The Soapbox
 

C'mon people ...

If you're going to buy or sell something, stay in touch with the other party :smile:

I'm trying to sell something right now, and have stated at least twice in my for sale thread that I am available between between 5 and 9

The buyer states they will take it on X day. So I contact them the day before with the time I will be home and they state " OH, I thought I could come by between 12 and 2 PM "

Are you mentally challenged ? Should I treat your posts differently ?

I have held the stuff you wanted, just for you, but now you think I work different hours than the general public ?

Do you get the impression that I may be a little upset with stupid stuff ?

There's the pot calling the kettle black! Mr. Double Post (half hr apart to boot! hahaha). :fencing:

I get the feeling he's upset about it.

I think so.

Think he's done?

More importantly, do you think he is willing to ship ??

Absolutely. Between 5 and 9.

But I want it between 12 and 2!....

It's not worth the time to pack it up and get a quote.

Yup, I'm done

And apparently I upset some people in the interim !

Not only can I post corals for sale, but I appear to be able to infer things about people I've never met :wink:

I ranted about peeps in general, yet I received texts and PMs from peeps defending other peeps. And then I received texts from other peeps telling me I had defamed them.
Lots of guilty peeps here ...

Wow, I'm good

Jorjef should be proud of me now :mrgreen:

:popcorn: :pop2:

And for the record, a certain member feels I need to apologize on the site to him personally as he feels I attacked him.

I hate politics, and avoid it wherever I can ....

Well, here's your personal apology from me to you dude !!
As I stated earlier, it was never directed at any one member, and I hope you understand it !!
I only used your meet times as an example so you were never personally targeted :wink: Nothing personal buddy :biggrin:
I've never used your name here, or in any previous threads, so your name is still anonymous :wink:

If you want me to publicly apologize I will
You only need to tell me your name here on the site :biggrin:

Ahhh I was proud of you until the last post...never apologize when you're right. Its not like you posted pickup time between 5am and 9 pm. :lol: I would have given him the "NO SOUP FOR YOU" response to him requested pick up time.

Well maybe next time I can bestow on you the gift of being a card carrying member of the dark side. Pttttthhh. The guy wanted an apology bahahaha.

Canreef has always been way better than say, Craigslist; however, I can sympathize.

:lol: That's hilarious!!!

For the record, I am in agreement with your rant. And I think all of us are entitled a good rant every now and then.

As for the etiquette of buying and selling, I never understood why people have to be disrespectful with heir fellows when dealing with an exchange. I think the basic rules of civility and respect should apply to financial transactions too, especially as they apply to a hobby. I think the culture of "the customer is always right" has gone to people's heads. We are dealing with other hobbyists here, people with families and busy schedules and many conflicting priorities, so why would we expect them to bend over backwards for us? We all know that the customer is not always right, but we got used to that culture and we carry it over into our regular lives. And no, my time isn't more important than yours.

There you have it; another rant. So, you're not alone Greg!

You gave yourself a goal to aim for

Or how about this, you have a FS: thread on Canreef and someone texts you and asks a bunch of questions about an item you answer them the best you can, all the while you have no clue who your texting with. It's not that hard to text who you are and then start communication. Oh ya then when you have gone back and forth several times they say well Langley is a long way for me to come, do you ever come to Vancouver, Richmond or Burnaby, yes I do but it's a long way to go for me too. Most people have where they live in the right hand top corner or in their signature as I do. Be prepared to come and get the item or at least meet up somewhere or offer gas money for delivery. Not everyone is guilty of this, but there are folks out there that expect a lot.
This is not meant to be a rant, but hey it is what it is.
:yo:

Always depends on your asking price.
Sometimes, things are posted at prices that make you feel like they should be delivered.

Other times, sellers ARE headed to burnaby, or coquitlam or wherever.

You really never get anything without asking.

A sale happens when two parties agree on terms.

Negotiating terms is just part of the process.

How about when you're giving stuff away for free and they ask you to deliver it......

I'm with you on this one Laurie. I would never even dream of buying something and then asking the person if they would deliver it. If you want it, come get it! I don't care how many bridge tolls you have to pay or how much petrol your vehicle uses.

had it happen.

Is it bad etiquette to just simply ask to meet half way?

My big pet peeve along the same lines (I've had a little rant on this in the past)
Is the person that posts something up.
You think to yourself " Hey just what I need ! "
You send them a message, you can see that they have been online since sending them a PM.
And......................nothing.............
No communication, no idea if they still have it for sale. Nothing
Drives me nuts.

Whoa... You guys been meeting different people than I have haha! Everyone I've finalized a sale with has been really civil and pleasant :D

Edit: I should clarify -- everyone who wasn't obviously a tire kicker...

Yup! had it happen too, So my new rule regarding texting:" no name no reply". :heh:

I've become very bitter about selling to people from the internet - because that is the biggest reason for the lack of ethics.

50% are price shopping on impulse and make stupid disrespectful offers because they want to see what they can get for 15 seconds of time invested. Rather than arranging a time to meet, view and negotiate.

45% are so flaky or impulsive again they decided that 5 days after making you hold something, and the day before or of, they changed their mind......

