Facebook market place…infuriating

I use it loads because it's free, it's busy and it works.

Don't feel obliged to be polite and spend loads of time on people. Ignore low offers and stupid messages. Don't get emtional about it.

Is this post still available?

Sold a van last week on FB market place, first time I'd ever sold anything. First four enquiries were scammers asking to link follow back into a fake FB login screen. Nex few were stupid low ball offers, below the 'webuyanyvan' price.

Of the three 'genuine' enquiries i had, two arranged viewings and didn't show, but the last did but rearranged times at last minute, he eventually bought it.... Most frustrating selling I've ever done.

In fairness, a lot of ads are missing a lot of information to make the buying decision and when considering different offers and options as a buyer this often means asking several sellers questions then going with one of them.

Block and move on.

I am selling a few bits and my most recent favourite was the guy who just wanted the frame, said he'd come round that evening so I stripped it. Never shower 🙁

So my lovely pink 26" SS rigid inbred is still for sale if anyone wants it. #stealthad .

I was selling my ebike recently. Cost me £5k 10 months ago, I had it on at £3.2k. I had 2 offers on Facebook marketplace

1st guy had £2k cash if I could sell it to him that day

2nd guy offered me a 13 year old Ford Ka with 63k miles on the clock as a straight swap.

Normally though this is the usual scenario

You'll possibly have better luck my posting it on bike specific local (or national) selling groups, and don't list on the general marketplace

I'd rather just chuck stuff in the bin than deal with FB marketplace idiots. It's worse than Loot.

Is bike still for sale?

yes..

I'll take it and pay cash, when can you bring it to me.

where do you live?

I'm ******** about 3hrs away from you, msg me when nearly there and I'll give you the address

Aye right......  😂

It's predominantly populated by morons, so a fair reflection of humanity really 🙂

I avoid it nowadays

There are plenty of specific buy n' sell fb groups which may get less traffic, but have exponentially less idiots/scammers

Is normal for buyers to set up new Messenger group to negotiate a sale? I've had this trying to sell a kayak and suspected a scam. I wasn't able to see anything about the buyer and he was offering to collect in a hurry which also felt suspicious.

Is normal for buyers to set up new Messenger group to negotiate a sale?

Yes. You should be able to click through to their profile

The group creation thing was a solution to unsolicited messages from strangers going to your spam folder in messenger

FB marketplace- it's free, it gives you a huge audience, you sometimes make really good sales, and what does it cost you? Only your time and your sanity.

(One in a blue moon you have a really nice experience... I sold a car battery just recently,and the chap asked me to deliver since his car funnily enough did not work. I thought, I'll regret this but OK. Popped over, it was a nice old guy who'd just retired, still doing all his own spannering but struggling a wee bit, and since it was one of those cars where the battery is hidden in a sort of dungeon and it's basically impossible to install without 2 people and 5 wrists,ended up helping him put it in, and did some other wee jobs, all the while chatting away about retirement and how he'd spent basically 50 years running a shop 7 days a week and now he was going to do it all, then about my dad who always looked forward to retirement then went blind then got lung cancer, and basically I felt like I was aquiring a replacement grandad. It was just so nice. Then we had a bit of a fight over whether or not he could give me any more money, so eventually I had to accept but I wouldn't take it for myself, I'd donate it to charity, it was just all generaly lovely. Thanks FB and fake-grampa Alex)

In a bizarre twist to this sad, predictable story, I have been buying original Ercol furniture for my new house. I have met 9 different sellers through Marketplace and they have all been honest, really helpful and generally lovely. One seller even showed me the item in her lock up and then, because it needed a bit of work to dismantle, gave me the keys and left me to it.

It couldnt be more different compared to the usual experience listed above of "whats your best offer, swap for an Ex-Box, can U deliver to X hundred miles away" etc etc

I'm looking for a new bike to take down to the BMX track with the kid. Unfortunately I can only find Bieks with Hydrolicks that are Mint but might need a new Crancks.

Trick is to just list things at eBay -10% (i.e. what you'd actually get anyway) or even lower.

