So,

Now that my GMT is sold and gone I can share some of the nightmarish stories that Ebay has created for me. I haven't sold anything much on ebay, specially at this value, for a while but I decided to give a boost to the sale. 4 buyers on a row, 4 where scammers. it is Ridiculous. 2 of them through ebay, the other 2 following up from watchrecon.

It got to a point that once an actual buyer (through the forum post on watchrecon) reached out to me I was completely burned and simply did not believe she was legitimate.

A guy called "Jeremiah" for some reason kept insisting he was buying day and night without ever sending payment...with 2 day breaks in between communications but promising he was buying and asking for a hold. We even talked on the phone, he is a dealer in Pittsburg and I am guessing he just was trying to sell the watch to someone else before buying. Another guy kept asking for more and more pictures and data in what ended up being an attempt to create his own fraudulent sales pitch, Another guy through ebay send me the famous fake PayPal "you got paid ship now" email. another guy just flat out accusing me of not having the watch, even after I jumped on a FaceTime call with him to show him me handling the watch life. STILL he insisted that was not my watch or if it was it was just not the real watch on the posting....I told him to let it go then...he kept sending me messages. another guy with a similar story...I eventually had to direct him to Bob's watches to verify I bought the piece from them a few years back....this one I don't blame as much, it is not unreasonable due diligence on a purchase this large.

Despite ebay's insistence I insist on communicating directly to any buyer because the open market on ebay is not policed well enough and I just have to know that I am selling to a real person. The comunications got so intense that I got a warning from ebay. Even though they called me when I posted the watch and accepted that I had to mention the watch was for sale at OmegaForums and to contact me prior to buying. They accepted that because I told them the sale posting here and watch recon precede the Ebay one and for an item of this value it is important people know that I am the same guy and not just an image poacher like the above.

A ton of people just trolling me about the post for no reason, not even interested on buying, not seriously anyway.

I just honestly could not figure out what was happening, have never experienced anything like this selling anything at any value...what did this watch have that attracted so much drama?

 

You guys are scaring the crap out of me. E Bay sounds like the risks are too great.

 

Ebay is fine, but it's better to keep it low profile, under 2k it's kind of okay, as it is not high value enough for the scammers.
Rolex is too famous and high value, easy target for them.

 

It's just people today Sergio. Sold a lounge on a local platform because we bought a new one and had 24 hours of dickheads wanting everything from 90% off the $200 we were selling it for to delivered 100km away for free.
Then there were just the two seater and not the two recliners to just one recliner.
One guy wanted me to bring it around to show him first. One couple came around and didn't like it because of the colour ( it was the same colour all the friggen time
)
Sold it but fuck me people are rude and annoying.
Then we had the why did you sell it before I had a look crew that we politely SMS,d that it was sold to the people that came first and paid for it.

 

Few years back I sold a 12 year old Subaru LL Bean Outback. Last time I sold one of my Subies I joked that I should have held an essay contest as the car sold immediately. It has always been thus with my well kept single owner cars with full maintenance records. This time I had every form of rude nit picking dick head. Finally thought I had a deal and instead of bringing the agreed upon cash he tried to lower the price. I said “screw you” and placed a call to our local NPR affiliate’s donation line right in front of him. He handed me the envelope and signed. Never again. Donate or trade from here on in.

 

I dont do ebay either. I've sold a couple of times a watch on ebay but it turned out I was dealing with a nigerian scam who wanted me to ship the watch to Lagos. Long story anyway...

 

Strongly segguest dealing High value watch face to face ..................

 

That really surprises me. Subaru folks are good people.

 

Years ago, my father decided to sell an essentially brand new wicker furniture set and I helped him post a sales ad on Craigslist. The furniture had lived a brief and hardly used life in an indoor sunroom. It was being sold for $400 and had cost several thousand new, but my mother and father had moved and simply wanted to be rid of it and see it go to someone who might have more of a need for the sofa, chair, ottoman, loveseat and coffee table.

