on some CL fool to buy it is probably a waste of time, because even if I dropped it to $20 people would still make shitty offers.

[pseudonym]

I don't see what your experiment is out to prove other than the basics of economics.... put up a great item for a great price, of course people are going to send you a torrent of emails; put up a mediocre item for a higher than average price, you'll get very few if any emails.

lol at the Nigerian scammer and $200 lowball offer though.

[carlcarlson]

That's a pretty good sampling of what I get on a regular basis too. I almost always reply, but do so with gritted teeth usually. The ones with horrible grammar are the ones that kill me, or the ones that simply say "call me xxx-xxxx". No, I don't think I will.

[Bojay1997]

I'm not really sure what this proves. I have received my share of disappointing e-mails from people on this site as well when I posted things which were desireable and cheap which I actually ended up selling. I can't tell you how many times I have posted things literally below cost, way below Ebay value and still people will send ridiculous low ball offers or tell me that they will take the item, but I will need to cover shipping. Really? I'm already taking a hit from Paypal on an item that regularly goes for $15-$20 that I'm selling for $8 and you want me to cover the $5 it will cost to send it priority mail? People are pretty much the same everywhere sadly.

[Arcade Antics]

Im sick of my actual items never selling to the drooling idiots of craigslist, so I got pretty pissed at them and listed a fake ad.

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/tag/1188875870.html

Desired item, low price. My plan had been to jack people around and get their hopes up, waste their time, as so many phone buyers have done with me. No fraud intent, of course. I'd never reply to emails, never take any money, etc. Just do to them what they do to honest sellers.

First email comes from "Mark Jones"



Okay... name in email and from sender don't match. Horrible grammar and all caps.

Second from "oluyemi oluwaseun"



Generic message, possibly Nigerian name. Typical.

Third from "Brandon Bisnette"



Another generic message. They work in pairs.

Fourth from "Alden L. Miller"



A very lowball offer. According to his email address and tacked on sig info, he works for US Bank. A banker. Typical cheap banker. I used to use US Bank and the whole company is scummy, so this fails to surprise me.

Fifth from "Jerod Martin"



The only one so far to show a brain.



So out of 5 people... 1 dumb guy, 1 real cheap jerk, 1 smart guy, 2 scammers. So out of the people who browse Cincy craigslist, about 20% of them are intelligent and 40% are from Nigeria. Probably a percentage that will hold up as emails roll in.

Seriously, someone offered $200 for that. Even if I did have such a thing for sale and needed the cash, I'd tell them to drop dead. Guy probably makes more a WEEK than most do in a month.

Guess I'll be junking the Genesis to get rid of it. No goddamn way I'll spend $8 gas money to go trade everything in for $15 store credit and waiting on some CL fool to buy it is probably a waste of time, because even if I dropped it to $20 people would still make shitty offers.

Incredible.

[tubeway]

A while back I posted a fake lot of NES games on Craigslist, and I made it sound like it was being sold by some grandma that was cleaning out her garage. I peppered it with a nice amount of incorrect terminology ("hand controllers" "tv box"), added the usual lame promotions (the Zelda carts are GOLD! That means they're special!), and made it seem she was oblivious to the fact that there was a Flinstones Dinosaur Peak and Stadium Events cart mixed in there.

I then got some of the most scummy people ever. Even after nudging and prodding, nobody would admit any of the lot was worth anything, even when I essentially forced them to tell me which particular games they wanted because I had sold some. I cross reference their email with MySpace and Friendster profiles and found most were game collectors or resellers on ebay. It pretty much allowed me to compile a list of all of my local competitors when it comes to buying on Craigslist.

One guy completely flipped out after I told him it was just a social experiment, and tried to put my email address on Craigslist for some gay sex personal ad. Of course, I had to approve it since he tried using my (temporary throw away) email address, so I ended up posting his email in it along with his Myspace picture and approved it.

Good times.

