How Not To Be A D!ck When Buying Gear

General General Discussion
1

**Disclaimer- this is technically not personally directed at people I’ve dealt with past or present. This also applies to happenings on other sites I’ve sold gear, not just M4C. It’s a satirical example, not a personal insult. Unless you’re one of the people I intend to insult here… :wink:

Over the last couple years of participating in the wallet burning sport of gear buying and researching same, like many others I choose to sell off gear I no longer need or use in order to recoup some of the cost involved.
I love the used gear market because it provides an opportunity to get top notch kit for good discounts, as well as pass on top notch kit to others at a good discount, because I realize nobody’s made of money (well, ok maybe the guys with 10 high end precision rifles…:p). But of course there’s always a few friendly characters that you run across that just frustrate the living hell out of you, and frankly have done a great job of earning the title of Dick.
I’m going to bring some attention to these folks here, so that other potential sellers of used gear will have an idea what they’re up against.

The Magician
These guys are great. You get a message one day- “Hey bro is that ubercooltacticalwidget still available?
You immediately respond- “darn tootin’ sho’ nuff is!”
Finally interest! Your ubercooltacticalwidget will sell and you can reinvest the money where it’s needed elsewhere! The choirs of heaven are singing (in perfect pitch too)!

Two days later, crickets.

You think maybe they forgot. Maybe they missed the return message or they got busy with work or your computer didn’t send it correctly.
You send another message- “why hello again my good friend, are you still interested in the ubercooltacticalwidget?”

chirp
chirp
chirp

Dammit. Not again.
And just like that, the person disappears off the face of the earth.
At least to you…

Then a couple days later you see them post up another topic, and you’re like WTF? You’re obviously active on the same site I am and you can’t shoot me a return message that it would take you a VERY SMALL FRACTION of the time it took you to write up your new post? Just a quick “Gonna have to pass, bro. Thanks anyway!”

Because I do that, you know, out of common courtesy and stuff. Because I’m not some dick that will just leave people hanging unless I literally can’t help it. Like snowmaggeddon comes through and wipes out the power in my area for a week…
I timed myself. It took me about 15 seconds to type that message up. Probably less for you folks that can actually type fast, plus a few seconds to hit “send”.
Anything less is unacceptable. Get with it already!
And then you want to have a conversation about how “tactical comms are so impertent breh!”
Sure whatever you say….

Know Thine Gear
Another fun and exciting subset of persons to get to know in the used gear sales community are the folks that have no clue what they’re buying, all they know is that they need that ubercooltacticalwidget that you have, and they need it now!

You get a message “Hey bro I’ll take that ubercooltacticalwidget. Paypal ready, can send payment today!”
And you’re like YES! Finally a no-hassle sale. So you message them back as fast as you can with your payment info.
Then next thing you know you get a message back- “hey bro, quick question- does this ubercooltacticalwidget have MOLLE straps?”

And you’re like WTF? Are you seriously kidding me?
Because the important thing to note here is that the ubercooltacticalwidget that you’re selling is a VERY common ubercooltacticalwidget. A simple 5 minute Google Pictures search would answer the question, or 5 minutes of viewing the pictures and info ON THE MANUFACTURERS WEBSITE! Where it’s all in plain view (and even English too). If you haven’t failed Reading Comp 101, this should be possible for most folks.

And then of course after you answer “yes it has MOLLE straps”, usually these folks immediately turn into The Magician and drop off the face of the earth .

I mean, really? Thank you so much for wasting my time.
Here’s a neat trick for these fella’s if you’re reading this- BEFORE you ask a really asinine question about a piece of gear or offer to buy anything, please do the previously mentioned actions on the manufacturer’s website or Google.

Bartertown
This is not Mad Max- we still have the ability to use cash.
Unless the person has a list of items they WANT for trade, or they SAY in their sale they are open to trades, DO NOT send a random “Trades?” message.
Did you see anything related to this on my sale post? Then there’s your answer. I swear I’m about to the point where I won’t even reply to folks that do this.

And then to make it even more fun you get the extra special citizens of Bartertown that send you a “trade” message and they tell you what they want to trade. And it’s always something totally ridiculous, and often in no way equal to the value of what you’re selling.
“Hey bro I see you’re selling that ubercooltacticalwidget- trade for a box of once fired range pick-up brass of dubious quality?”
I mean it literally almost gets to the point where it’s that stupid.
A long time ago I was selling some knives, and they were general purpose normal fixed blade knives, all brand new. Out of the blue I get this guy wanting to trade for a lightly used Kabar Tac Tool. I mean, one what am I going to do with that? Do you see the type of knives I’m selling? I wouldn’t want one in the first place, and two- read the sign- No trades!