If you put it up for a higher price you're just inviting haggling and time wasting and it'll sit there for weeks while people buy the same thing 50p cheaper. Make it look like a bargain and someone will be there in 5 minutes to collect it, you can delete the listing and get no more messages.

@Andy
Not just you,I have had some lovely,genuine folk on marketplace.
The idiots/time wasters are usually very obvious and easy to filter out.

We use it all the time for everything from baby clothes to bike stuff. I just put it on for a reasonable price I want (usually a tiny bit cheaper than what everyone else has it on with a few really good photos and stuff either goes or it doesn’t.

It takes about 2 minutes to respond to any questions and if someone doesn’t turn up or goes quiet then someone else will buy it as long as you’re not price gouging.

I've sold a decent amount of larger items, like furniture and our old kitchen. I seem to attract a large amount of scammers who will send a delivery guy with cash in an envelope. a clue its a scam is you then say price has gone up its £1million now and they carry on trying to get you to click a link....

I've found whatever price I've put things on for people expect it cheaper, so somethings have gone for hardly anything, like a table for £10 but it means I avoid a tip run.

never tried bike parts. I would not want to advertise I had expensive easily nickable stuff on there.

I'm always explicit that it's collection only from where I live and cash on collection. Anyone challenging that is binned off.
Generally been fine, sometimes negotiation on price, and also agreement that if they don't turn up when agreed and without contact than it's on to next seller.
Sounds like I've generally just been lucky. I only use it for low cost items that are only really going to be of local interest.

Andy
Full Member

In a bizarre twist to this sad, predictable story, I have been buying original Ercol furniture for my new house

Does your house now absolutely honk of teak oil?

When I've actually sold stuff they've been pleasant transactions. It's the stream of 'is this still available' messages followed by silence and the odd low ball offer with no actual justification as to why I should discount from the asking price that bug me.

I think it annoys me less than eBay.

A friend of mine is looking at buying a bike and keeps selling me links to marketplace to ask what I think. My usual response is- I have no idea, what size is the bike, what model and year (cos the listing doesn’t say and the pictures are rubbish)…

It doesn’t help that he’s been looking at Boardman hybrids and there’s a lot of rubbish to filter through.

This is still for sale- anyone know what it is cos the seller doesn’t…

https://m.facebook.com/marketplace/item/653326786412152/

I imagine if you’re looking to buy something then you may have a half decent experience - if you are normal the seller will be so relieved that they will be super grateful.
As a seller though, 90% of enquiries seem to come from morons or scammers. The most frequent one I experienced from a listing that was very specifically put only onto a local group is from people who seem to have no idea where you are and then express huge surprise that you are not that keen to drive your wardrobe 100 miles to wherever they happen to be. The other one is a people who arrange to come and collect and then just disappear and lose the ability to communicate.
Free cycle is equally frustrating. In the end I have found that the easiest way to give stuff away is just to list as an auction on eBay and sell for next to nothing instead - that way at least a decent proportion of the people that win did actually intend to collect the item.
Sold a large barbecue recently on eBay after getting so bored of trying to give it away on Freecycle. Very nice guy bought it for 99p collection only, when he arrived I gave it to him for free instead. He had a great plan to reuse the gas grill section and make it into a portable hot plate and was happy to take it all away and dispose of the bits he didn’t need.

I tend to use ebay to avoid all the needless back and forth. But as you can see from my other post this AM its not without its own problems 🙁

I rarely use Marketplace but recently I sold a car on there. I had all the usual 'Is this still available' and 'what's the lowest you'll take' questions, alongside a complete clown who said it wasn't worth anything because it has several failed MOTs (I pointed out that it was a 16 year old car and that's what happens - they fail the MOT, they get fixed and retested). But fortunately I got a reasonable buyer - he made an offer that I declined (it had only been listed for 30 minutes when he messaged me) but then he upped it to a price I was happy with, came the next morning bang on time, transferred the money and even did the registration documents online (he was a trader so knew what he was doing). He didn't even look at the car - just paid, did the forms then drove it away.

