I recently put a manual treadmill up for auction on ebay. I explicitly said in the title for the product: Local pickup - City, State. I also stated in the description: Shipping NOT available. Local pickup in City, State. I don’t want to deal with shipping, and I felt I made it pretty clear that this treadmill was ONLY available if the buyer came to pick it up. Well, it got up to $75 by the end of the bidding; great, I think, I’ll just message this person to make sure they live nearby and can pick it up. I had a funny feeling that, given the general idiocy of people, the buyer wouldn’t understand and expect me to ship it to them. Sure enough, they messaged me back saying they were confused, they lived several states away, and expected me to ship it to them.
:smack:
For the love of Cthulhu, can you not fucking read? You bid on this item about six different times, so I assume you saw the title at least that many times, and you didn’t pick up on the fact that it said LOCAL PICKUP. I don’t see how I could have made it any clearer, you dumbshit. Now I have to give this guy a refund and lose a fair chunk of money, all because he is too stupid to read and comprehend four fucking words. I’m sorely tempted to message him saying “You may want to work on your reading comprehension. I’m sure the local grade school can accommodate you.”
Grrrrr!
(I would just grit my teeth and ship it, but that would pretty much negate the money I would make).
You shouldn’t have to lose any money. Paypal doesn’t take a cut when you give a refund, and eBay should refund your listing fees in this case (buyer who can’t pay.
The problem with using eBay with local pickup is that it’s such a rarely-used option and eBay is terrible at presenting useful information, preferring the “wall of text” approach.
Really, you should be upset at eBay for this. They know the bidder’s physical address. They know yours. They know that the item is pickup only. They shouldn’t let someone bid on it without confirming that they totally understand that they’ll have to pick it up.
What happens (out of curiosity) if you just don’t refund him and send him an email along the lines of “The auction clearly states that it’s for pickup only. Let me know when you’ve made arrangements to have it picked up so I can be sure to be home” and let him take care of the rest.
If he disputed it, would he get the refund?
Better yet…
Put it on Craigslist for $100 and then take the first offer over $50. CL is funny that way. Again, stressing that it MUST be picked up. Also, if it’s too big for a car (even one with a hatch and fold down seats) make sure you mention that they must have a van or pickup truck.
Honestly, I wouldn’t do that to him. He’s a bit of a dumbass, but I’m not going to make him either travel several states to pick it up, or lose $75. I have a feeling he would throw a shit fit (and maybe even contact eBay) and get his way anyways, so I choose to back down and not make a huge conflict for both of us.
I put a parts car on CL once. I believe the title of the ad was “Half a car - $300” and had several pictures of the car with no engine, fenders, hood, etc. and explaining it didn’t roll and needed to be hauled away on a flatbed but still I had about 100 people call me asking how it ran, did it get good mileage, would it be a good first car for their 16 year old daughter. After about 45 minutes I got one guy who understood it was exactly what I said it was and I invited him over and pulled the ad and I STILL got calls for DAYS. Now I just throw things away or donate to goodwill unless it’s something valuable enough to buy a prepaid phone just for that listing.
I had a large recliner for sale on CL last year. At the time, my back was messed up, so in the ad I was clear that not only could I not transport it in my Prius, I would be unable to help load it. So somebody calls and I tell them on the phone “If you are planning to buy this, MAKE SURE YOU BRING SOMEBODY TO HELP YOU LOAD IT.”
Of course, a young woman shows up alone in HER Prius, gives me the money and then says “can’t you help me load it?” Um, no, nothing has changed since we spoke on the phone 20 fucking minutes ago, and I hate to tell you that it ain’t gonna fit in that fucking shoebox you’re driving. She was peeved with me and very unhappy that she had to go find someone with a truck to help her with it. Jesus, people; does nobody pay attention anymore?
I feel very, very special now. I’ve looked at any number of items on eBay and CL, noticed that they required pickup or some other requirement that I couldn’t fulfill, and WENT ON TO THE NEXT LISTING. I didn’t ask for the seller to pack up that pinball machine and send it across the country. I didn’t ask for the seller to hold something for a week until my husband could get back in town so that he could pick it up.
Apparently I possess a super power, which almost nobody else has.
This is why all my Craigslist postings include notes like “This will not fit in a car. Bring a van or pickup and someone to help you load it” when I sold a couch recently. Plus “CASH ONLY. No checks, money orders, movers, agents or other scams.”
The point is not the notes that people put on their ads; the point is that it doesn’t matter what you say, or how clearly you say it - people won’t read it.
I’m currently doing the city census, and this thread doesn’t surprise me at all - I can’t believe how many people have a hard time answering the question, “How many people (including children) live at your house?”
Sold a motorcycle on ebay, local pickup or I would drive it 100 miles to someone. A guy from Tennessee buys it, I live in Wisconsin. He immediately starts trying to get me to ship it to him. He wants me to build a crate, arrange a truck and ship it to him and he’ll pay. He just won’t quit telling me how easy it is to build the crate blahblahblah. I just kept saying “I’m not building a crate” over and over.
When he got here he pulled out a wad of cash and asked how much it was going to be. Ummm the winning bid price what else. Then he acted like I was a bitch for taking the agreed upon price when he had to drive all the way to pick it up.
Every so often, I’ll clean out the barn and sell the Harley parts online. I’m willing to ship, but shipping and handling is expensive, especially if I’m shipping them overseas. Harley riders in Oz are insane. They will happily pay 2 or 3 times what the parts cost to buy for s/h and then recommend me to their friends. Canadians are patient because they know that it takes me a while to get things packed and sent out. Americans are the ones I don’t want to deal with because they want everything shipped overnight the next day and don’t want to pay extra for my time.
To bad, so sad. This isn’t a business for me, its just a way to clean out my barn. Its very clear in my listings that people will need to make s/h arrangements or pay me to do it. I always tell people that I’m not taking time off from my real job to pack up a set of pipes and take them to the post office.
Me, too. I always double check the shipping on any item I’m looking at the weighs more than 10 pounds or is much bigger than the largest flat rate priority box, because I fully expect to see that it’s local pickup only or crazy ass shipping fees.
That’s because we’re used to getting raped for shipping charges, so a lot of people buying particular, hard-to-get (over here) items, build exorbitant rates for shipping into the top price they’re willing to pay.