Buying and selling cars is fun. Okay, it’s a little less fun when your buyer turns out to be a shady fella, but usually, using Facebook Marketplace can be a ball. Facebook Marketplace and the Gambler 500 are pretty much the two main reasons I still have a Facebook account. I suppose that’s a good thing because I wouldn’t have met my wife had I deleted my account.
Anyway, my 2004 Volkswagen Phaeton and my 2005 Volkswagen Touareg are currently for sale in Waukegan, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, respectively. Don’t buy them, because the sellers are totally lying about their condition. A lot of you had great responses, but MP81 has described the Facebook experience so perfectly:
Is this still available?
Dang it!
While we’re joking around, Jason wrote a Cold Start about the great VW stuff in a German post office booklet. Chronometric has a groaner:
The engineer in the first photo had no ambition to be outstanding in his field.
He brought a chair.
Jason doesn’t normally do RV content, but he’s been doing great work lately, even covering the stuff I don’t, like RV toilets from the perspective of the pooper. You should read it, and also this comment from JunkInTheFrunk:
When you have windows, even tinted windows with a curtain on RV bathrooms, you get to give the whole campground a show when it’s dark and you have the lights on. This is kind of fun and sexy when you’re in a private place and your partner is showering.
It is far less sexy (but hilarious) when your low fiber buddy clogs your toilet at deer camp and everyone gets to watch his silhouette desperately fight to get his log of iron into small enough pieces to flush.
Finally, let’s stop at Matt’s Morning Dump, where we learned a bunch of people think their cars are worth more than they actually are. I think Mechjaz reminds us all that sometimes, you just do the best you can in life and you shouldn’t be ashamed about that:
Coming from a life that started at poverty, dipped into homelessness, took 10 more years to reach lower middle class, and annual average earnings as an adult that place me in lower middle class, I most often put down 0%.
I hate it. I know it’s not smart. It is what it is. Maybe one day I will have the luxury of a two income household, or solo earnings sufficient for 100%. If I get the job I’m hoping for with the salary I’m hoping for, it’ll take me two years to clean up the last eight months of unemployment.
I just wanted to throw this out there in case anyone else is seeing the “100%” numbers and feeling discouraged.
I also like My Goat Ate My Homework’s comment. It matters to hear people speaking up about just how life works, including its ups and downs:
I’ll never judge a person as long as they are doing the best they can. Keep your head up and don’t be afraid to continue sharing your story. It matters to more people than you might think.
I agree, keep your head up and keep being awesome, everyone. Have a great weekend!
Can we take a moment and talk about how god awful the search engine for FBM is? Selling is certainly one matter, but trying to find things…
If you want to find something obscure and hard to find? My sympathies. Prepare to spend half an hour browsing through everything you didn’t want and more because if it has four wheels surely you’re interested! Apparently it’s too much to ask for listings that exactly match your search criteria to come first. For a while I was shopping for a Silverado 1500HD and that was a complete farce.
Searching for a vehicle? There may be the ability to search for a specific make and model, but it’ll return an eighth of the results over searching by keyword.
Want anything local? We got you fam, here’s something 3 hours away. Search radius is only 50 miles? Don’t care.
Oh you want to see that listing you came across yesterday? I hope you saved that buddy because the algorithm thinks if you didn’t buy right then and there you must never want to see that result again.
It’s a real shame because the pool to pull from on FBM is excellent, but trying to find anything is an exercise in frustration.
We recently sold my wife’s 2016 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring to a friend of ours because we decided minivan life was the right approach with two kids both playing sports and my wife’s younger sister often accompanying us.
I was so relieved that my friend wanted to buy the CX-5, so I didn’t have to list it on Facebook and deal with the mess that’d follow. He needed a work commuter that would perform well in the occasional snow and would also return decent gas mileage while being somewhat reliable. Enter CX-5.
And, we got a little more out of it (but less than book since we sold to a friend) with the pro ate party sale than the surprisingly low-ball offers from CarMax and Carvana, too.
People on FBM can be a special sort of special. The last thing I sold on there was an IKEA kitchen island. I bought it, put it together and it was just too big for the space. it was literally unused other than being assembled. I put it on FBM for 1/2 what I paid for it. IKEA is a 4hr+ round trip away, it wasn’t worth the time and gas to haul it back even if they would have taken it back assembled (I guess technically they will, didn’t know that at the time).
So I am asking IIRC $90 for something that would cost you $180+tax, half a tank of gas, tolls, and at least four hours of your time to go get at the store. And your time to put the thing together. And I get some guy who offers me $30 for it replying. I said nope, the price is the price, take it or leave it. I do NOT dicker on things I am selling – I price them to sell in the first place. This guy gets all bent and is arguing with me in text – even started calling me names. It was hilarious! Sold the next day for the $90 without a quibble. I don’t blame anyone for offering a low-ball offer – you might just get lucky – but if you get a NO, don’t flip your shit over it.
I actually sold all the appliances that came with my house that way when I redid the kitchen, those all went pretty smoothly, no no-shows, just a few low-ballers that took no for an answer. And just like the island, I didn’t budge on the prices other than I did just give the OTR microwave to the guy who bought the stove. It was the one thing that was kind of crappy. The lady who bought the washer and dryer even gave me a $20 for delivering it to her – I was happy to do it for free, she only lived 5 mins away.
You can report anyone who lowballs. I report them then leave the conversation, its not worth my time to talk to them
I normally ignore them, but this wingnut was like a dog with a bone so I had some fun with it.