If anyone lives in North/West Yorkshire and wants a recommendation then give me a shout.

On the flip side, I listed a bike for sale last Thursday morning, had a message of interest lunchtime the same day. We arranged a viewing at 4pm and he turned up on time, looked at the bike and paid the asking price in cash. Zero hassle.

Was selling a bike on gumtree years ago and got one interested party who agreed to my price, but I needed to post it to him, and he could pay using postal orders.

I bought a lawnmower yesterday on mktplace, turned up on time, paid full price, cut grass soon as I got home. Well pleased, everything works ok.

I ve sold loads too, just price it well, amazingly noone offered stupid money, they all paid asking price.

Loads of scammers but I just ignore them. Can't believe it's free too.

I listed a big family tent for sale on marketplace. Good price as i needed the space.

First response I got was someone asking if they could borrow it for a week...

I like the random ones. I was selling a bike- literally had enough bits in the garage to make a whole one, so I did, and sold it on fb for £400. The lads that turned up were the most stereotypical ned scumbos you can imagine, I was just like "I am not letting them in teh house, I am not going to let them see another bike or any of my security, ps where is the nearest useful weapon". But all tey wanted was for me to pump up the shocks really hard so they could take it off some kerbs maaaaan, paid me in cash, wheelied off into the night two-up. It was like an episode of scot squad.

Mixed experiences.

Bikes unequivocally awful as per all posts above.
Sold a couple of power tools fairly easily but did get stupid low ball offers.
Boats and boat bits, through dedicated Facebook groups have been universally good.

It's not just buyser who are annoying. The number of ads that people do not respond to enquiries about is amazing. The admin of removing them seems too much.

It is a good place to buy and sell stuff though so you just have to put up with it as there is nothing else any where near as good to buy anything from baby clothes to industrial machinery.

I had all the usual ‘Is this still available’ and ‘what’s the lowest you’ll take’

I am not sure when people get upset at these questions.

1. Is because people leave adverts up when sold so it's worth checking.
2. Is because it's effectively a on line boot fair. You haggle. Especially true on car purchase, it's very rarely pay the asking price for any second hand vehicle.

I’d rather just chuck stuff in the bin than deal with FB marketplace idiots. It’s worse than Loot.

I CBA to sell stuff at that level so just donate it too our local bike charity.

I think it's pretty good tbh, bought and sold loads of stuff on there. You get plenty of daft offers and people that ask a ton of questions which you reply to and then they disappear but I've had that on ebay, here and pinkbike too.
Before marketplace for lower value or bulky items like furniture, you'd have to look on different places like Gumtree, Friday Ad etc with their terrible search functions that even when you limit the distance still show you ads from 200 miles away and then contacting the seller was a PITA.
I've had some real bargains from there and now if I'm looking for something I often check on there before buying new as there are a surprisingly large number of people that buy stuff, barely use it and get rid of it for peanuts.

The one rule I have when selling, is that I will always meet them away from my house. I've heard a few times on local riding groups of people coming round to view bikes that they decide not to buy, then surprise surprise, the garage gets broken into that night.

I've had mixed experiences using it too although for the people who've actually turned up to buy stuff, no problems. Its the endless questions, low ball offers and ghosting thats a bit of a pain...

I had all the usual ‘Is this still available’ and ‘what’s the lowest you’ll take’

I am not sure when people get upset at these questions.

To expand - the 'Is this still available' annoying questions are the ones where the person asks if it is still available, you respond with a 'yes' then you never hear another thing from them.

And ‘what’s the lowest you’ll take’ is annoying because why should I tell the prospective buyer what the lowest price is that I will take – let them make an offer and let me decide if I will accept it.

As an FYI- an old scam is back in vogue on FB-M.

You're selling an item, someone pops up to ask "is this still available"? or a variant of. You reply in the affirmative.

Next message from them: is the item the same as this item here? followed by a hyperlink, often an unusual search engine.
And this then installs a browser hijack on unwary machines.