CRAIGSLIST: Dumb stuff callers say when answering your listing

[Phage]

Another good one, sadly not from CL but a PM:

"I live in XXXXXXX and i want to buy three eggs for under 7.50 that includes shipping.. I do not care about the breeds and i want eggs that are 100% hatch rate as you mentioned in your description... "

HUGE SIGH

 

[eenie114]

When selling milk from our cow: "Yeah, I was thinkin' maybe there would be a way for me to make some money off of this!"

Um, how are YOU going to make money off of buying milk from our cow? (He wanted to sell it to health food stores, which isn't legal in MO. Raw milk must be sold from the farm directly to the consumer. I think he might have been some FDA person trying to trip us up.

)

 

[Kev]

Oh boy this thread.. so I'm not the only one getting all those um, interesting responses!

Latest one was an offer of 40 for a $200 bird. Deleted that one immediately.. have learned to simply delete a lot of responses without even trying to respond. Not worth it, never goes anywhere anyways.

But I am surprised at how often the ad has "downsizing" yet trade offers for their multiples for one comes up?! HELLO?

also good are very lopsided trade offers to their benefit(of course). those are automatic deleters. once I actually got trade offer of an old BROKEN lawnmower for expensive peafowl.

 

[oldrooster]

Oh boy this thread.. so I'm not the only one getting all those um, interesting responses!

Latest one was an offer of 40 for a $200 bird. Deleted that one immediately.. have learned to simply delete a lot of responses without even trying to respond. Not worth it, never goes anywhere anyways.

But I am surprised at how often the ad has "downsizing" yet trade offers for their multiples for one comes up?! HELLO?

also good are very lopsided trade offers to their benefit(of course). those are automatic deleters. once I actually got trade offer of an old BROKEN lawnmower for expensive peafowl.

Perhaps down sizeing a certain breed? or 4-5 older hens for 2-3 younger ones= net loss of 1 or 2 birds?

 

[Poultrybonkers]

All i ever get is are they still available after i just posted or how much when its in the ad also no one ever shows up as to far of a drive.

 

[Kev]

Perhaps down sizeing a certain breed? or 4-5 older hens for 2-3 younger ones= net loss of 1 or 2 birds?

Ad would either say reducing flock or reducing flock for health reasons.

the kind of trade you mention never happens, always 3-4 for one of mine in response to ads with those words. It'd be net gain of more birds.. opposite of what I'm trying to achieve.

it also sometimes seems like trying to dump 'cheap' on me to get something worth more. I admit to letting that done to me in the past(several of lower priced breed for each of my higher priced breed)... only to discover the person turned around and immediately sold "my" birds for twice the value. That made me really unhappy- first, poor birds, second it was pure greed! I do not want any more of my birds involved in greedy schemes.

 

[Amarisus]

So I got one recently. A guy wanted to buy some of my birds and we were going to meet him up and give them to him. At the last minute, after I went through all the trouble of catching and freaking out the poor birds, he texts and says "oh I just realized you're kinda far away never mind I don't want them"... The town I live in is right there on the ad, and it had been like two days when we made the arrangements he couldn't have figured that out sooner?

 

[chickensioux]

I have my house for sale on craigslist. I got "What will my mortgage payments be?"

 

[sandspoultry]

Our add said "India Blue peafowl for sale, males and females, 1 year old". Seems pretty straight foward right? and some of the calls we got.


1) I'm looking for a peacock, do you have any? I don't want any of those peafowl things


2) Are you sure you can tell the males from the females?


And saved the best one for last.


3) Will they lay this year? No, pea's don't mature until their 3rd year. Can you hold them until then? - I was laughing so hard that they hung up on me.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

We all seem to get the same customers no matter what part of the country we're in. No matter whether it's Craig's List, 4sale.com, or some other medium they're all the same.

"My son's birthday isn't for three weeks. Can you hold them for me until then?" Of course she doesn't want to pay for them first.

"Can you give me a discount?" It turned out she wanted five turkeys and the grow-out pen was getting crowded so I offered her a moderate discount if she bought five. Then it turns out she lives two hours away from me and wants me to meet her half-way. I told her I'd have to charge her for my gas since it would be a 120 mile round trip for me. She came back with "I can't afford your prices."

Then there were the folks who lived an hour away. They wanted females for their pet tom. I had recent photos in the ad of the birds I had for sale and made it clear the turkeys were only three months old. They drove all the way out (and were late getting there of course) only to say "they're too small." No, lady, I won't sell you my breeders!

And the seemingly endless people who call only to ask me questions about the very information I put in the ads. Some of those I think got my number through someone else so didn't get all the information. But a lot of them were still looking at the ad while they called me!

At the bottom of every ad in front of my phone number in BOLD FACE ALL CAPS it says "call me M-F AFTER 5 p.m." Fully half of the calls I get are before five and by that I mean all day before five!

I've also learned not to simply delete my ads when the birds have been sold. In fact I don't delete them at all any more. What I do now is go back and edit them so that right at the top in bold, large font they say "these birds have all been sold. I will have more (fall or spring as appropriate). See you then!" Before I did that I would get calls for months AFTER I had deleted the ads.

For all that Craig's List makes me laugh or rant I do get good customers. Year before last I got a call from a lady asking if I still had the Midget White turkeys in the ad? I said I did so she asked how many I had? I said I could guarantee fifteen right then and maybe more but I'd have to count them to be sure. How many did she want? She said she wanted ALL of them. Wow, OK. Then an hour later that same day I got another phone call from a different lady from a different number and area code (I checked) who said the same thing! The first lady came out in the middle of a rain storm just to be sure she got them first. Eighteen turkeys.

This spring bird sales have been very slow. It wasn't just me. The other local breeders and the feed stores I deal with have experienced it too. I'd sell a few here, a few there, but still had the majority of the flock out in the grow-out pens. Then in done day in three phone calls I sold thirty seven! Twelve to fourteen week old birds at a dollar per week. They didn't even try to dicker. Just paid full price and were glad to get them.

I could go on and on (and have it seems) about the Craig's Life. It has been an endless source of amusement (and frustration).