[Kitsune Sniper]

People offer me $1 for $20-$50 items on eBay. I'm not surprised at all. You should see the ads down here, people sell XBoxes for $200 USD AND THEY SELL.

[garagesaleking!!]

ya best offer is really funny on ebay, people waste their time sending these lowbal offers, i received a $10 offer on an item i had listed for $200. lol

[tubeway]

ya best offer is really funny on ebay, people waste their time sending these lowbal offers, i received a $10 offer on an item i had listed for $200. lol

I bet there are people that spend their entire day doing just that: doing searches on ebay, then sorting it by "best offer" and just sending 400 offers a day. Even if only 1% of the people accept their lowballs, they could possibly make a day's pay after reselling the item.

[darkslime]

A while back I posted a fake lot of NES games on Craigslist, and I made it sound like it was being sold by some grandma that was cleaning out her garage. I peppered it with a nice amount of incorrect terminology ("hand controllers" "tv box"), added the usual lame promotions (the Zelda carts are GOLD! That means they're special!), and made it seem she was oblivious to the fact that there was a Flinstones Dinosaur Peak and Stadium Events cart mixed in there.

I then got some of the most scummy people ever. Even after nudging and prodding, nobody would admit any of the lot was worth anything, even when I essentially forced them to tell me which particular games they wanted because I had sold some. I cross reference their email with MySpace and Friendster profiles and found most were game collectors or resellers on ebay. It pretty much allowed me to compile a list of all of my local competitors when it comes to buying on Craigslist.

One guy completely flipped out after I told him it was just a social experiment, and tried to put my email address on Craigslist for some gay sex personal ad. Of course, I had to approve it since he tried using my (temporary throw away) email address, so I ended up posting his email in it along with his Myspace picture and approved it.

Good times. I did something like that, put an ad up saying something like we found these games in our closet that we were gonna give to our kids when they were young. all still brand new because no one wants them. there is a super nintendo and an earthbounder. i could take maybe 20 dollars for someone who wnats to play them.

I literally got 100 emails that first day. only one guy told me how much they were worth.

but honestly, if someone put that on craigslist there's no way I would tell the person how much they're worth, but I would buy them to keep not resell.

[Chainclaw]

It's craigslist. The point of craigslist is to get a good deal. You probably didn't get a lot of bites, either, because your post raises a large amount of red flags.

Also, $250 is a lot to ask for a used PS3 in questionable condition on Craigslist that you have to "sell now"

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

Im sick of my actual items never selling to the drooling idiots of craigslist, so I got pretty pissed at them and listed a fake ad.

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/tag/1188875870.html


Yep, great start there. Insulting the customer base.


Desired item, low price. My plan had been to jack people around and get their hopes up, waste their time, as so many phone buyers have done with me. No fraud intent, of course. I'd never reply to emails, never take any money, etc. Just do to them what they do to honest sellers.

Advertising a product you don't have and have no plan on selling isn't fraud?



First email comes from "Mark Jones"

HI YOU DOIN, MY NAME PHIL, IF YOU STILL HAVE THE PS3 FOR SALE PLEASE CALL ME ASAP @ REMOVED @ ANYTIME & I MEAN ASAP, THANX

Okay... name in email and from sender don't match. Horrible grammar and all caps.

And this means what?



Second from "oluyemi oluwaseun"

Is It Available For Sale ? ? ?

Generic message, possibly Nigerian name. Typical.


Yep, no way that a person with a possibly Nigerian name could be a real person interested in a PS3.



Third from "Brandon Bisnette"

is the item still available?

Another generic message. They work in pairs.

What is wrong with asking if it is still available? What should he have sent?



Fourth from "Alden L. Miller"

take 200 for it?

A very lowball offer. According to his email address and tacked on sig info, he works for US Bank. A banker. Typical cheap banker. I used to use US Bank and the whole company is scummy, so this fails to surprise me.


Yep, somebody offers a low figure and he happens to be a banker. Maybe he was expecting a counter offer. Maybe if you had put what you were looking for in the post. And I am sure that everyone that works for US Bank is cheap and scummy.



