Does Craigslist really suck?

philr168

Man you guys get lucky on some nice stuff.

sucks2beme

I used to get cheap cars up North all the time. Upstate N.Y. was full of ugly running cars,
If you could deal with some rust and DIY you were all set. I know what to look for.
The problem is 90% of the cars on CL listed as for sale by owner aren't. Add to it
the demand for cheap cars by the "future voters" from South of the border, it's next
to impossible. It's the same reason you can't find anything audio at a garage sale or
thrift shop. They swarm garage sales like locusts. 10 minutes after 8:00 am on Saturday
anything worth buying at a garage sale is GONE.

boston1450

sucks2beme wrote: »

I used to get cheap cars up North all the time. Upstate N.Y. was full of ugly running cars,
If you could deal with some rust and DIY you were all set. I know what to look for.
The problem is 90% of the cars on CL listed as for sale by owner aren't. Add to it
the demand for cheap cars by the "future voters" from South of the border, it's next
to impossible. It's the same reason you can't find anything audio at a garage sale or
thrift shop. They swarm garage sales like locusts. 10 minutes after 8:00 am on Saturday
anything worth buying at a garage sale is GONE.

100% correct. That why i say home. We in Maine have rust being close to salt water too. If you dont rustproof it correctly & stay on it. It will rust quick too

GFOviedo

I think it will depend in the area. In my area for example, the Central Valley CA, craiglist kind of suck. People put their stuff on sale, and they spec almost 100% of whatever they paid for their devices. Furthermore, it is difficult to find any good deal on technology devices, or surround sound.

However, there are times where people can get lucky, and you will find some good deals, but this doesn't happen too often.

nguyendot

I got all my gear off Craigslist or thrifting. Very few of my items other than the video devices come from retail.

boston1450

GFOviedo wrote: »

I think it will depend in the area. In my area for example, the Central Valley CA, craiglist kind of suck. People put their stuff on sale, and they spec almost 100% of whatever they paid for their devices. Furthermore, it is difficult to find any good deal on technology devices, or surround sound.

However, there are times where people can get lucky, and you will find some good deals, but this doesn't happen too often.

hopefully it will happen & when it does youll score big it seems to happen when least expected.

boston1450

Attachment not found.Sundays Curb Alert 20min drive free Carver

Jimbo18

boston1450 wrote: »

Attachment not found.Sundays Curb Alert 20min drive free Carver

Looks like your drawer has a smiley face on it also. Congrats.

leftwinger57

Boston 1450, I forgot to mention when I picked my Bose 601s not through C/L/ but at a moving sale there was also was a Sanusi receiver that really looks the same as the one that this guy also had.As the Bose and amp were relagagated to the hot steamy attic for years I told the guy I would have to try to power it up before putting a price on it. He says ok,I plug it in it warms for like 3 seconds and started to blow out real flames.I quickly unplugged and left it on the curb and told the guy obviously this is a major fire hazard and toss it. There must of been 20 years of dust build up that went ablaze...

nspindel

Craigslist is great. Some people who conduct business on Craigslist may certainly suck, but that's no different than any other marketplace. Classified ads are great too, but some people conducting business in classified ads suck.

I've bought and sold on Craigslist transactions many times, and have never had a problem. But you need to be careful. Cash is king, and the transaction must always be in person, and in a public place as often as possible. Scams are everywhere.

Here is the big scam when you sell something on Craigslist. You put up a listing to sell something, and you specify that it's local pickup only. Then you get an email that says "I've been looking all over for your camera, and haven't been able to find one. I know you don't want to ship, but I'll pay you an extra $200 if you'd ship the camera to me. Give me your paypal address and I will pay you immediately." Then you think, hmmmmm.... $200? Sure! You send the guy your paypal address, and you get paid. The money, including the extra $200, shows up in your paypal account. You transfer the money to your bank account, and figure you're all set, and you send your camera off to some p.o. box or ups store address the guy gives you. How's that a scam? Here's how - three weeks later you get a notice from paypal that they've clawed the money back from your bank account because the payment you received was made with a stolen credit card. Read the paypal customer agreement, if that happens, you're on the hook for it. So now you have no money and no camera.

