I’ve sold a few things lately using Craig’s List and Ebay.  I’ve used Ebay a lot, so I generally know what to expect there.  Craig’s List is a totally different stroy, since it’s just open listings and people tend to think if they are selling something it’s made of gold, but if they are buying something it should be free.  Here are some interesting tid bits…

I sold a 27″ Philips Magnavox TV after getting my new TV (37″ Vizio LCD).  I really just wanted to get rid of the old TV (it was truly old, it worked fine, but had ONE input – coax) so I listed it for $25.  I got about 12 responses in four hours.  Probably listed it too low.  The first responder flaked, so I called the second and she almost flaked but showed up the second day.  She saw the TV and said “it’s THIS TV for $25?!?”.  I said “you aren’t a negotiator are you?”.  For a minute I thought I was dumb for pricing it too low, but this woman was obviously not very wealthy (there is no way to say that without sounding elitist, especially while braggin’ about my new stuff) and she bought it for her 4 year old son’s room, so I felt pretty good about that.

I also sold Sunday’s Braves/Cubs tickets.  Katy wasn’t feeling good and the game was moved to 8:10 for ESPN coverage, meaning waking up at 5:30 Monday morning would be tough, so I decided to sell them.  I listed them only about four hours before game time, and took five bucks off the price.  I got a response immediately saying “I’ll take them for free so they won’t go to waste”.  Errr, yeah, I would have gone to the game and had an extra seat for my food before I wasted them.  I got a call about two hours later from a guy wanting them who asked “are you a Cubs fan or Braves fan”?  I told him jokingly that if he was a Cubs fan the price would triple, and he said “no way, I’m a Braves fan!” and went into a big diatribe about the team.  “Ok, that was weird, but baseball fans are typically a little nuts”, I thought and went to meet him with the tickets.  He gets out of his car, decked out in Cubs gear from head to toe.  I say “wow, you’re some Braves fan” and he says “well, things change”.  What an oddly jerky response for something that doesn’t matter at all.  Maybe he thought I’d really triple the price?  He was obviously retarded, so that is certainly possible.  Since I’m not so quick witted, I just said “oooh weee” and took his money and drove off.  Weird.  The Braves won the game, so take at least he didn’t enjoy the seats.

The best has been trying to sell my PS2 and all the games.  I listed it after buying an XBox 360 from Thomas, and got about 8 responses.  Most were super cheap people trying to low ball the hell out of me ($50 cash for the whole package, etc) and two were people wanting me to ship it internationally and asking for my paypal info.  I responded with something like “I am only selling locally and for cash, you can pick it up and ship it out yourself, but I’m afraid of getting scammed”.  The first person never responded and the second left me this gem: “ok.got to hell with ur fucking playstation”.  Ahhh, stupid people.  I took the high road and didn’t respond to ask what “got to hell” meant.  I’ve decided I’m going to beat my kid if it uses internet reject shorthand like “ur” for “your” and the like (Though “wtf” is pretty useful.  Also doesn’t “ur” read more “u r” or “you are”?  Whatever, I guess I shouldn’t expect this reject to understand the difference between “your” and “you’re”, or even care that there is a difference (And now time for everybody who reads this to point out all my grammar and spelling errors)).Â