Curious dealings - I have to ask

[The Mekon (John Briggs)]

There is a new member (joined this month), seems to want to buy all the high end eyepieces on offer, but no seller appears to want to deal with him.

What is going on?

Has only made one real post suggesting to a small dob owner a bunch of expensive eyepieces. The rest of the time is trying to buy fancy eyepieces and is being ignored. Are sellers being wary?

[04Stefan07 (Stefan)]

I think so mate.

It's a bit like eBay. I never really buy off any seller on eBay that has no feedback/stars associated with their account. I know you gotta start somewhere but that is usually good practice to stick with.

I think if you are a new member it is best to setup your profile properly, put in a few dozen posts on various threads and asks questions. Once their post count is up and you can see they have been around to the different topics it looks much better and more trustworthy than signing up and then wanting to buy everything in one hit.

Get yourself noticed then start buying/selling i reckon

[The Mekon (John Briggs)]

Thanks Stefan, I agree with what you say. Too many first timers come on here wanting to buy expensive equipment.

In this case I found the answer - it was a persistent low-baller wishing to buy high end eyepieces cheap!

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

I've checked some profiles of new members over the last few weeks and very little or no information is given .... some even have ' links' posted at the bottom of their profile .... some look very ' Russian' or European to me.

I've never ' clicked ' on one ... but the spelling of the ' link ' is not ' English '
To ' sus' for me .... and strange' usernames..

Some new users have made a ' 1st ' Post which is just stupid rabble....movies etc

Then they get reported

Low ballers wanting ' premium ' gear on the cheap are only insulting other members of the Astro Community .... have a look in the classifieds... especially the ' low ball ' offer on a SDM Dob

A very trusted member here recently messaged me telling me one of these ' goons ' offered $200.00 for a TV Ethos .... the owner told him he'd rather ' smash ' the Ethos with a hammer than accepting this insulting offer.

I don't even ' reply ' to theses ' goons '

Call me paranoid if you want to.....I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Col....

[clive milne]

$200 for an Ethos..?
Why would anyone bother wasting 60 seconds of their time even typing that offer?

[MortonH]

I reckon some are just trolling and want to annoy people. Maybe the occasional one actually thinks he might get a bargain and then sell again for a profit. Best to ignore them.

[PCH (Paul)]

Originally Posted by clive milne

$200 for an Ethos..?
Why would anyone bother wasting 60 seconds of their time even typing that offer?

The cheek of some people knows no bounds Clive, but to bother responding is more unbelievable to me actually!

[Nikolas (Nik)]

I always add a post at the end of my classifieds now, "lowballers will be kicked in them"

[sil (Steve)]

Originally Posted by MortonH

I reckon some are just trolling and want to annoy people. Maybe the occasional one actually thinks he might get a bargain and then sell again for a profit. Best to ignore them.

Nope, fast buy on the cheap, press you to post the eyepiece then complain to their bank /paypal etc and cancel/reverse transaction. They get their money back and your eyepiece for free since its in the mail and cant be stopped.

Not a new scam or even uncommon. And you cant do anything about it.
Then again there are similar scams for sellers to use. Buying requires a two-way trust.

Other forums I'm on (non-astro related) have a bunch of posting requirements before the sales threads are even available to look at. both # posts and # months regular posting are common minimum requirements
to weed out people spamming a thread trying to boost post counts. It also excludes scammers who sign up and expect to cast their line immediately, many won't wait 3 months to try their scam. During that time mods can see if the account is active in the time, if the person is participating in threads sensibly etc and they may ban that account if the "body language" is all wrong.

Of course there's no reason a seller cant look at the posts a prospective buyer has made and decide for themselves if they feel comfortable selling to them.

[04Stefan07 (Stefan)]

Originally Posted by FlashDrive

I've checked some profiles of new members over the last few weeks and very little or no information is given .... some even have ' links' posted at the bottom of their profile .... some look very ' Russian' or European to me.

I've never ' clicked ' on one ... but the spelling of the ' link ' is not ' English '
To ' sus' for me .... and strange' usernames..

Some new users have made a ' 1st ' Post which is just stupid rabble....movies etc

Then they get reported

Low ballers wanting ' premium ' gear on the cheap are only insulting other members of the Astro Community .... have a look in the classifieds... especially the ' low ball ' offer on a SDM Dob

A very trusted member here recently messaged me telling me one of these ' goons ' offered $200.00 for a TV Ethos .... the owner told him he'd rather ' smash ' the Ethos with a hammer than accepting this insulting offer.