When I list something for sale on Craigslist, I no longer publish my email address. When you list your email address, you get bombarded with scams. The scammer doesn't actually know your email address because Craigslist makes it anonymous, but Craigslist doesn't filter out any of these scam emails. Now, I put my cell phone number in the listing and tell people to call or text, but that I don't use email any more because of all the scams. Never had a problem since. Scammers don't want to call and talk to you, they want to hide in cyberspace.

I just sold a camera lens this week on Craigslist. Put the listing up on Saturday, and then got a text from someone on Monday. We met in a parking lot, I showed him the lens, showed him it was working fine, he gave me the cash, I gave him the lens, and we both drove away happy. Can't beat Craigslist for stuff like that.

nguyendot

nspindel wrote: »

Craigslist is great. Some people who conduct business on Craigslist may certainly suck, but that's no different than any other marketplace. Classified ads are great too, but some people conducting business in classified ads suck.

I've bought and sold on Craigslist transactions many times, and have never had a problem. But you need to be careful. Cash is king, and the transaction must always be in person, and in a public place as often as possible. Scams are everywhere.

Here is the big scam when you sell something on Craigslist. You put up a listing to sell something, and you specify that it's local pickup only. Then you get an email that says "I've been looking all over for your camera, and haven't been able to find one. I know you don't want to ship, but I'll pay you an extra $200 if you'd ship the camera to me. Give me your paypal address and I will pay you immediately." Then you think, hmmmmm.... $200? Sure! You send the guy your paypal address, and you get paid. The money, including the extra $200, shows up in your paypal account. You transfer the money to your bank account, and figure you're all set, and you send your camera off to some p.o. box or ups store address the guy gives you. How's that a scam? Here's how - three weeks later you get a notice from paypal that they've clawed the money back from your bank account because the payment you received was made with a stolen credit card. Read the paypal customer agreement, if that happens, you're on the hook for it. So now you have no money and no camera.

When I list something for sale on Craigslist, I no longer publish my email address. When you list your email address, you get bombarded with scams. The scammer doesn't actually know your email address because Craigslist makes it anonymous, but Craigslist doesn't filter out any of these scam emails. Now, I put my cell phone number in the listing and tell people to call or text, but that I don't use email any more because of all the scams. Never had a problem since. Scammers don't want to call and talk to you, they want to hide in cyberspace.

I just sold a camera lens this week on Craigslist. Put the listing up on Saturday, and then got a text from someone on Monday. We met in a parking lot, I showed him the lens, showed him it was working fine, he gave me the cash, I gave him the lens, and we both drove away happy. Can't beat Craigslist for stuff like that.

Those are the normal scams. 90% are in Nigeria. I can spot them a mile away from just the first text/email. If it's a text I bait them. Most are bots using Google voice. When a message comes in that the script doesn't recognize a real person comes on the line and starts texting you. At that point I go haywire on them for giggles. It's like they have no sense of what an insult is.

My friend and I made a blog (textsfromcraigslist.blogspot.com) that makes fun of these exchanges. They get better and better as time goes on. We do hundreds if not thousands of transactions a year so we're bound to get the best and worst of Craigslist all together.

Without it though, I would not have gotten 80% of my gear.

nspindel

Amazing how many people don't understand the paypal scam, and figure that they're good to go once they've been paid.

boston1450

leftwinger57 wrote: »

Boston 1450, I forgot to mention when I picked my Bose 601s not through C/L/ but at a moving sale there was also was a Sanusi receiver that really looks the same as the one that this guy also had.As the Bose and amp were relagagated to the hot steamy attic for years I told the guy I would have to try to power it up before putting a price on it. He says ok,I plug it in it warms for like 3 seconds and started to blow out real flames.I quickly unplugged and left it on the curb and told the guy obviously this is a major fire hazard and toss it. There must of been 20 years of dust build up that went ablaze...

i would of like to been there to see the flames. Lol. Too bad tho but you should of brought hot dogs n marshmallows

rmaiers

I picked up a near mint Adcom GFA-1 on CL for $50.00 yesterday. Should be able to get it up and running this weekend. Sure is a funky looking design but it has good reviews.

boston1450

rmaiers wrote: »

I picked up a near mint Adcom GFA-1 on CL for $50.00 yesterday. Should be able to get it up and running this weekend. Sure is a funky looking design but it has good reviews.