So out of 5 people... 1 dumb guy, 1 real cheap jerk, 1 smart guy, 2 scammers. So out of the people who browse Cincy craigslist, about 20% of them are intelligent and 40% are from Nigeria. Probably a percentage that will hold up as emails roll in.

Actually it sounds more like, "Out of the people who originally posted this message and post things for sale on Cincy craigslist, about 100% of them are crybabies who get all upset because people aren't buying his stuff at the prices he wants."



Guess I'll be junking the Genesis to get rid of it. No goddamn way I'll spend $8 gas money to go trade everything in for $15 store credit and waiting on some CL fool to buy it is probably a waste of time, because even if I dropped it to $20 people would still make shitty offers.

And next time you go out looking to buy video games, please make sure to buy them all for fair market value and fully inform the sellers of any particularly valuable items they may have missed.

JY

[Porksta]

My first email is always if it is still available. If it is a hella good deal (Steel Battalion complete for $25 for example) I will also add that if it is still available I will buy it.

[skaar]

Just, wow. Dick move.

[jcalder8]

Congratulations, I now think even less of you than after your last Craigslist thread. I must admit that is quite an impressive feat.

[Tupin]

Wow, that was quite a hoax.

But really, all that for a Genesis/Sega CD/32X setup?

[tubeway]

Everybody loves a villain.

[Flack]

Well at least now I know why I can never get anyone to answer me on Craigslist ... apparently no one is selling anything and they are all just performing social experiments.

[theChad]

Congratulations, I now think even less of you than after your last Craigslist thread. I must admit that is quite an impressive feat.

Signed.

[megasdkirby]

My first email is always if it is still available. If it is a hella good deal (Steel Battalion complete for $25 for example) I will also add that if it is still available I will buy it.

Agreed. I do that here as well. My problem is that I forget what I have to send payment for.

Happened to at least one person here on DP. Thankfully, the person reminded me. :)

But I always ask just in case. That way, the person knows I am interested.

[Kid Ice]

Don't breed.

[dendawg]

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/12/19/128742083309823749.jpg

[Gameguy]

Well at least now I know why I can never get anyone to answer me on Craigslist ... apparently no one is selling anything and they are all just performing social experiments.
I actually did something like that for my local classifieds, I have a copy of Final Fantasy VII so I posted an ad asking to trade it for a copy of Snatcher for the Sega CD. I wanted to see if I could find anybody that would actually trade it for Final Fantasy VII, so far I've had other people make cash offers, but I'm still holding out for a trade at the moment. If I can't get a good trade, I'll get back to them about selling it for cash for a fair amount(nothing crazy). I just figured I might as well try trading it first.

[RoyVegas]

I am missing the point here. If you can't beat them then join them?

[carlcarlson]

My first email is always if it is still available. If it is a hella good deal (Steel Battalion complete for $25 for example) I will also add that if it is still available I will buy it.

I really hate this. All it does is add another step to the transaction. If it's still listed (often times only hours old), then YES, it's still available! Now I have to say "yep, do you want it?" and 9 times out of 10 I don't get a response.

Unfortunately as a buyer on Craigslist I see the necessity of asking this question. A majority of people don't delete their ads once the items sell, so you pretty much HAVE to ask. I always include something else in the email, though, like a possible time to meet or something.

Side note: this isn't a rant against Porksta, more a rant against dumb people on Craigslist, both buyers and sellers.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

Ok, let me get this straight. In addition to: African scammers, the uneducated, cheapskates, rip-offs, con-artists, assholes, rapists, muggers, murderers, there's also people listing stuff that they don't have?

Seriously, get the fuck off craigslist.

