Having Issues Making Trades? Try Dealing With Kijiji

[RGM81]

So there's been a fair amount of complaining, much of it legitimate, lately on the boards about how tough it can be to make deals. People lowballing, people wanting the sun and the moon, and everything in between. Well, if you think trying to make a deal on Sports Card Forum is hard, try consummating a sale on kijiji. Check out these fun recent experiences:

1. I have 3 Master Replicas .45 Scale Lightsabers plus a display case. Within an hour of posting them, a guy messages me and offers $200. I accept. I give him my phone number and tell him to give a shout and we'll figure out a time/place to make the swap. Never heard from him again. Had to tell two people that had made reasonable offers that they were sold to a guy. To reiterate, he contacted me with an offer which was accepted, then vanished.

2. After relisting the lightsabers, a guy gets in touch with me about two of them plus the case. We work out a deal for $125 for those plus a set of SW comic books. Was supposed to call me last Friday (9 days ago) to come pick them up - never heard from him so I emailed him the next morning asking what's up. Says he got called into work and will call later that day (Saturday) to arrange it. I never did get that call back, despite sending 2-3 other emails.

3. Person gets in touch with me about some Burger King promo toys for Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. She lives in Vancouver, which is a bit odd for a kijiji offer but whatever. I tell her I'll need to get a shipping quote from the post office but it'd be $25 plus s/h. She says sure, so I go over and get the price. It'd have been like $12.52 or whatever so I just say $35 shipped. Still have not heard a response from her, and that was this past Thursday/Friday.

4. Today... I've been on a real roll selling stuff. Have made two actual sales this weekend, and earlier today came to a deal with a fellow for my beloved display case. You probably know it from several S&T threads. Mrs. RGM81 is doing a farewell thing with some friends today so I'm on my own as far as moving it goes. No small feat given the state of our apartment right now (it's a maze of boxes) and the fact that moving a 5ft. tall glass display case is a challenge all on its own. Dude is leaving town tomorrow but had some time today so we agreed for 4:30pm or so. I drag the thing to the hall, down the elevator, into the lobby. 4:40...no call. 5:00...no call. I send an email from my phone. No response. It's now 6pm and I've had no contact from this guy.

Suffice to say I'm pretty furious. On top of that, you guys probably haven't heard that I spent Monday at the hospital with a chest infection. The moving process, combined with humidity and a lengthy family history of asthma, made for a very unpleasant experience where I literally felt like I was drowning trying to suck in wind. The tests they do for your breathing showed that I had like 60% the intake/exhale strength of a normal 31-year old male. So since then I've had to be pretty careful and avoid over-exerting myself. Facebook friends will have seen my many jokes about bench pressing buses and such due to my enhanced strength from the steroids the doc prescribed me to help open up my airways. I'm much better now (thanks for asking :) ) but all that activity for nothing has me more than a little bit miffed. It's one thing to get some cold hard cash for the effort but I don't want to be putting myself at risk if people aren't going to come through on their end for me.

So yeah, the next time you get a bit down, or angry, that you couldn't make a sale or some guy offered you $4 less than your preferred asking price, remember my plight of FOUR written confirmed sales that fell through because of other people. That'd be four infractions issued against people for backing out of a confirmed deal in the Trade Manager...in a week. How's THAT for issues, eh?

:)

[chakhae1]

This is nothing new and is to be expected on a mass auction site such as kiiji. Everyone is looking to make a bundle on sales and find stuff for cheap and then resell it for a profit. They look for people that know nothing about collecting and are simply looking to unload stuff. Personally however I have bad a lot of success with selling stuff here which includes a camera, a calculator and some transformers.

[RGM81]

Except kijiji isn't an auction site and re-selling/collecting/low prices aren't relevant to the discussion at hand.

[Bauldie]

Nerd

[RGM81]

Guilty as charged, but dammit it ain't right, there's someone else controlling me....

[sjw241]

I have been there with Kijiji,and will likely be there again. have had success, but a lot of failure as well. waited 3 hours for a guy to come for a $100 item. Called him emailed him and sent him smoke signals, never heard from him again.
The other annoying thing I have encountered was when the people do show up they offer you less than the agreed upon price. Happened the other day. I had some model cars on kijiji, we agreed on 3 cars for $70 (wanted $75). Guy shows up, says he only brought $60. I said he could buy 2 of the cars or go get more money. he bought the 2 and left. haven't heard from him again.
I think people make offers without thinking them through, and after a bit of time passes they think about it and don't need or want the item anymore. There is also no accountability on kijiji. If they back out they aren't going to get a strike or anything like on ebay. Its frustrating a heck but not much you can do about it.
As for your display case Richard, I wouldn't have moved it til the buyer arrived and helped you. That way you have help and don't move it more than once.

[RGM81]

I have had that happen with the money thing too! Dude was buying a bunch of books off me, send me a text five minutes before he arrives asking if I can knock off another 20 bucks since he's buying a bunch. I told him that we agreed on Price X and that he was already getting a pretty good discount for buying a bunch. Funny stuff, but he showed up and paid the agreed upon price.

As for the case, we have two cats as well and they get very jumpy around other people. They would have disappeared for hours and it wouldn't have been fun. Plus this place looks like hell. By the time Thursday morning rolls around though, there will be next to nothing left. It'll be weird. LOL

[Kessel_fan_87]

what made you decide to move back out west Richard?

[adamslogik]

People offering less $$$ once they get there is a Kijiji Tactic, especially with larger items. They ask you to bring it outside and have it ready, then when they show up they pull the old "I know we said $200, but I only have $150 on me". The hope is that you will take the $$$, just not wanting to have to bring it back inside.

I've had that happen a few times, the last time it happened to me was a couple of years ago. I bought a new house and it had a brand new sectional in the finished basement included in the price. Since we already owned a nice sectional, we decided to sell it. Looked online and brand new it was a $3000 sectional. This couch was literally a couple of months old, it was purchased for the sole purpose of staging the house. I wanted to move it fast though, and paid nothing for it, so I listed it at $1200 telling myself that I would take anything over $800.

I got, no joking, 5 offers under $500 for this couch within the first 3 days. I even had one woman offer me $450 and tell me it's all she could afford, but she really liked the couch and begged me to sell it to her (if you only have $450, why are you even looking at ads for a $1200 couch?)

Anyways, a couple of weeks later I got a reasonable offer of $900 and I took it. The guy arranged to meet me and called an hour before the meeting time to ask if I would mind having the couch outside when he got there since he was in a hurry. I obliged him and was waiting outside with the couch when he shows up and hands me some money. I start to count it and he tells me there is $750 there, it's all he could get.

I was like "excuse me?" we discussed the amount, if you didn't have it, why would you even come? He starts going on about how $750 is still a good price and how inconvenient it would be to bring it back inside and try to find another buyer. I say "sorry, $900 was the price, and that was a great deal for you, if you don't have it, I'm not giving you the couch". He says fine, and produces the other $150 from his pocket, to which I promptly tell him to screw himself and get off my property.

I sold the couch a week later for $1000 even to someone at work.

[Bauldie]

I've been having the same problems tho too.. Kijiji or UsedNanaimo or whatever. We just moved and had to get rid of several things. For example, an air conditioner. People would email asking for the size and when it'd be a good time to come etc etc.. never heard back from any of them. Not even a oh sorry, it's not the right size.