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Category: Life As I Know It | Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2014 4:50 pm

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Yesterday I made the decision to sell my 2001 Ford Ranger. It's not running, but I'm fairly certain it's got a bad fuel pump. In addition, the water pump also needs to be replaced. I could do all that, but I really don't want to, especially since replacing the fuel pump requires dropping the gas tank. So, about 6:00 last night I posted it on Craig's List for fifteen hundred dollars. I couldn't believe the response. By 10:00 I finally had to shut my phone off. Originally I was willing to go down to one thousand dollars, but the very first person who texted me kind of ticked me off. I know that everyone wants something for nothing and I posted it knowing that people were going to try and haggle on the price, but to try and get the price down before asking about the truck itself? Uh… no. Let me explain.

Here is the first text that I received: You still have Ranger

My response: Yes.

His response: You take 800

Now, I am somewhat anal when it comes to structuring sentences and I really have a problem with the text speak that our culture has developed. I ignored the grammar in his first text, "You still have Ranger", but I couldn't ignore the second one. There wasn't a dollar sign in front of the number or even a question mark at the end of the… do I dare call it a sentence? To make it worse there was no asking about the mileage or what size engine was in the truck. No questions about the tires or the last time that it ran. Only, "You take 800". From my perspective this text was saying "You will take 800!"

So, in response to his insulting offer and pathetic grammar I sent my own grammatically incorrect text: I take 1500

After that he asked a couple of questions about the truck. I answered all of them and then once again he came back with: You take 800

Same insulting offer, same bad grammar. My wife had been following the text conversation with me. At this point she said, "Give me that phone!"

Before I could even utter a protest she had texted back: You on crack?

His response: You are

My wife's response: No, but I should be… LOL

His response: God bless...750… LOL

So, I took the phone out of my wife's hands and deleted the conversation…. LOL (honestly, I have a problem using LOL and have never used it in any text, but it seems to fit right in here).

Then I got the first phone call. He had a thick Spanish accent and I had difficulty following his conversation. He finally got to the price and asked, "What the lowest, lowest price you willing to sell?"

I'm not the best negotiator, but I know that I'm not going to throw out my lowest price right at the beginning of the negotiations, especially since the person asking me has never even looked at the truck. So, I answered him with a version of the same question he had just asked me, "What is the highest, highest price you willing to pay?"

This kind of threw him off and the phone was silent for a few seconds. After my words finally sunk into his brain he said, "Ummm, one thousand dollars."

That was the amount that I was willing to take, but at that split second I changed my mind and decided that I wanted at least twelve hundred dollars. So, I went high, "I'll take thirteen hundred."

His answer was, "You call me when you ready to sell at one thousand."

That remark helped me decide to never, ever call him back… even if I didn't get another interested party. But there were plenty more people interested and it sold at 8:00 this morning for twelve hundred dollars, less than one day after posting it on Craig's List.

I had a few other interesting phone calls and texts. One guy wanted to have it shipped to Canada and pay me with PayPal. Definitely a scam. Another phone call was a recording that wanted me to give all of my personal information and they would buy it sight unseen. No thank you. Nearly everyone asked me my "bottom dollar" and most of them didn't even read the description in the listing. I made it very clear that it wasn't running, but at least three different people asked me if it was running. Hello? If it was running I wouldn't be selling it for fifteen hundred dollars.

All in all it was an entertaining exercise. I don't think I want to do it again anytime soon though.



Last edited: Sun Apr 17, 2016 1:36 pm

This blog entry has been viewed 539 times

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eileen wrote on Fri Oct 03, 2014 6:59 pm:

I don't think I would have wanted to go through all that if I was selling something. I'm glad you ended up getting a decent price for your Ranger though. Well done.

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Netty wrote on Sat Oct 04, 2014 7:34 pm:

I think the same way. My husband often has me post things on a popular buy/sell page for him. Most of the replies come in the first hour. Many of them send a low offer without asking any questions. These are the people who make a career out of buying and selling things. I have had the same person reply to my ad more than once and not realize they had already made an offer. Anyone that sends a message like that now gets ignored, and so do people with bad grammar. Anyone who is legitimately interested in purchasing my item will ask questions first and make offers later. I am getting very good at screening the replies to these ads. I did tell Hubby not long ago that I was taking a break from these ads as I was tired of idiots!

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