Lowballers
The deepest circles of hell are reserved for betrayers and mutineers.
And lowballers.

So you’ve got your ubercooltacticalwidget up for sale, and it’s already at 50% or less than retail. Let’s say $50 for a $110 dollar item.
And you get an extra special message: “hey bro, saw your item for sale. Would you take $30 for it?”
WTF? I’m like, fool this is a LIGHTLY used (or even worse, new) gear sale not Tactical Goodwill… Lemme think real hard about that. Ummm… No.

I mean, really?
I get it, people are going to always try to get the best deal possible. Yay capitalisms!, But I swear you can practically give gear away and some nitwit won’t be satisfied with what is already a stupid good deal and try to bump it down more.
Frankly, that’s just plain disrespectful and insulting.

And then you get other folks that will try to guilt trip you into selling it to them for bread crumbs.
A friend of mine was selling a Mayflower APC, and get’s a message from a real gem of a fella- “hey bro, saw your APC for sale. I have a contact at Mayflower that can get it for me for [insert ridiculously low price here]. Would you sell it to me for [insert even MORE ridiculously low price here]?”
Seriously?
In that case, USE YOUR ****ING CONTACT DICKHEAD! Don’t come over here and insult the person selling the item with your pathetically low lowballs. I mean really, do you just have no clue what the item is worth (if so, see actions on “Know Thine Gear"), or do you think I’m to stupid to know what the item I’m selling is worth?
Even more pathetic, after this person’s offer was refused, they had the stones to come back and complain about it- they try to whine and moan and wheedle and make you feel guilty for not acquiescing to them doing you a favor by buying your item for nothing.
That’s just sad.

In closing, if you are any of these people, please stop infesting the used gear market with your stupid.
Thank you.

2

The “I know a guy at xxx and I can get it for a low price through him” is something I have encountered more than a few times.

I reply with the goatse pic.

Sellers are not much better mind you. Look at that one dude, in the EE. Been bumping the thread in which he is attempting to sell his BCM Lower for three years!!! Shit, in that time you can get an entire B.S. Degree in economics if you had no idea how it worked when you first listed it. I think he’s got some Win 5.56 for sale that’s been in there for 2+ years as well.

3

As someone who is about to take the plunge into selling off old gear in the next couple days, I found this hilarious but also reinforced my hesitance to list anything on the internet. This at least takes the surprise out of it.

4

You both made me laugh out loud. Thank You!

How about listing a used BCM Upper for more than you can buy a one from BCM, shipped. I made an offer and offended him. Even when I included a link to BCM’s site. I bought a new one from BCM. Noticed a week or so later he is asking less than I offered. =).

5

I’ve had great luck here buying and selling food used gear. Especially when priced right.

6

Treat it like you would a yardsale and you will be fine. You’ll get lots of people kicking the tires, stupid questions, dumber offers, and people who are looking for the rock bottom deal. On here, not so bad, and I’d say 90% on here are pretty honest. Having dealt a lot of local sites, some of which dedicated to selling and trading, it can be bad. I mean, really bad with stupid offers, low balling, ect. To the point I know people, and even done it myself, when selling something that is popular you add in 15-20% mark up to let someone beat you down so you get about what you want out of it because you have so many who refuse to pay asking price. Which is sad since if the asking price isn’t in the range I want to pay I won’t bother making an offer, and if you are too close to the price of new I’ll pay the extra 10% or so and buy new. With guns I know some do the whole, at least locally, “but is isn’t registered” to try to justify their 20%+ over retail. This I consider a huge red flag personally, and I run away from it.

You and me both. What gets me with these types of replies is that when you tell the no and to go get it through your alleged contact(Emphasis here alleged, since I had a guy tell me he had a contact at Remington who could get him the shotgun I was selling at the time at some ridiculous low price new. “Really? That’s funny since they haven’t made these things since the 80’s.”) if they can get is so much cheaper, is that they then go “Oh, but I am trying to save time.” :confused: Cheap, fast, Quality. Pick two!

As far as trades, I’ve gotten some really great trade offers over the years so I am ALWAYS open to trades, doesn’t mean that I will take what you offer though but I will at least listen to it, unless it is just ridiculous like the guy who wanted to trade me 4 mosins, which he valued at $800 a piece, for one, rather high end gun, that I had up for sale or trade. 30 Mosins I might have listened to, 4? GTFO. Though I suppose it still wasn’t as bad as the guy who offered me a pound of weed for my glock(which wasn’t even for sale at the time, whole other conversation about that shit). The other thing that gets me on trades are people wanting to trade me cats and dogs. I’m sorry, you want to give me something that will cost me money? The guy with the pin ball machine though gets props, that was a neat offer, sucks I didn’t have any place to put it otherwise I would have taken that.