The ad received a quick reply, a price was agreed (5% off the $400 i believe, so $380) and the purchaser was to come to the house the following Saturday to pick-up (the ad was promptly taken down on that basis).

The following Saturday, the purchasers arrived with a truck and trailer.... and then said they'd pay a maximum of $200. My father looked the guy in the eye and, quite seriously said, "I will HAPPILY set this furniture on fire in the front yard rather than sell it to you for $200 - I don't care about the money but i do care about my time."

The rattled purchaser handed over the $380 and scuttled away with the furniture. You meet some interesting individuals on Craigslist....

 

Yup...I was really disappointed because that's what I was expecting. A few weeks later I was approached by a nice couple who wanted it as a college car for their daughter. Almost wanted to take the car back from the a-hole I sold it too. I should have just dismissed him and had WBEZ pick the car up. I could have deducted the auction price.

 

You would not like what I get in my mailbox each morning.....

 

Nother story. 2004 ... Bought my Catamaran and dropped it at the beach where it would live year round. (before the lake started rising at least). The trailer it came on was a crappy old but still serviceable steel unit. Put an ad on Craig's list for 200 bucks. I get a call from a guy THRILLED THRILLED THRILLED to find a trailer for $200. Begged me to hold it and we set an appointment for that Sat (and I turned away other calls). Well he shows up (LATE) with his father in law who proceeds to nit pick $100 in value off the trailer and insisted that I fix the running lights for his new price. I stare at him and say "It's an F...ing $200 trailer!" "Thanks for wasting my morning." and I turned to go into the house. Had cash in hand 5 minutes later.

 

Some rookie Craigslist mistakes. Never take it off Craigslist even if you have an agreed price! Keep taking names in case the first deal falls through. If someone is ready to show up right away, sell it to them and tell the first person they were too slow.

 

One time I offered a pretty decent free sofa on Craigslist. Some asian college girls drove 100 miles to pick it up. They were so happy. I look to give stuff away if I can.

 

one golden rule: money talks, BS walks..

 

Yeah that is also the guy from Pittsburg, he made an offer on ebay, I accepted, then he contacted me to PayPal less, significantly less, I told him he had the offer on ebay so that's where the price was, the one he agreed on, Plus he agreed to wire money and pay shipping. (I would still pay the ebay fees etc.

But then he wanted 1500 less, plus I cover shipping and when I met him half way he still would not buy, in the mea time I have ebay knocking on my door because I made the sale....But I didn't, so had to go back.

It's just stupid.

 

This is a great thread - keep the stories of woe coming...

 

One time I negotiated a sale on a used car on Craigslist for about 9K. I made the person write me a $200 deposit check just in case the deal fell through. The buyer's wife stepped in and crushed the deal. I kept the $200.

 

I got a good Craigslist story. One time, I was interested in purchasing a used pinball machine. I noticed in the Chicago area there was lots of weirdness in the Craigslist ads. I never saw good deals, and I saw constant posts warning me to avoid various dealers in the Chicago pinball underworld. Evidently there was a massive war going on in the used pinball world.

I placed a fake "for sale" ad on Craigslist for a desirable used machine at a below market price. I did not include pictures and made the pinball machine's location about 200 miles away to make it more inconvenient to see. I just wanted to see how quickly people responded so I could judge how quickly I needed to respond in case a future real deal was posted. I was also curious to see if the Craigslist ad scanning was automated, and that there was not a real chance to get a good deal in the first place.

I must have received about 30 replies in the first 24 hours and another 15 in the the 24 hours after that. I quickly responded to each that the machine had already been sold and thanks for the interest. There were then about 5 people who said that they would pay me more and recommended that I back out of the deal. People were offering me money without ever seeing one picture of the item! I politely told them I would honor my deal with the original purchaser. I then had about 3 people call me various insulting names for being stupid for selling the item at below market price.