I recently had someone call me names on social media because I commented how funny Jean Smart’s delivery on SNL was and her ability to read funny lines with a straight face. They said she was a professional actress and I’m dumb for even mentioning that. People look for any excuse to be miserable human beings nowadays.
No doubt about that.
I hate that it’s a thing. However, I’ve had to ask sometimes when someone has something that is still for sale but posted 27 weeks ago. If we want to solve the problem of having to ask if it’s available, we also need to solve the problem of people not actually deleting their for sale posts after they have either sold or they gave up on trying to sell it.
Late w/ this, but I’ve put stuff on marketplace and sold it. When I try to delete the listing, I can’t find it or the delete doesn’t take effect. (Grrrr)
If a dealer offers you a low trade-in for your car, I can see dealing with the hassles of FBM so you can get an extra couple grand.
What I *truly* don’t understand is folks who sell stuff for $5-$10 on FBM. Why would someone submit themselves to dealing with all the nutjobs, waiting for someone to show up, lowball offers, etc. just to make a tiny profit? I don’t get it. If I have something that’s worth under $50, I’ll just donate it or give it away.
Pre pandemic it was pretty easy to sell cheap items on FB Marketplace. You could just do a porch pickup. Or I used to bring things to work, leave them in the bed of my truck, and have the buyer leave the cash under the bed mat. These days? Yeah, it’s not worth it for cheap stuff. Give it away or donate it.
Might be a local thing, but garage sales and yard sales are still huge around here. We had one before school started back up and it was booming success. That’s how I get rid of small-scale items.
Lots of people have them around here, but I’ve tried it twice over the years and they were both massive failures and colossal wastes of time.
I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong, or people just have different standards for what their time is worth.
I’m in the middle of clearing out an estate and am selling a lot of 5, 10, 20 dollar things (a lot of much more expensive things too). Listing them separately gets me more coverage and most people end up picking up a few things at once.
For a lot of the tools and vintage stuff, dealing with shipping and fees on eBay have been worth it to avoid the hassle of in person dealings.
Otherwise, I’m with you: it goes on the donation pile. Our local Re-Store gets a visit from us a couple times a year.
Whenever I sell something in marketplace, the very first sentence is: “If the ad is up it’s available. Asking means you didn’t read this, which adds XX amount to the price. ”
Weeds out the serious people pretty quick, is always good for a laugh when you piss them off
The one I hate is the “Can you hold it for me? I want it!” But if they eventually show up they instantly start to try to beat you down on the price, or give you the old, “my aunt is dying next month and if you hold it for me, I pay more than you’re asking.”
Separate from this discussion: could Autopian possibly get more ads in the video? Has anyone watched the auction clip all the way through?
Facebook did some weird things in Safari before my account self destructed.
I would occasionally receive a message stating “yes it is here” then find out that in my shameful browsing of marketplace something about the back swipe would sometimes send the automatic send a message message.
So just remember that there’s a 1 in 200 chance that “Hi, is this available?” came from a guy trying to look for a Cadillac V16 without his wife knowing.
I’d never seen this before and now it’s happened twice this week.
“What’s the lowest,” “What’s the least,” and all its other permutations has surpassed “Hi, is this still available” as the most annoying message I get on FB Marketplace.
Reply with “what’s the highest you’ll go?” I’ve done it a few times and in some cases it threw the buyer off and reset the conversation to something more productive.
I like to respond with “Just for you my lowest price is *insert-double-my-asking-price”
This is the way.
Stupid questions deserve snarky answers.
This has become my go-to response for these and it has been somewhat effective.
I don’t remember what I was selling but I got a message once that was just “lowest $$$?” Uhh the price I listed the thing at, dumbass. Maybe if you could bring yourself to type more than two words I might be willing to actually talk to you.
Counterpoint:
Everyone likes to feel like they got a deal. I personally love the haggle game. So I add the “Kijiji/craigslist/marketplace Tax” to my listings.
For instance, I was selling a crown vic that I wanted around $1200 for, so I listed it for $1800.
A buddy of mine is trying to get me to buy an RX7, and he flat out told me that he’s listing it for $10k but only wants $8k out of it.
Build in the “deal” and everyone walks away happy.
But I was raised on garage sales and flea markets, so haggling is just part of the sales experience for me (dealerships don’t like me).
Ahh, nice to meet you, Part Of The Problem.
Don’t hate the player. This has been the game from the inception of currency.
Then you must be doing something right.
I like the haggle game as well. However if I want it the seller is nice and it looks like he/she needs a break in life I’ll just pay full sticker.
I don’t haggle everything. There’s tons of stuff I just buy at asking. Especially if it’s rare, a great price already, or under $100. No point in wheeling/dealing there.
Once we’re over the $500 threshold, usually the game is on.
You at least sound like you expect offers. The ones that get me are the people who ask me to negotiate with myself right off the bat by asking what my lowest price is. I typically reply with the “what’s your highest price” answer.
If you want it for less, make an offer.
Oh I plan to go back & forth a bit. I generally don’t lowball unless I think they’re going to accept that offer, cause it usually breaks down the negotiations.
Those are exactly the ones that I think are silly. At least come at me with an offer, don’t ask me to negotiate with myself.
Agreed. I listed it at that price, because it’s the price I’m selling it for. If you don’t want to buy it for that price, then fuck off. I usually either don’t respond at all, or just respond with the exact dollar amount listed.
I will tell them not willing to negotiate til you see it.