The Craigslist Life: A rant, a joke, and a few observations on the human condition.

[featherz]

them over. The fellow who showed up was driving a Toyota Celica. No big deal, people carry birds in their cars all the time. He walks over to the truck, looks in the back,and stares at the turkeys in astonishment like he'd never seen one before (maybe he hadn't?).
It turns out he hasn't got a cage or even a box to carry them in and had no idea they were as big as they were (Standard Bronze turkeys seven weeks old, about the size of say a Barred Rock hen). He gets on his phone to call the woman who he was getting them for and they have a terse conversation.

OMG this same thing happened to me. If this lady is on this forum, I apologize, but this was hilarious. I tell them they have to pick up the chickens in the evening (it was 10 full grown chickens, so quite a few), so the lady (probably thinking I am a scary person) sends her husband out with money and a poultry crate. He shows up, drops the crate, asks me 'how much is my wife paying you' and gives me the money. I then walk him out to where the chickens are..

"that's an awful lot of chickens.. you want me to take those??"
"Umm.. yes, that's what your wife bought"...

He scratches his head and told me he didn't have time to take any chickens unless I wanted them to ride around in his truck all night because he 'had things to do'. And what was his wife doing "buying all them chickens"?

So he just leaves after trying to call the wife. I now have money, crate and my chickens. LOL.

After securing a backup buyer, I finally managed to get the wife to show up (four hours late) the next day to get her chickens..

Also had one guy respond to a craigslist ad for free roosters.. These were young, but obviously roosters.. crowing, saddle feathers and all. He took a look in the box and insisted they were hens and 'was I sure'. Yep, I'm sure, but if you want to think they are free hens fine with me. He said these were only his second batch of chickens so I showed him why they were roos but I don't think he believed me. /shrug.

 

[furbabymum]

I sold a drumset with no problem on CL. Sold 2 horses with minimal problem. The questions I was asked. Oy! It's a MARE not a male. Also, Is she rideable??? No, beginner rider acceptable means she's never had someone on her back........

 

[furbabymum]

I've had good luck in general with Craigslist. There have been a few people here and there who hav flaked or shown up and then tried to talk me down on price. My most recent posting revealed an annoying trend though. I put up two LaMancha wethers (castrated male goats), and most of the responses I got said "I am interested, please call me at...". Please people, if I haven't put a phone number, I probably don't want phone calls. If you have questions, you could have asked them in your email and then possibly I might call you to discuss it further. I deleted those requests and certainly didn't take time out of my busy schedule to call them.

Those were probably spammers. I don't answer anything that says, Will buy now can you deliver or call this #.

 

[yoie]

The most problems I have with craigslist, is people don't look where I am located! I constantly have people calling from the westernshore of Maryland asking how far I am from them. There is a reason I post my listing under "Easternshore". I had one customer drive 3 hours to pick up 3 chicks at only $5 a chick! I have had more customers from the Westernshore than locally buy my chicks, I guess it's hard to get chicks over there?
I do have a few memorable ones though, one was through email asking "How do they taste?" this was to me selling some of my EasterEgger chicks.
Another lady over the phone asks about some call ducklings I was selling. I was asking $15 a piece, 3 ducklings and they were already 2 weeks old. She wants to know if I would come down on the price if she bought them all. I tell her ok, all for $40, she says she won't go over $25 for them all. I tell her I won't come down. Then she proceeds to tell me that they are a gift for her father. And that TSC sells them for only $5 each, I tell her that these are calls, TSC doesn't sell calls. Again she asks for all for $25 because no one would buy them. And then continues saying that they are going to live on a lake to look at and she doesn't need them right away, because TSC sells them for only $5, couldn't I just sell them for $25. I tell her no and I started to say good bye, she says well if no one buys them I will for $25 so keep my number. As soon as she hung up I deleted the number, and a few hours later they were sold to a very nice lady. Who knew what she was getting and was so pleased to be able to find some locally.
One more was a girl asking if I had chicks still available. I tell her yes, and she asks if they are yellow and cute. At the time I had silkie and d'uccle chicks in a variety of colors, but no yellow chicks. I try to explain what they look like, and she just is in awe that chicks come in different colors. She was doing a project for college that she needed to photograph chicks for it. Of course she didn't know where I was located, she was on the Westernshore. She only needed the chicks for a day to take pics, but wanted yellow ones, but had a farm home lined up for them after the photo shoot. She had me send text pics of the chicks to see what they looked like and she said she call me right back. Never heard from her again, I still wonder if she ever found her yellow chicks.
I just love craigslist, I have a d'uccle hen and a silkie rooster I need to sell and I have been very hesitant listing them. I hope I run into someone looking for some chickens since I don't want to go through the madness again

 

[tadpole98]

I have dealt with my share of nutcases with craigslist, but two stick out in my mind over the others.

First one, I was trying to sell my car. It had run out of oil and thus needed some engine work, but it was otherwise in perfect condition. I lowballed it for 500$ because I really just wanted it out of my hair. I get a call from this man, and I explain the situation. The whole time we are on the phone he has this really condescending tone. Finally he says

"Oh sweetheart, you are never gonna get anyone to buy it for 500$. I'll tell ya what. I'll do you a favor and come take it off your hands for 50$. How's that sound sweetie?"

My response? "Ok, first off, don't ******* call me sweetheart. Secondly, just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I don't know what the heck I'm talking about. This car is worth significantly more than 500$ even with the damage. So you can take your 50$ and stick it right up your ***"

I probably could have been nicer, but I don't take too kindly to being talked down to.



