When you become the Craigslist flake.

Mustion

Senior Member
I've bought a fair amount of gear on CL, and have sold a few items as well, and am VERY self-conscious about being a conscientious buyer. Like, to the point where a few times I have bought something simply because I agreed to meet for the sale, despite having second thoughts!

But this past summer I was in the market for a used double kick pedal. I found a nice one that was an hour-long train ride from Brooklyn. We agreed to meet when the seller was next available, which was a Sunday morning before he went to work. Unfortunately the bus was slow getting to the station and I missed the train; the next one wasn't for another hour and right when I was about to plunk down the money for a Zipcar to drive out there in time to meet up, I texted the guy who told me don't bother, he will just sell it to someone else.

I somewhat understood why he blew me off but my arse was kind of chapped that he assumed I was flaking when really it was circumstance! Especially since, as I said before, I'm a schmuck who will honor a sale despite developing reservations. But I guess in the end it was good; I bought a Trick driveshaft and a used 'master' pedal and hooked them up to my existing single as the 'slave', for less money overall and a better linkage to boot.

So. Anyone else inadvertently been the CL jerk we all complain about?
 
You didn't flake, my man. You called him and told him the scoop, and he flaked off.

I don't do it, but it seems like most sellers will hedge their bets even if I say "I'll be over at x-o-clock to pick it up!" they still entertain other sellers. I've been called a few times and told the item sold as I was on my way.

As a seller, closest I've come to that is that I won't wait all day for a confirmation from someone and I'll move on to other buyers if communication isn't so great. I'm not keen to drag a sale over a few days until someone decides not to be lazy about the pick up.
 
I can't stand when I make arrangements with a seller, and then they change their mind/sell it to someone else. One of the lamest examples...

I found a good deal on a Yamaha MCA kit a while back. It came with alloy RiMS mounts for all the toms (4 or 5 of them, if memory serves) in addition to the YESS mounts. About halfway through the hour drive to the guy's place to pick up the drums, he texts me and says that he's decided to give the RIMS mounts to his friend. So I said "no problem, how much is that going to knock the price down?" (those alloy RIMS are expensive). He tells me that the price is the same. When I explained calmly that I had planned on selling the RIMS to offset some of the cost of the kit, and that there should be SOME kind of discount for taking a few hundred dollars worth of gear off the table, he freaked out and said that he wasn't going to sell me the drums. What a putz.
 
Hello here is my post from May. This is a more fitting thread so I will repost this was in “the best of Craigslist” thread.

“Sorry a little late to the party line. Early in February late one weeknight, I was casually looking it the instruments section of Craigslist and lo behold, a blue vista octa plus with 9 cymbals priced at $3,500(the post was about 2 weeks old) so Immediately called and spoke to a man who said he still had the drums for sale and I could go and take a look. The drums were in Canon City colorado about 30 miles of pueblo west, and i made arrangements to see them the next day right after work. When I called the next morning about 10 a.m. to confirm arrangement a lady I never spoke with, nonchalantly said she sold the drums “last night”. I was a crushed 35 year old - I couldn’t sleep the night leading up just thinking about the kit I was about to snag... however this lead me to do more research and I ended up finding a Ruby vista in a power factory config. I watched this one for a bit and snagged about a week later as I had to drive to St. Louis to pick up at local music store. Nonetheless I am very happy as I found out Ruby’s are harder to come by than clear, amber, tequila, and blue acrylics. Just last night 5.17.18 I won a bid for a 16 floor tom. So I am building my way to an octa plus 2 (I am calling it that due to having two on the floor now - 16” and 18”). All I need is another bass and the 6” and 8” if any one has for sale?”

I still lose sleep over this and wonder why I was told two different things, but hey it happens.
 
Hello here is my post from May. This is a more fitting thread so I will repost this was in “the best of Craigslist” thread.

“Sorry a little late to the party line. Early in February late one weeknight, I was casually looking it the instruments section of Craigslist and lo behold, a blue vista octa plus with 9 cymbals priced at $3,500(the post was about 2 weeks old) so Immediately called and spoke to a man who said he still had the drums for sale and I could go and take a look. The drums were in Canon City colorado about 30 miles of pueblo west, and i made arrangements to see them the next day right after work. When I called the next morning about 10 a.m. to confirm arrangement a lady I never spoke with, nonchalantly said she sold the drums “last night”. I was a crushed 35 year old - I couldn’t sleep the night leading up just thinking about the kit I was about to snag... however this lead me to do more research and I ended up finding a Ruby vista in a power factory config. I watched this one for a bit and snagged about a week later as I had to drive to St. Louis to pick up at local music store. Nonetheless I am very happy as I found out Ruby’s are harder to come by than clear, amber, tequila, and blue acrylics. Just last night 5.17.18 I won a bid for a 16 floor tom. So I am building my way to an octa plus 2 (I am calling it that due to having two on the floor now - 16” and 18”). All I need is another bass and the 6” and 8” if any one has for sale?”

I still lose sleep over this and wonder why I was told two different things, but hey it happens.

This one is easy to understand. Many a buyer will sell to the first person to show, not the first person to say they will show. In the world of Craigslist flakers, there is a difference. The seller was concerned you'd flake.
Sounds like it all worked out anyway.
 