5% of the people are good to deal with and now have to suffer the reality of first come first serve.

I pick and choose who I give the benefit of the doubt to. I've met some people from here who I suspected would be wasting my time (opinionated of course). These people plagued the for sale boards trying to buy the lowest end stuff, started randomly calling and texting me - sure enough when I was shutting down my tank, they were there and decided to take he $5 fish where there was enough comments they liked other things......I'm not surprised

Just build good relationships with the few are good to deal with.

P.S. I still vouche that Canreef should look into a classified rating system.

but perhaps I'm all for that, because every "i trader" I've been set up with, I've followed through with my end of the bargain.

it costs less for me to have something shipped from Quebec to B.C. than it is to drive some place 15 minutes away - it would do a lot of favors for those people in remote areas that don't have salt water stores or the budget at the moment.

Can't, too much work and no way to validate anything.

Like that wrasse you shipped me, dead in the bag, probably dead when you packed it. You ripped me off and nobody should ever deal with you again.

Sure, maybe I made that up. Maybe I didn't. See where that would go really fast?? :razz:

Negative reputation points will fix him up REAL quick like. There's no recovering from an attack on your canreef reputation.

Wow. I think we've all been a apart of a sale that didnt go through at one time or another, or had something sold out from under you. Best thing to do before putting something up for sale is just realize that its not sold until cash is exchanged. I dont bother getting upset anymore. If it sells great.... If not... oh well... Wasting time can be a big part of a sale. Its just the way it goes with sales. Not worth taking it personally. Sales whether its new or used is dog eat dog so expect the worst and most of the time you wont be disappointed... If sales was an easy profession everyone would be salesmen lol.

That would be a lot of work. This isn't ebay; it's a forum run by volunteers. I think that over the years, if you stick around, you get to know the hobbyists in the area and develop a relationship based on trust. In extreme cases, where someone isn't paying (I seem to remember a fairly recent case) it may be worth alerting this forum.

Ive had too many BS dealings on Craigslist before I came to this site, and learnt quickly what to put in my ads.
If people weren't capable of reading what was written, then they didn't get replied too.
No holds. No delivery. PM only. Location is put in my title and in the ad, shocking how many people cant read on this site or on craigslist or anywhere....

You can tell these people to pound sand...

You know what really grinds my gears.... if a person commit to buy and shows up at your house....LATE....looks at your tank, ask you countless questions, waste your time and then backs out. Talk about a f-around.

You know what else grinds my gears....price set agreed prior to the meet and the person shows up and tries to low ball you, you know what I say to that, honey, get the AR10 out of the gun safe please cause the 223 might not finish the job. Kidding :mrgreen: I really don't mind haggling, it's part of this hobby, if you go to someone's house and spent 100 bucks and hangs out for 4 hours and had lunch I would say you probably shouldn't haggle but if that 4 hours was a short 20 minutes than by all means give it a world.

Bottom line is respect other people's time and be punctual to your fellow reefers. You never know who they know and who they talk to, you don't want to end up on the lowermainland reefing black list and no one will ever deal with you....nah, I am just kidding, there is no black list.....

One more thing since we are at it, if you want name brand stuff (wolverine this and pearl berry that)and don't want to pay name brand price please settle for the beautifully colored green slimmer, it will be a perfect fit for your tank and stop bothering those that will not sell it to you and move on to someone else, no point to keep on pressing.

Sorry if I have offended anyone but this is not directed towards anyone, its purely my opinion.

i chose not to comment....or did i :twised::twised::twised:

I was told there is a blacklist....:twised:

There's a blacklist :)

"Knock on wood" ....I've been fortunate enough to have successful transactions where I have had items shipped to me and where I have shipped items to others on this forum. Both transactions were flawless. Ironically; these were 'high dollar' items (various models of Bubble King Skimmers) and all parties acted on good faith.

I'm a believer in Karma. I may not be there when it rears its ugly head; but I take small comfort that "What goes around, comes around". I also want to believe that the majority of hobbyists on this forum are considerate and courteous. Everyone wants to save money or feel that he/she walked away with a good deal; if you do plan a transaction at a person's home; respect it. You never know if he/she has some dungeon built in the basement or elsewhere on the property. :twised: Then again....some of you may be into that kind of thing. Nevermind.

Also.....this was not directed at anyone explicitly on this forum. However; for the morons that have stood me up on other forums - Karma's coming for you.

P.S. - There is ALWAYS as blacklist.

http://i.imgur.com/1uFVGFN.gif?1

I've had someone ask me once to ship them the item first and wait for him to receive it before he'll pay me. I thought that was a new one. But I agreed. :) Worked out fine in the end.

I estimate that 20% of the time, people back out. I expect it so it doesn't really bother me. I also expect people to give me offers or ask me to meet somewhere or what not. Also doesn't really bother me. I can choose to accept the offer or not. I can choose to respond or not to offers. Generally, if I say price is firm and someone gives me a low offer, I probably won't respond but that's just because I expect the sender already knows that I am not interested. If someone gives me a reasonable offer, I may accept it or reply and say that I'll think about it.

Who told you??? State his or her name. There is no fight club!

Shhhh....