The other experience was when I was trying to sell my couch. I left the room for ten minutes, and when I came back I had seven missed calls. All from the same person! I call her back and she proceeds to tell me her life story of welfare and woe and she just gushes about how much she loves my beat down old couch and she must must must have it....

Me: Ok, when would you like to come pick it up?
Lady: Oh well see that's the thing. I don't have a car. Can I pay you extra and have you deliver it?
Me: Uh... Well, it's at my fathers house so I will have to ask him. Where are you located?
Lady: I'm in Folsom. (more than an hour away!!!)
Me: Oh, Yea I don't know if that will work. That is a really long ways to deliver it.
Lady: Oh but I can pay you 100$ extra!
Me: Hmm... well I will ask my dad, but it isn't likely because of both his work schedule and mine. I will call you in the next 24 hours if we are able to do it for you.
Lady: Ok!!

For the next week, this woman called me NO LESS than 25 times per day. Even after I told her we wouldn't be able to deliver it. The final straw was when I was at my mothers birthday brunch. She called repeatedly and continuously until finally I picked up. She picked up right where she left off about how much she wanted the couch. I interupted her and informed her that I am at my mother's birthday. She's like "Oh that's cool. Anyways, I really -" "NO. LADY, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. I am hanging up now, and you are not to call this number again, EVER." After a couple more missed calls she finally got the hint

OH WOW!!!!!!

 

[livenwpeeps]

I had to laugh at this thread because I have had all of the above happen to me. No shows. Wanting me to meet them half way. Very late. Very early. Don't want them once they get there. Don't have cash can I take a check?! Not happy with anything. Shows up in the heat of the day with temps around 95 and keeps saying "No not that one, the white one". Keeps letting the birds get out of the box. Shows up as soon as we set down to eat supper. Only wants females and they can tell which ones are females at a couple days old by their body confirmation. They get out of the car and say they only want the purple ones and my ad never said I had purple ones. Then there was the one guy that met me at my office to pick up a dozen and then he went to work for a 12 hour shift with the birds left in the car. He called me the next day because two had died and wanted a refund or for me to replace the birds. Oh and when the lady only wanted 10 and she couldn't make up her mind which ten so her husband said get a dozen and she said she didn't have room for a dozen but went hog wild when my dear hubby said he would throw in a couple for free because they were complaining about the long drive out to our farm. They left with 15 birds and called the next day wanting to know when we would be home from work so they could get more. Or they bring a bunch of kids to the farm and the kids run in every direction once they get out of the mini van. My dear hubby refuses to deal with them at all. But I have also met some really nice people that have become true friends. So there are the good and the bad.

 

[ChicknThief]

Oh I forgot one! A man that lived about 3 hours from me did agree to buy the car I was speaking of earlier. We agreed on 9am as the pickup time.

At 6:05 the next morning my phone goes off. I answer very groggily as I had been in a deep sleep, and he says very annoyedly "Well I'm outside!" Dumbfounded I look at the clock. I inform him that it is only six, and that he was three hours early. His response?

"Yup, so it is. I'll give you a couple minutes to get dressed."

Yea thanks a lot! Let me tell you, if he wasn't paying me 500 cash for the thing I would have told him to hit the road.

 

[PotterWatch]

Quote:
I agree. They are either spammers or people who think I have the time to drop everything and cater to them. Either way, I'm not calling!

 

[oldrooster]

I live halfway between 2 towns they both have radio stations that does a craigslist sort of thing on the radio both use different names for the program but in essence it is mush the same. I know one man who has rental property he was a maintenance man for the local university and he knew how to fix up old houses that where being sold cheaply. So he advertises on the radio shows and he leaves his home number and always lets it go to voice mail. that way if he doesn't like how they sound on the phone he won't call them back. He goes to church regularly and has told many of his friends if someone says "God Bless" at the end of the message he will not call them, because 9 times out of every 10 of them are the same way he learned those are the people who act like they are religious and they actually go to the church of screw you over.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

But I have also met some really nice people that have become true friends.  So there are the good and the bad.       

This is true. The folks who were late that bought the twenty birds turned out to be nice people who were expanding the flock for their kids who have an egg selling route. They liked the looks of the pullets I sold them so much they want to come back this fall to buy more when I put my next order in.

The same day that those folks came I had a phone call from some people who lived about an hour away looking for turkeys. The ad clearly states the age of the birds I am selling and at that time only had a photo of the turkeys while they were still in the brooder so plainly they are young birds. The lady said she wanted some turkeys but she didn't want "no babies." I explained to her they were seven weeks old, out of the brooder, but far from being mature and that I could not sex them. She was not really grasping what I was trying to communicate so she put her husband on the line and we went over it all again. Partially a language problem as neither of them had a good grasp of English and partly that they simply knew nothing of turkeys.

Anyway they determined they wanted see the birds so I told them how to get to the house (their GPS got them there without problems). Drove an hour to get here, took one look at the birds then said "they're too little. Do you have any that are larger?" I explained again that my breeding stock was not for sale! Gave them a short course on the differences in appearance between a mature tom and a hen (they honestly did not know) then some advice on how to get rid of the fleas (stick tights I presume) that were bothering their birds. They did not buy anything, but as I was waiting on the other folks anyway it did not cost me anything since it was raining anyway. At least they had brought an appropriate cage!

A good writer could probably make something out of a few year's experience of selling and buying stuff through Craigslist. "The World According to Craig" perhaps.