I don't even ' reply ' to theses ' goons '

Call me paranoid if you want to.....I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Col....

Yep I agree. This is the reason why on many occasions I have mentioned that security should be tightened on the creation of accounts!

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

It's very difficult to sell anything online without getting people trying to low ball you.
Even selling something for $10 I had a guy wanting to negotiate down to $8... Must be their hobby.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by AussieTrooper

It's very difficult to sell anything online without getting people trying to low ball you.
Even selling something for $10 I had a guy wanting to negotiate down to $8... Must be their hobby.

I'll give you $8.05 .......................... if you cover postage!

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by AussieTrooper

It's very difficult to sell anything online without getting people trying to low ball you.
Even selling something for $10 I had a guy wanting to negotiate down to $8... Must be their hobby.

Yes, I'm sure a lot of the buyers are only in it for an absolute bargain (which is fair enough) - but apparently it can't be a bargain if they haven't haggled the price down.

We recently moved from a house into an apartment, and did a substantial tidy-up in the process, giving some stuff to charity, and listing stuff that we thought was sellable on Gumtree or Ebay. Selling stuff on Gumtree really highlights just how cheap some people can be, with the offers they make - it really is very dispiriting.

We listed stuff at what we thought were very good prices - "good value" when compared against similar listings, and priced to move quickly. I don't think there was a single item where we were offered anything like what we were asking - 50% (or lower) seems to be the norm these days. After a while, it was really getting me down, and if anybody rang and opened with "What's your lowest price?" I told them the price we had listed at, and hung up if they quibbled - I would rather give it to charity than take an insulting amount of money.

The other issue was the "no shows" - people who would ring up and say they were really interested, but couldn't get there for a couple of hours, and could we hold it for them? We did this a few times, closing the listing, and knocking back other offers - only to have the original buyer never show up. After a few such cases, we took the view that if you want us to hold it, the price is as per the listing, no ifs or buts. Even then, we had buyers come around, and then want to haggle when they got there. We stuck our ground, and wouldn't shift on the price. I can't tell you how many buyers bluffed by walking out muttering about it being over-priced - and then knocked on the door again two minutes later, and buying at the listed price!

We listed several items as being free - and even that was too much apparently - we even had people ringing up to ask if we could deliver it to them for free!

[dimithri86 (Dimithri)]

I am of mixed minds about this. I don't see low balling as such a bad thing. I've turned up to inspect cars with half the asking price in cash and often been successful. I recently sold a car, and got heaps of low ball offers, which I ignored, didnt annoy me, often the person contact me again with a higher price, it just seems to be the way these deals are done.

Certainly, if you agree on a price and turn up to collect and pay, at that point trying to knock the price down is a big NO NO.

Admittedly the culture on this site is much different to gumtree, and I wouldn't dream of low balling another member. But I did come close on a unpriced mount who's owner was very keen on me making an offer first before setting an expected price. I was planning on offering 1/3rd of the price he eventually ended up setting. But in fairness, this was old and missing quite a few bits, so its hard to gauge its true value.

Moral of the story: Simply ignore low ball offers.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Originally Posted by julianh72

We listed several items as being free - and even that was too much apparently - we even had people ringing up to ask if we could deliver it to them for free!

Been there, done that with parts taken off relatively rare cars (So also relatively hard to get parts, perhaps "Unusual" would be a better description than rare)

It would be different for astro gear if I was selling (I would just hold on to it) but for the car bits if I don't get interest at a reasonable price or at least interest in the receiver going out of their own way for free stuff instead of expecting me to deliver it then it goes in the skip. It does not take long to end up scrapped now either.

I have had one bloke get very snooty at me when I told him I had sent a now extremely hard to find Datsun cylinder head to scrap metal when he had told me he wanted it. I had not heard from him for nearly ten years before he called me with "I will have that head now thanks" It had been Coke cans for a couple of years.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by julianh72

We listed stuff at what we thought were very good prices - "good value" when compared against similar listings, and priced to move quickly. I don't think there was a single item where we were offered anything like what we were asking - 50% (or lower) seems to be the norm these days. After a while, it was really getting me down, and if anybody rang and opened with "What's your lowest price?" I told them the price we had listed at, and hung up if they quibbled - I would rather give it to charity than take an insulting amount of money.

I sold a portable air conditioner. The guy comes over, then wants to haggle. He was politely told that he didn't have to buy it and could go home if he didn't want to pay the price.
Suppose the good thing to do is just ignore the low ball emails in the first place.
I do like the 'deliver the free thing for free' request though. Now that takes hubris.