The Craigslist Adventure

I'm not one that does a lot of buying and selling online. I've dealt on E-bay a little bit and I've dealt with Craigslist a little bit but not much. All my transactions on E-bay were a good experience. I had a bad experience on Amazon.com but that was partly my fault. And twice now I''ve tried to sell our car on Craigslist.

Selling the car on Craigslist was a feeble grab at getting something more than $50 for it. My husband wanted to call the junk yard and have them come get the car and then we would get $50 from the junk yard. But the car is worth more than $50 even if we just sold the parts. If nothing else, there are 2 tires on the car that have less than 1,800 miles on them with the paperwork to prove it. So I went to the trouble of posting the car on Craigslist as a shot in the dark to see if anybody would simply pay us more than $50 for it.

The first time I listed it, I didn't post a picture and it was right before Christmas. I had 4 or 5 e-mails about the car but several of them wanted me to go to these certain websites and get insurance quotes for them! HUH?! Why would I do that? Plus, there is no way I can get an insurance quote for somebody else. You have to give out personal information for that. I figured it was a scam to try and capture our personal information. Needless to say we didn't sell the car at Christmas.

So I listed the car again this week only I also posted a picture of the vehicle. The body is in decent condition, tires are good, windshield is intact - there are some pluses if somebody wanted to put an engine in it. I've gotten a ton of e-mails this time around but only 2 people have contacted me and provided a phone number for me to contact them. In my opinion, these are the only 2 legitimate contacts we've received. Again, I had somebody wanting me to get an insurance quote and somebody else directed me to some site where she wanted to negotiate the price of the car based on what this site said the car should be worth. Come on, people!! I specifically state that the car doesn't run and would have to be towed from the property. It isn't worth much! What are you willing to pay for a vehicle that needs a new engine? I'm not negotiating. You make an offer. I'll take it if its $50 or more and you'll come get it.

I must say that my experience on Craigslist as a seller has not been the greatest. There are some weird people out there!!!