Weird people on Craigslist - Tell your story

Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Bike Wall
Shop deals on ebay
Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I answered a CL ad this past winter for a Mongoose BMX bike. Weird description but the pic was of an early 80's Goose with ALL the high end parts. Price was like $50. The ad did say that the bike was similar, but a different color. After an email or two, I knew I was delaing with a kid. It was real close to my work so I dropped by hoping for the best. Turned out to be a Wall-Goose located in white-trash central. I counted at least 4 kids under 10 years old (the "salesgirl"was maybe 9) and the only adult in the house was actually ouside in a van yelling and swearing because someone was in her spot. Dog doo-doo on the floor of the kitchen, and the list goes on. I left as fast as I could.
 
I have one not about a bike but a car. We were selling our Toyota Celica. When a guy calls and asks about it. I was describing what kind of shape it was in and how we loved all the space because of the hatch back. So the guy starts to argue with me that this car does not have a hatch back. It goes on for 5 minutes until I get tired of the idiot and hang up.
 
..wow. :lol: if you have the regisration, it probably says hatchback in the model.. :roll:
 
I replied to an ad for a set of 26" white walls and the guy gives me directions to his house, they include "the road is overgrown so it is hard to see.", "drive across the crick, there's no bridge but it's not deep", and "look out for the spot where the road is washed out". "You got a truck, right?" Six miles of dirt roads, wash outs, and a crick I find his place. He couldn't be a nicer guy. Used to be a hard core mountain biker until the second time he broke his back when his forks failed catastrophically. I get a set of Brand new S-7 white walls, a '69 Schwinn Hollywood, a couple other old frames, and a beautiful 50's Western Flyer girls bike. All for $20! I was wondering if I had made the wrong choice as I rumbled along the dirt roads, but I am glad I did.
 
Cameron, wow what a deal!

But I gotta ask... did you hear banjo's ?


My latest Craigslist gripe... My son has one of his video games up for sale, had several interested, but it seems they dont know how to e-mail me back for my phone number! ?? !
 
I've only had one CL transaction, but it was interesting to say the least. This was a couple of years ago- my wife found a kennel for our new puppy, and it was on my way home from work. She makes the call and talks to the woman, and all I had to do was stop on my way home and pick it up. Simple enough.
I get there and the woman is a few years older than me, very nice, and really, really proud of her recent "front end upgrades". I mean, REALLY proud.
To say I was uncomfortable would be an understatement. I paid her, folded up the kennel, and it took me about 5 minutes of thanking her and politely telling her I had to get going before I could escape.
 
Well, I'm glad it's not just happening to me!
I have yet to sell anything on C/L!!
My most common experience is the no shows and the tire kickers, boy does that hack me off!

I had a pair of '50s nightstands for sale and these are in near mint condition, a couple shows up and are hemming and hawwing then she asks what kind of paint do I think would stick! What your going to PAINT THEM!!??
They couldn't make up they're minds and left, I was glad not to sell to them.

On the other hand, we got a free 'new' mattress from someone my wife works with and it just about killed our backs for the week we tried it out. My wife puts it on C/L for 'free' and less than 10 mins later she gets a call and the guy showed up with his two kids within the hour. Of course she spent the next several hours telling everyone who called that it was already gone.
 
We've got a guy locally that keeps advertising cruisers, but demands that, "If yer a ..., don't waste my time. I kin tell over the phone"...etc. Not only do I watch Craigslist for the odd deal - it's entertaining as heck.
 
The one and only vintage bike I sold on CL went real smooth to a collector and without haggling over price. :D

But I have had some rather strange experiences with other items like with a Japanese 'Pachislo' machine...

I get a call from a man who claims to be disabled and would like me to load the slot machine in my vehicle, drive it over to his house so he can look it over and make a decision. Right, I'm going to hump an 80+ pound slot machine in to my vehicle, drive it 20 miles away, unload it and then let him try it out? Don't think so. I sold it a week later to a collector who came by my office for pickup.

I got a load of tire kickers while selling one of my fiberglass dune buggies on CL. Each one went on an on about how excited they were to come by and look at it, etc, etc...not one of them showed. Eventually, the chassis was sold to a man in CT and he drove down in the pouring rain for pickup. The body recently sold to a man in Illinois, which he has paid for in full and is to make pickup around the holidays. These buyers came from a VW forum.

Now if you really want to hear stories of absolute weirdos, I have a number of FreeCycle stories to tell. :wink:
 
bmxerpete said:
I get there and the woman is a few years older than me, very nice, and really, really proud of her recent "front end upgrades". I mean, REALLY proud.
Click to expand...

Not a Craigslist story but... I coached my son's baseball team from t-ball up to high school, when we were playing in the 12 year old league the mother of one of the boys on the team was going thru a divorce, and a couple weeks later she shows up to the games with a totally rebuilt front end, and like your story she was very very proud.