True it did work out rubies were half that $amount, and what bummed me out was the timing, I called late in the evening around 8-830. The guy sounded very engaged and on the other hand, the lady sounded put off. Almost made me believe there was a disagreement about whether or not they should have been sold when it came down to it. Thanks for your reply Tune 👍
 
This one is easy to understand. Many a buyer will sell to the first person to show, not the first person to say they will show. In the world of Craigslist flakers, there is a difference. The seller was concerned you'd flake.
Sounds like it all worked out anyway.

That's what I do when I sell something. "First one to show up with $XXX gets it. No exceptions." Stuff usually goes pretty quick. I don't give dilly-dalliers a chance to waste my time.
 
I am not a that type of person. Although I understand some people like to waste time in a commerce setting, for many reasons.

Oh I wasn't suggesting you are. I put that in so people who actually want or need something are motivated to buy. They want my stuff, I want their money. Saying first one to show up seems to weed out the flakes.
 
What if you've both agreed to a deal something like this, Kit for sale, toms and bass are authentic vintage, the rest add ons snare etc. my offer is to pay X for toms and bass ,he says its a deal but i;m on holidays we will meet next week. OK agreed. the day before meeting i get a call another buyer will buy the lot for original price so he blows me off.. not really excelling on my moral compass but i guess the seller feels they can over ride an agreement if it suits them better. my dilemma is that they should honour their word they on the other hand think not. so i would surmise that money trumps honour, no? cest la vie.
 
Ive sold a lot of stuff, mainly non drum related but drums too, on eBay since about 2004. Touch wood I’ve never been conned out of items, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who’ve messed me around, not paid and one example where before I even knew the auction had finished, eBay contacted me to say the account was scammer and cancelling the auction.
On the other hand, every item I’ve tried to sell on Gumtree or Schpock, as far as I can see they’re rough equivalents to Craigslist, has had a “story” attached to it that every time has resulted in no sale. People promising to turn up and repeatedly never doing so and because of the person I am I was the one feeling guilty about even thinking of selling to someone else even though I was being messed about. Net result being no one ended up buying. One that sticks out is some unused bedding that I tried to sell for £10. The “buyer” kept making excuses for over a week before asking if she could take it and give me the tenner later when she got paid! Or the person who got in touch about an item of furniture we were selling and wanted to swap her completely knackered settee for it!
None of these are the same as the OPs predicament but it’s why I prefer to use eBay in spite of the charges, if someone pushes the button on the deal then 99% of the time it WILL go.
 
Listen y'all, if you show up and the product isn't exactly what was represented, you have EVERY RIGHT to NOT buy something! My dad taught me this when I was in 8th grade. I traded my Legends of Zelda game (a REALLY hot commodity at the time) for a freestyle bike from a friend. When I showed up, he had spray-painted the frame black and it looked like garbage. He had also stripped the bike as well. Since I told him I would trade, I went through with it because I'm a man of my word. I think I cried over it for several hours. Lesson learned - you have every right to back out of a deal if the item was misrepresented or if you show up and it's simply not what you want.

Yup, when it comes to selling, the FIRST person with cash in hand gets it. That's just the way Craigslist is, and as a buyer, I go into it knowing this.
 
Just as an aside....

I couldn't imagine traveling two hours + for a double pedal....

A vintage kit maybe...but a pedal?

Surely one would have come up that was closer!
 
OP stayed in contact with the seller and communicated that he was having transportation trouble. I that is OK. In my opinion it's the people that don't communicate and don't appear that are the flakes.
 
You didn't flake, my man. You called him and told him the scoop, and he flaked off.

Thanks but to be fair, I didn't get a chance to tell him I was making alternate arrangements; I was updating him with my travel ("I'm leaving the house now", etc) and in the interval between telling him I would likely miss the train, and his blowoff message, is when I decided to just go rent a zipcar.

This wasn't after weeks of dickering, I saw the item Friday night and contacted him then. So it seems reasonable to organize an alternate time to meet, with the caveat that I might get scooped. At any rate, the dismissive nature of it turned me off so I didn't bother to respond to say "no man, I'm gonna drive out there and will be there in time"... I was immediately discouraged from giving the dude my cash and left it at that. Bad seller's etiquette in my book.
 
Listen y'all, if you show up and the product isn't exactly what was represented, you have EVERY RIGHT to NOT buy something!

Great story and lesson learned. I'm totally the same way. During this same double pedal search I checked out another one where there was so much play in the master pedal that every stroke caused the entire axle assembly to sag. I felt bad but had I to tell the guy that no way was I going to buy it, and he should try to fix it (I wasn't even sure myself what the problem was -- loose bearing housings?)
 
Just as an aside....

I couldn't imagine traveling two hours + for a double pedal....

A vintage kit maybe...but a pedal?

Surely one would have come up that was closer!

Meh, it was a bit of an impulse but also a decent deal for a DW5000 probably supported by the fact that it was way out there as opposed to local (NYC) where one would fetch more. And, Friday night me kinda liked the idea of getting away from it all and taking a nice train ride out to Long Island. However, hung over Sunday morning me felt otherwise :p
 
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