Don’t you hate being ignored?

fess

Senior Member
I made 2 offers on 2 different items on Reverb in the last month. Both were ‘make an offer’ items. The offers were both 15% below asking. A bit low but not outrageous.
In both cases the offers were ignored and sat out there for 24 hours before expiring.
Ok, not a big deal, but how much effort is it to hit ‘decline’?
I know, maybe they were sick...etc. I’m just feeling a need to complain. It’s that kind of day.
 
I suppose the alternate to that has been when I made an offer on an item with the option, and the seller fired back with the same as asking price!
 
You did nothing wrong. There are realistic and reasonable sellers out there and then there are sellers who have no idea what their item is worth or have an inflated opinion of it's value and have no idea what "negotiate" means. I've learned after many years of buying items on ebay and etsy and elsewhere that you have to establish in your own mind what you are willing to pay, make an offer that's reasonable and if the seller is serious about selling you'll hear from them. And if they aren't serious or have a chip on their shoulder or are unrealistic about value, you won't hear from them. That's just life. Ultimately you want to stay away from the ones you never heard from because if you chase them and somehow get them to agree to a deal, you are far more likely to experience a problem during the course of the transaction which will make you regret chasing them down. Never chase a seller. It smells desperation. And all it does is inflate the value of the product in the seller's mind even more. Same goes for sellers you hear from who counter with the same asking price. The only reason to accept an asking price counter is if the seller has priced the item really well. Otherwise, run for the hills. Lasty, there is the possibility the seller is sick. But the likelihood of that, even in these crazy times, is pretty small.
 
In my example, the item was damaged, so would have needed some repair. He was asking top dollar for it. I refused, went to GC and even with their outrageous shipping costs got a fully working item for less.
 
I agree. this has happened to me on eBay a few times when trying to buy. as a seller I always either decline and leave a message or make a counter offer.

when selling items on eBay I usually have my offers set to automatically decline if it's below a certain dollar amount. I recently had a Gretsch Stave snare for sale on there. when reviewing one offer I noticed it automatically declined another offer of $50 (plus free shipping). I almost wish it didn't auto-decline so I could have sent him a message about it.
 
In my example, the item was damaged, so would have needed some repair. He was asking top dollar for it. I refused, went to GC and even with their outrageous shipping costs got a fully working item for less.

That's how you let your money do the talking for you. Meanwhile the seller who refused to respond to you still owns the less desireable item and will likely continue to own for quite some time. Some people just have to learn their lessons the hard way.
 
There was a local drum shop here and I set up their website with a link to their Reverb store. Prior to this, they had no online info of their products. A couple months after going live, I asked them how things were going.

He was pissed ‘cuz he was getting offers below his asking price. I told him to turn off “make an offer” and he waved me off. “It doesn’t matter anyway”.

They’re now out of business.
 
I'm very impatient when it comes to spending money. If I finally decide I'm ready to buy and make an offer, I absolutely hate waiting. It's a personal problem, I'm very OCD. If I don't hear back within a few hrs (and this depends where they're located--west coast for example), I'll just message politely and ask Hey guys, have you seen my offer? I'm very interested. You can't do much more than that.

This also reminds me of Bum Wrap Co. I've called them COUNTLESS TIMES, with no answer, ever. I mean, I used to wonder if they were still in business.
 
Being ignored can work in your favor.

There was a "Best Offer" item on ebay that had been listed & relisted & relisted, etc. many times. The price never changed and I always made the same price offer, never receiving a decline or counter offer. My offers always expired w/o a response. The last time I made the same offer (going on the 5th or 6th time now), the seller agreed and I rec'd the item at about 60% of the original asking price.


I've also been on the other side of this as a seller. I listed a couple items for sale and about a 1.5 days before the auction ended I had some things come up both w/ work and the house (flooding basement issues) that required all my attention. I essentially ignored everything for a few days that didn't have to do with the basement, the work issue, and maintaining my sanity. When I got back to ebay, I saw that curing my crises, I had rec'd a few offers on my items. By then one had been ruined (in the basement flood) and the other ended up selling on Craigslist.
 
If you are willingly ignoring something, aren't you then aware of it and not really ignoring it at all? This concept is baffling.

I suppose the process would involve acknowledging that you've been ignored, then moving on without lingering bitterness or a stinging sense of rejection -- in other words, blowing the incident off. Also, it's hard to know the motives of the person who seems to have ignored you. The oversight may have been accidental. To ignore would imply an act of will in most instances.
 
I'm of the mind...roll with it. If it didn't actually happen, it wasn't meant to be.

Trust what happens!

Great story. One July day in 1998, I took my then girlfriend's pet parakeet Pete, in his cage, out on my deck to get some fresh air and sunshine. (I don't like seeing birds in cages) Well the wind blew the cage over while I wasn't there and Pete flew away. Crap.
I was a villain that night. I was not well liked.

The very next day, the dishwasher in my house caught fire. The bird surely would have died a terrible choking hot death trapped in his cage. If he was there.. Instead, he got at least one beautiful July day of freedom. I felt better after knowing that.

The fire...you'd think was a terrible thing, turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't find out until months later because somehow I got 10 grand from an insurance policy on my marital home in another state. (My brother in law is a public adjuster) I used that money to put down on that house (was renting at the time of the fire, owner wanted me to buy) and I love where I live. LOVE it.

The fire was mostly smoke and kitchen damage. The owner repaired it all. The dishwasher caught fire as a result of a new well that was dug a few months back (old well ran dry) and the water was brown with PA iron. It wasn't treated at all. It ruined all our clothes. The iron made a high resistance path to ground inside the dishwasher and thankfully caught the dishwasher on fire lol. No one was home at the time. My then girlfriend's aunt happened by at a critical time and alerted the fire department in time to save the house. If the nearby windows blew out the house would have burnt down.

Trust what happens!
 
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I'm of the mind...roll with it. If it didn't actually happen, it wasn't meant to be.

Trust what happens!

Great story. One July day in 1998, I took my then girlfriend's pet parakeet Pete, in his cage, out on my deck to get some fresh air and sunshine. (I don't like seeing birds in cages) Well the wind blew the cage over while I wasn't there and Pete flew away. Crap.
I was a villain that night. I was not well liked.

The very next day, the dishwasher in my house caught fire. The bird surely would have died a terrible choking hot death trapped in his cage. If he was there.. Instead, he got at least one beautiful July day of freedom. I felt better after knowing that.

The fire...you'd think was a terrible thing, turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't find out until months later because somehow I got 10 grand from an insurance policy on my marital home in another state. (My brother in law is a public adjuster) I used that money to put down on that house (was renting at the time of the fire, owner wanted me to buy) and I love where I live. LOVE it.

The fire was mostly smoke and kitchen damage. The owner repaired it all. The dishwasher caught fire as a result of a new well that was dug a few months back (old well ran dry) and the water was brown with PA iron. It wasn't treated at all. It ruined all our clothes. The iron made high resistance path to ground inside the dishwasher and thankfully caught the dishwasher on fire lol. No one was home at the time. My then girlfriend's aunt happened by at a critical time and alerted the fire department in time to save the house. If the nearby windows blew out the house would have burnt down.

Trust what happens!

It's interesting how fate and chance often masquerade as a single entity. That's natures way of keeping us guessing. It's better not to fall for the ploy. Accepting our plight and moving forth to better days is the only way to endure.
 
Perhaps rather than "decline" you outright he wanted to let the offer sit in case someone else offered more. In that case probably someone else offered better and he sold it.
 
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