Advice for selling on Craigslist?

[Chefguy]

@Munch

I disagree with this.

It’s very simple to combat e-mail scamming. There are two things you can do:

1. Post a dummy ad shortly after your real ad, selling something (mostly unrelated to your actual item) in the same category. People who reply to both ads in a short period of time are spam.

2. Use a secondary e-mail address. Everyone has a second e-mail address, right? Gmail allows you to connect two (or more) accounts together, so that I can send e-mail from Account 1 that’s actually from Account 2.

Also - make your ad as detailed as possible. I hate reading ads that give no information. Plus, it’ll make whatever price you set that much more reasonable. (If you know what you’re selling, you know what the price should be.)

Seems like a lot of hassle. I prefer to not engage in email give and take with a buyer, serious or not.

[Munch]

@Chefguy

Seems like a lot of hassle. I prefer to not engage in email give and take with a buyer, serious or not.

I’m the opposite - I don’t want to give out my number unless there’s a high probability of it being the final seller/buyer. 6 of one, etc. I just hate talking on the phone with strangers.

[lindsaybluth]

Please please PLEASE meet in a well lit, public place. I can’t overemphasize this enough. My mom thought that selling stuff on Craigslist would be a breeze, and she could be available for more hours at home! WRONG! You don’t want a crazy knowing where you live.

There are many Craigslist success stories - just last week I purchased a lovely silicone bakeware set from a very nice guy in the Starbucks of his workplace for $10. Brand new, retailed for $40.

[Silophant]

@Cat_Fight

Expect idiots. You can be selling a PC. You’ll describe it as a PC. You’ll confirm that it is a PC in an email or by phone. And some will come by to look at it and go, ‘Oh, I thought it was an Apple.’

This. I posted a 19" CRT for free, with a picture even, and got nearly a dozen emails asking about it and talking about how little space they had on their desks. Eventually someone took it, but it had been sitting outside for two days by then, so…

[iamthewalrus_3]

@Chefguy

I’ve given this advice several times on this board: do not allow email contact. That opens you up to all kinds of scams and spams. Even though initial email contact is through the CL server, your answer will show your return email address. I only allow phone contact, and can get a pretty good feel for serious buyers that way. FWIW, I’ve sold two cars and a lot of other stuff on CL without problem.

When I sold a car on craigslist and put my phone number in the ad, I got multiple calls a day from some damn machine recording that wanted me to list it with their service.

I took the number out of the ad and the calls stopped. Telephone spam is much more disruptive than email spam.

@Cat Fight

Expect idiots.

So true. I had a guy call me, on the street outside my place, telling me he couldn’t find it. He read off the numbers on the houses (all even), and said that my address (odd) wasn’t there. Seriously, dude, you’re going to buy a car, but you haven’t figured out that even addresses aren’t on the same side of the street as odd ones?