Someone advertises a part for sale. I email the guy expressing an interest and leave my email address and phone number. More times than not, I never hear a word back. If the item is sold, just say so. Is it that difficult to key in a line or two just to put the matter to rest for the sender?
Common courtesy.
Unfortunately, it often seems courtesy is not very common.
i can sympathize, but as i have had a couple of cars listed recently and, i have had nothing but scammers galore and my e-mail account was compromised. its hard sometimes to tell legit responders from phishers. i don't open attach at all and i still got nailed. by the same token, i have responded to ads for parts from well known persons and agreed to their price and they never would send the part after they said they would package it and get a cost to ship and let me know, but never heard from them again or answer e-mail. grrrrr.
I concur with Stuart. I learned from CL that you don't answer short one-line emails. I did once and got a boat-load of spam for being courteous. And if the email is from Yahoo, I'll never see it anyway. It's blocked. Also, I'm certainly not going to call long distance to let a bunch of people know the item has been sold. Some long distance calls will cost you $10 per second if you're not careful. And who has time to look up all the numbers?
If you want a response from me there's some Sender Rules of Courtesy that need to be followed as well.
1. Describe the item as listed.
2. Ask a question about it or offer to buy it.
3. Give your name and address.
4. Type in English above the third grade level.
Ken,
You've just eliminated 99% of the buyers.....
Which part? Number four?
I have a car on a number of car sites. When an address or phone # is required to register I phony them up. My e-mail addr. is correct for the only means of contact. So I get a message from a guy, through one of the sites, and it appears legit. (spelling etc. OK). I answer him telling him the extra pictures he asked for were added to the existing ad. Guess what? The next day he calls me! Where'd you get my number? From the ad he says. You're a **** liar and I hang up. He e-mails me the next day saying he wants the car, he's sorry and he got my # off the web. I fooled myself but good. No further contact.
There are so many way to weed out the scams and fishers; I've repeated them on a number of occasions on this forum.
1. First off, create an email address that is just for your online classified ad interactions. This way, if your email gets hijacked or compromised in some manner (which is very rare in reality) you haven't lost anything. You also get the added bonus of knowing that anything that comes to that address must be related to an online classified interaction.
2. ALWAYS require respondents to send a phone number with their first communication to you. Scammers and bots will NEVER do this. Stick to your guns. Even if an email looks legit, DO NOT respond if there is no phone number. This also has the added benefit of discouraging tire kickers. Only the truly interested folk will include a number.
3. If you feel compelled or your comfort level is such that you want to include a phone number in your ad, do it in a format like this: FiveFour 1 - 9OneFive - 01TWO3. This will stop any of the current bots mining the ad for phone numbers. You can also do this with your email address. Dan***thecar**dude//at//hot**mailDOTcom.
There are other other ways, but you get the idea. I almost never get spam from my ads and in the rare instances when I do I simply do not respond.
Oh and one other thing - if you don't want your email hijacked politely ask your friends to stop including you in their mass-mailed jokes of the day. And you do the same.
Forward lists are the single biggest reason why many email addresses get hijacked.
Danial is right, most of the forwarded emails are address harvesting programs. It does not matter if you forward them as your address is already been given to them by your "friend" but when you forward the story about how obama lied or walmart is better, you are giving the addresses of your friends to the scamers.
Ken,
You don't accept emails with Yahoo addresses? Why is Yahoo any different than Gmail or Hotmail? Yahoo is my only email, other than my work email. I don't use my work email for buying t parts.if you were to pm me, my response would come from a Yahoo address.
You can get to know most everything about someone just by typing their name in one of the search boxes like Google search, MSN and such. You would be amazed. It shows your address, number of children, Names the same or similar to yours and so on. Type your name in and see. Any time you order a magazine, on line purchase, send in a rebate, credit card purchase, all that information is compiled and sold to mailing list companies who sell it advertisers. This is nothing new. I worked for a major hardware wholesaler in the '70's and 80's who gathered this information form not only their customers but also their dealers and sold it. Anything for a buck. Go ahead type your name in the search box.
Google Voice is a great way to get phone calls in a way that protects you with online ads. Check it out.