The boys on the team noticed this (along with everyone else, coaches included) since they were at a very impressionable age. The situation got to the point where it was affecting team play, since she made sure to show off the enhancements every chance she got. It was quite a distraction!

In the end I had to have a little talk with her which was very uncomfortable for me, but at least she finally toned it down a bit and started wearing a bra again, and did a pretty good job keeping them covered up. Needless to say we went on and finished the season UNDEFEATED!!
 
:lol: i bet there were a lot of dropped balls in the games, and a lot of head injuries.
 
ahh.. well im guess that was quite a talk to have with someone you dont really know. :shock:
 
Yes it was quite uncomfortable. :oops:

You gotta understand, Im not all anti-enhancement... I thought it was a great improvement for her, but there is a time and place for everything. And ball games just wasnt the proper venue to be showin those puppies off, especially since it was affecting team play.

On second thought.... maybe thats why we went undefeated??!! :wink:
 
gowjobs said:
We've got a guy locally that keeps advertising cruisers, but demands that, "If yer a ..., don't waste my time. I kin tell over the phone"...etc. Not only do I watch Craigslist for the odd deal - it's entertaining as heck.
Click to expand...

Sounds like my late grandfather. He blamed the Jews for everything..His cable being out, his phone not working, being out of cigarrettes, his arthritis acting up, it was always the ...... Jews, the big Zionist plot, blah blah.
 
Also not exactly a CL story, but a bizarre selling-related situation.
About 12 years ago I was selling my Kawasaki Ninja. I'd just gotten my dream bike (Ducati), and just wanted to sell it fast to free up the extra payment, etc. I listed it for something like $6300 FIRM, just a couple of dollars over my actual pay-off, and close to two grand under market value. It was a GREAT deal.
At the time I lived right on a major street, so I parked it out on the sidewalk in front of my house with a For Sale sign on it. It was a long sidewalk on a big front yard with a flawless lawn I was really proud of, and it looked spectacular in Ferrari red against all that green - an awesome "sale display"! About 7 o'clock on the first Saturday morning after I first started trying to sell it, my front doorbell rings (the bike wasn't even out on display yet), waking us all up, including my two kids, who were pretty small at the time. I dragged myself out of bed and answered the door. This heavy, older Hispanic guy with a thick accent says, "Hey man, I want to buy your bike!".
I say, "OK, great. Uh, you want to ride it first?"
He says, "No, I jus' give you cash!"
I was pretty groggy still, trying to keep up with what was happening and said, "OKayyy. Sounds good to me", but somewhere in the back of my peabrain, a Weirdness Alarm was starting to go off, I was just in too much of a stupor to realize it yet.
He then says, "You take three thousand, OK!"
Whoooaaa Nellie!! I knew this had to be too good to be true! I tell him, no - sixty three hundred.
He says, "No I give you CASH! Three thousand!"
I say, "Noooo, the price is sixty three hundred. I OWE sixty three hundred."
Him, "I give you CASH! Three thousand"
I'm getting annoyed quickly. "Look", I say straining to be nice, and try to explain to him, just in case he's not understanding for some reason, "I OWE that much on it. If I took three thou for it, I'd still owe the bank three thou for it! Besides, it's already priced about two thousand cheaper than what they're selling for. It's a GREAT deal. SIX thousand. Three hundred. That's the best price."
He acts like I've been standing there silent, "Here! You take my three thousand!"
I finally said, "No thanks", and closed the door. :?
The weirdest thing is he came back two more times! The next time at the same early hour. By the end of the second time, after having almost an identical conversation, I was about to go ballistic, and told him NOT to come back, and closed the door on him.
The next day - not so early - he came again! :shock:
I saw who it was, and about came through the door at him. I'd always talked to him through our security screen, but this time I came right out onto the porch and yelled "WHAT DO YOU WANT??!!" in his face. He shoved a fistful of bills into my chest! "HERE! YOU TAKE CASH! 3 THOUSAND! I BUY YOUR MOTORCYCLE!"
I couldn't believe it! Not really wanting to have an Assault and Battery charge against me (!), I just grabbed the money out of his hand and threw it toward the front yard and told him to get the "F" off my property or I'd call the cops. He kept talking as he picked it all up as if he still might get to buy the bike! I just yelled "GO!" again, and told him never to come back, and went back inside!
What The F??!!
 
wow.. what an idiot.. :lol: sorry to hear you had to go through that.. did he come back ever?
 
LOL - no, thankfully. I'm a pretty laid back person, but things were about to..."escalate". What a maroon! :lol:
And I sold it a few days later to a guy that had seen it on the Motorcycle Trader ad, and had driven about 50 miles to see it. He knew what they were worth, and could see that it was in mint condition. Took a short ride, drove to the bank, and laid down the cash!
 
you take 3 thousand dollars..CASH! :lol: what if he said that?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top