hmmm… what?
Steve and I each have a craigslist.com listing right now, we’ve both got something to sell. I’ve never sold anything on craigslist before so maybe this is common practice, but I find it highly annoying.
We’ve now received a total of five inquiries, two for me, three for him. Three of those emails have basically said, “Do you still have [item]? Then call me at [phone number].”
Ok, now maybe it’s me, but, I think that if I wanted to talk to these people on the phone, I’d have left a phone number where they could call us. But I didn’t, I purposely only left the craigslist protected email. For instance, the one in my inbox now, is for Steve. I actually Googled the phone number and was able to find out a decent amount out about the guy but, well, that doesn’t matter, that’s just interesting, haha. Anyway, he wants Steve to call him. Steve has no time. That email’s been there for about a day and a half to two days now with no response. Whereas, had the guy just asked me his questions, I could have maybe even already known the answer and emailed out a response right away.
Steve says something to the effect of this being a classified ad and if it were in the newspaper we’d have left a phone number. That’s true, but these are the online classifieds where I left an email address! So I’m finding it really rude that these people are immediately trying to put any type of phone responsibility on me. It’s especially rude because, the one woman I called last Saturday, I talked to her and she was really interested and wanted to talk to me more about getting the item come Monday or whatever. Wednesday finally rolled around and I called her again and left a voicemail and said that if I didn’t hear by Friday, I’d assume she didn’t want it anymore. She’s not called back and it’s Saturday. I find that incredibly rude, too, I mean, I don’t care if she doesn’t want it anymore, just tell me, you know?
I’m not saying that a phone conversation later on isn’t appropriate if you need to iron out details for the actual selling, but for them to just start out with having me to call them just doesn’t sit well with me. Of course, I feel obligated to make the calls because I do want to sell the stuff, so I guess there’s really nothing I can do about it.
Ok, just wanted to rant. :)

Amber
August 2nd, 2008 at 2.21 pm
I have some things I want to sell, but I’m wary of using craigslist. I’d rather wait to do a garage sale…
Seriously though, it seems silly that people just couldn’t email you for the information instead of asking you to call. It’s just kind of lazy of them.
Jessie
August 3rd, 2008 at 1.41 am
All common CL practices, I’m afraid. Common courtesy doesn’t really exist.. and people will ask for numbers unless you specifically say, email me, don’t ask for my number, heh.
Amanda
August 3rd, 2008 at 10.06 am
In the online world, some people think it’s good to use email. Perhaps these people thought if you were to email them, they wouldn’t have time to check it and would miss the deal. Then again, if that were the case, I’d leave a note saying I don’t check my email, please call if you can. With my experiences, most things on CL involve telephones, like it or not. I have also noted that a lot of people on CL are OLD and maybe are afraid of email? LOL..
Ajemi
August 3rd, 2008 at 1.25 pm
That is very annoying. Why should it fall on you to call THEM if they want to buy it? Grrr.
Victoria
August 3rd, 2008 at 4.35 pm
I’ve never used Craigslist before, but I can see why that would be annoying. I don’t particularly like talking on the phone (other than to friends and family) unless I absolutely have to, so I’d rather they just contacted me by email unless it was something really complicated which needs to be dealt with over the phone.
Val
August 7th, 2008 at 11.50 am
Oooh I don’t think I’d mind doing a garage/yard sale but my problem is that I have nowhere to store those things in the meantime. So I’m more apt to give them away if I can, or donate them, or even throw them away if I figure no one wants it. What Steve is selling, though, is not a yard sale item. He’d get screwed if that was the case and the people he got it from, we were going to give them $500 for it so he has to sell it for at least that. No yardsaler is going to pay that. ;-)
But anyway, that guy has now emailed three times. Though after the second time I emailed and said Steve has been very busy but is trying to call soon. He did try last night but got no answer so he’s supposed to try again today during his lunch break.