[pseudonym]

better

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u123/hfpseudonym/6xt1g0.jpg

[mobiusclimber]

I hate people that do that shit (post stuff they don't own just to fuck w/ people). I know there've been a couple on Washington CL too. No I am not going to tell someone "HEY DUMBASS THAT GAME IS WORTH A TON OF MONEY!" Why? If they're happy to get the cash and I"m happy to get the game, what difference does it make? I mean I've even dealt with people who, when I met up with them said "I checked on Ebay and this game I'm selling you for $20 is giong for $70 on there, but I said I'd sell it to you, so here you go." I've also had people offer a game for a certain price and then just not email back, probably b/c they got a better offer. It's CL. I don't get stressed about it. There's always going to be resellers, dumb asses and Nigerian scammers on there. There will also always be great deals and people willing to buy stuff at decent prices. I've sold a lot of things on there. Yeah, it's been slowing way down lately, the economy sucks. That's just how it is.

[raindog151]

Diosoth,

I'm from Ohio, so I know it isn't that, so is there something specific to Cincinnati that makes you act like an asshat so often?

[SPAZ-12]

REALLY? All of this because your overpriced Genesis lot didn't sell? In your other thread everyone told you that it was overpriced, so I think that it's safe to say that you are the problem here.

Wise up man.

[Kuros]

*Mods the OP as stupid*

Seriously, go have your temper tantrum somewhere else.

[Icarus Moonsight]

And next time you go out looking to buy video games, please make sure to buy them all for fair market value and fully inform the sellers of any particularly valuable items they may have missed.

JY

Good one Jimmy,
You know, if I had the ability to time travel and I went back and told my past self to apply this step to my game buying, my current game library would take a 50% hit easy. As in, would no longer be there! LOL

There is absolutely nothing wrong with paying what a seller asks for an item. There is also nothing wrong with haggling the asking price down and making an already good deal even better. Nothing wrong with lowballing either, as long as you are willing to take the rep that comes with it. If you actually care about what the seller thinks of you after sale, you probably won't lowball.

That said, getting so many lowball offers... How does that make you feel? Paging Dr. Pink Freud! :D

[ryborg]

I see you've taken down the Craigslist ad. This is the smartest thing you've ever done.

Also you should consider these posts:


Don't breed.


Congratulations, I now think even less of you than after your last Craigslist thread. I must admit that is quite an impressive feat.


(entire post)

[darkslime]

Good one Jimmy,
You know, if I had the ability to time travel and I went back and told my past self to apply this step to my game buying, my current game library would take a 50% hit easy. As in, would no longer be there! LOL

There is absolutely nothing wrong with paying what a seller asks for an item. There is also nothing wrong with haggling the asking price down and making an already good deal even better. Nothing wrong with lowballing either, as long as you are willing to take the rep that comes with it. If you actually care about what the seller thinks of you after sale, you probably won't lowball.

That said, getting so many lowball offers... How does that make you feel? Paging Dr. Pink Freud! :D I agree with this fully. Don't get people who feel that you should pay the ebay price for everything. If anyone wants to do that, why not just go on ebay instead of cl?

[p_b]

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/private_baldric/angrydonald.jpg

[Tenjikuronin]

^Off Topic, but the picture above reminds me of how much the University of Oregon's baseball team sucks.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

Good one Jimmy,
You know, if I had the ability to time travel and I went back and told my past self to apply this step to my game buying, my current game library would take a 50% hit easy. As in, would no longer be there! LOL

There is absolutely nothing wrong with paying what a seller asks for an item. There is also nothing wrong with haggling the asking price down and making an already good deal even better. Nothing wrong with lowballing either, as long as you are willing to take the rep that comes with it. If you actually care about what the seller thinks of you after sale, you probably won't lowball.

That said, getting so many lowball offers... How does that make you feel? Paging Dr. Pink Freud! :D

I hope that you did not think that I was serious about my paying full price comment. I am all for haggling over prices if both parties are agreeable.

It is just that he was whining that people weren't offering him enough for is stuff, but I have seen a number of people in the 'Good deals' section of this and other sites who could come across a sealed Adventurevision or Stadium Events for $10 and still try to get it for $5. Don't remember is he was one of those people or not.

JY

[GrandAmChandler]

Locked, for obvious reasons.

-GAC-