Enter your name in Google Images and see what comes up. I got pictures of me, pictures of guys with the same name, and pictures of Bruce McCalley, Mike Walker, Verne Shirk, Jimmy Cagney with Henry Fonda, Bill Stephan's yellow speedster, the Houses of Parliament, LeBron James, a stethoscope, a cow, four bottles of salsa picante, caterpillars and butterflies, a golf course, shipping containers, tulips, and even some unrelated subjects...........
"Enter your name in Google Images and see what comes up."
I really wish I hadn't... found a guy with my name on a sex-offender list.
This is NOT ME!!! http://www.homefacts.com/offender-detail/MA15761/Derek-Kiefer.html
Good luck trying to cross the border Derek. I have a friend who is a white male, 285 lbs, 6 ft tall and was stopped at the border to Canada and after a two hour delay they let him cross. He had the same name as another man they were looking for. Get this...The man was a black male, 185 lbs, 5 foot tall! gee I guess they would be easy to confuse! The only thing that was the same was their names!
Do they charge to access those sites? Like Google Images.
No fee. Just go to Google.com and look at the upper right. You'll see Images. Click on that and enter a subject in the box. You'll get the subject plus lots of other stuff that may or may nor be related.
Also upper right on the Google page is a group of nine little squares. Click on that and you'll get other Google services like Maps, Calendar, and Gmail.
Great one photo of me and several of my messy shop!
I once sent an email about a 1931 Chevy truck I found in the classifieds of Generator and Distributor. They responded within 9 hours or so of my original email saying the truck was sold. I responded with a simple "thank you for your quick response" and didn't expect a response. However, I got one with (what I took as) a very rude "THE TRUCK IS SOLD!"
Another classified ad I responded to was for a lawnmower. The seller had a lot of tractors listed, but I was only interested in the one unit. His ad said $600 obo for 5 tractors. He wanted 300 for the one I wanted, and wasn't willing to haggle. In fact, he seemed a little irritated when I offered a lower price. When someone prices something as "obo" doesn't that imply some wiggle room?
Those are my worst classified ad stories so far, but I'm still a youngster. I'm sure they'll get worse as I go. Seems like everybody is after the almighty dollar and forgets they're dealing with other people.
A couple of years ago I found a farm implement I wanted on CL. I called the people and we worked a price and I had directions to their house and an agreed pick up time of 4pm. I cut a family function short to make sure I was there on time and just before I pulled out of my driveway I thought I'd call them to let them know I was on my way. ...Oh sorry, we already sold that!
Jared, an obo price means that the owner won't take less, but the best offer will buy it. Dave
I guess I misunderstood it all these years, I thought a price OBO meant that the first buyer to show up with the asking price in cash gets the car.
If the buyer couldn't get his asking price, then he would accept the best offer under it.
You may be correct Mark, but that's not the way I have always been told. It seems to me that if the buyer would take less than the asking price, he would simply say "BEST OFFER". JMHO. Dave
I guess the clearest way to say it would be "best offer over xxxx".
I was always told: OBO met the XXXXX or OBO. OBO meaning; Or Best Offer.
I'm selling, or trying to sell, a Motor Home right now. I dropped the price and I listed it for; XXXXXX Firm. Should I not have done that??
I've always heard that Or Best Offer meant if someone was willing to offer a reasonable amount the seller would take it, but saying the price is Firm means there's no room to negotiate. Maybe I've been taught wrong all these years.
It takes all kinds. A few years ago I responded to an ad for Trans Am parts. Talked to the guy on the phone, established some prices for some particular pieces I was looking for and then drove almost 55 miles one way only to get there and have him tell me he decided he could get more money by listing them on eBay.
I just looked at him and said, "Dude, this is going to be a 110 mile round trip for me by the time I get home. Will you at least sell me the intake." (The one part I was really making the trip for.)
Nope.
I felt like throwing a rock at him.
What's with all these jokers from England?
Larry: They're not from England and they're not really interested in Model T's. Nigeria as for their origin and your money as for their real interest would be my guesses
In reference to my posting above: I had the guy's # because he called my cel phone. His area code was for the Caiman Islands.