thats a great price. Rackable if im right. Nice Adcom you can get other pieces for that at reasonable prices from what i remember seeing when i was looking at that very Amp. Nice score

rmaiers

Thanks. I will be on the look out for a nice vintage Adcom preamp now. I'll be interested in seeing how the Adcom compares to my Hafler rigs. I have a DH-500 driving some SDA-2Bs and a DH-200 driving some RTA-12Bs.

cnh

Be interesting to see what you think. I find Haflers to have a warmer signature than Adcoms which are more neutral and a bit more "energetic" on the high end.

cnh

brwnd83

I picked up a set of monitor 10s that need a little tlc for $35

boston1450

brwnd83 wrote: »

I picked up a set of monitor 10s that need a little tlc for $35

did you try to talk them down. Lol. Heck of a deal

rmaiers

Well I hooked up the Adcom through my Nikko NR-1019 preamp. I must say it brought the Monitor 10s to life and I am impressed by the sound. I think I do still prefer the sound of my Hafler DH-200 driving the RTA-12Bs. I have both systems set up in the same room so it's pretty easy to compare..

tonyb

Hate to bring this thread up again, but saw this on my local CL and had to post it. Kinda goes over what most go threw listing stuff on craigslist, especially in the FREE section.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwi/zip/4030080227.html

txcoastal1

^^^^That didn't last long

Flagged for removal

boston1450

Attachment not found.not sure if this is a phony or not. We see alot up here. Too strange ?

kick

I love craigslist, i have picked up so many free things, sold items, and bought great gear!

scottyboy76

Only thing more amazing than your finds, is how someone could keep somthing that long and it still look so great.

I have found my best finds in the backgrounds of photos of unassuming ads.

5 marantz ma500s for 100 bucks, lying on the floor with a bunch of junk, someone had bought the harmon kardon receiver from an earlier pic, but never even asked about the long skinny metal things.

Another was a Marantzsr8000 in perfect shape for 40 bucks, only catch was you had to haul off his big old projector with blown bulbs, line doubler and laser disc player.

you will look through a lot of crap ads, but then............

halo71

^ I need to head north and look! lol RARELY does anything worth having show up on my local CL. But....I've got my eye on a pair of "Pold Audio" bookies right now that can be had for a song. :rollseyes:

boston1450

scottyboy76 wrote: »

Only thing more amazing than your finds, is how someone could keep somthing that long and it still look so great.

I have found my best finds in the backgrounds of photos of unassuming ads.

5 marantz ma500s for 100 bucks, lying on the floor with a bunch of junk, someone had bought the harmon kardon receiver from an earlier pic, but never even asked about the long skinny metal things.

Another was a Marantzsr8000 in perfect shape for 40 bucks, only catch was you had to haul off his big old projector with blown bulbs, line doubler and laser disc player.

you will look through a lot of crap ads, but then............

i was looking for a bedframe for sale for someone & in the background was a Yamaha cr1020 i ended up talking them into selling it to me

boston1450

Last weekends C list find Pioneer pl35d with wired remote control- plan on having new upgrade on cart even though the one on it is fine & new one in pkg but i think it will be worth the upgrade to a better one

leftwinger57

Boston, dude you score pretty good, wood base or plinth looks great.I never even heard of a tt w/ either a wired or ir remote control ever.My pos Denon DP-11F doesn't even have an auto shut off when the record is done, entry level is putting it mildly. I have left it on overnight by accident and of course the thing was fairly warm. If a lp would have been on the platter it would have warped for sure.Cartridge I hear is fairly low level also a Grado GF-3.I want my Dual 1229 from 40 years ago back w/ a Shure mk something or other.....

boston1450

leftwinger57 wrote: »

Boston, dude you score pretty good, wood base or plinth looks great.I never even heard of a tt w/ either a wired or ir remote control ever.My pos Denon DP-11F doesn't even have an auto shut off when the record is done, entry level is putting it mildly. I have left it on overnight by accident and of course the thing was fairly warm. If a lp would have been on the platter it would have warped for sure.Cartridge I hear is fairly low level also a Grado GF-3.I want my Dual 1229 from 40 years ago back w/ a Shure mk something or other.....

im a good one for doing things as im listening to music- ive owed ones that didnt return & they arent compatible with me Denon makes nice tables also