And while I am on trades. To kind of bring the thread back to the original point, if you do offer something for trade and it gets turned down throwing a fit does not help you. Neither does threatening the person(Have had this a few times). Or getting pissed and start trash talking the item that you were wanting to trade for. Seriously. “You won’t trade your glock for my Hi point and $50!? Well your glock sucks! All Glocks suck, they jam all the time, and blah, blah, blah(Insert rant and more here.)” Is not going to help your case. Generally will get you blocked from my inbox, if I am feeling kind, or told to go perform some ill advised sexual act and then blocked. Threatening me I just go straight to the Mods you ain’t worth my time then.

Let’s see, what else boggles the mind with selling gear. Guys looking for charity or discounts because of whatever reason. Not on this site since the mods here are pretty damn decent and I think have enough shit to deal with, but did have a mod on another site who wanted me to give him a discount, like 70% discount, on some gear I had up because, you know, he was a mod and he deserved it. Oh, and by the way I want you to drive 40 minutes to bring it to me. I was surprised my ass wasn’t banned for my response to that shit. The other one that sticks in my mind was the guy who wanted me to give him, give him, like straight up charity, some ammo I had up for sale locally. Reason, he was a retired priest, and that was his entire reason why I should give him the ammo. No retired priest, living in shitty area, helping out poor families, needing protection from gangbangers. It was retired priest, and looking for deals, now give me!

I’ve got more too. But with all that said. I’d say the worse thing you are going to deal with when first trying to sell are people who up and vanish with no response and stupid offers. As with anything use common sense and you will be fine.

7

Gotta love the guys wanting to trade their Hi Point carbines for…well anything.

8

I had a welder for sale, very slightly used(burned about 1lb of wire with it) due to using buddies MIG welders all the time(they have all the other cool metal working tools) and buying a TIG welder which is loads more fun. I had about $1400 into the whole package. Was asking 1200. Had guys offering 500 bucks, 600 bucks. Best offer I got was 1000. Got lectured by a few people. One guy said “I can go buy that new for $1000, why should I pay you $1200” and I explained what all was included with the package, costs, tax, etc… and he says “well im going to buy it new” and I wished him luck. Got an email the next week “you were right man, I spent about 1400 on the whole package”. idiot.

Decided to keep the welder, it was a better choice than dealing with idiots.

9

Jellybean, you haven’t had any real fun yet.

Try and sell a Rolex on ebay. First you have these guys.

“Hey saw you have this listed for $1,200.00, let’s get it sold right now for $600.”

Gee…you mean instead of waiting a couple days for an actual bidder I can sell it to you RIGHT NOW for HALF of my very low start price? Can I pay your light bill too while I’m at it.

Then there is the fun of guys with like FOUR feedbacks on their account for crap like used toasters who end up bidding, winning and become The MAGICIAN. Sure you eventually get the list fees credited but the deadbeat bidder process takes about 2 weeks which means you haven’t sold your watch and won’t be selling it till you get it resolved.

And you haven’t lived until Brad Wenzel is your winning bidder. He can do payment like RIGHT NOW, paypal and DONE DEAL. Just google the name “Brad Wenzel” with “Rolex” and hear tales about him claiming he got an empty box and paypal refunded his money and the seller is now out a watch and the money.

I did agree to accept Brad’s price IF he simply sent me a USPS money order as a form of payment. Suddenly Brad became The Magician. Thank God for google, I searched his name on a lark because it just “didn’t feel right” and was about to print a label and ship.

Probably sold that watch almost a dozen times to as many scammers before I finally got a legit sale.

10

I’ve got close to 400 deals between here,ar15,calguns, and snipershide. Ive only had 1 guy that pissed me off, I sold him a Bobro 30mm scope mount that was literally like new, never fielded but had some small, and I mean small safe rub marks at the bottom side. Sold it for like $75 off brand new. Guy got it and then returned due to safe rubs, this is after he got pictures of everything.
Knock on wood, I’ve never been ripped off.
The worst to me are the whelchers that say I’ll take it, no payment shows up for a week, then say sorry, my car broke, the wife said no, or some other excuse.

11

I’ve sold a few things and bought a couple off the EE, but what always astonishes me is how many people will pay $390 for a used item they could buy new from a dealer for $400. There are often listings in the EE for maybe 5-10% off of new price…AND THEY SELL. ???

For $5-$10 savings I’ll just buy new from a reputable dealer. That stuff is crazy to me.

I get what you are saying though and I sympathize with you about the bartering crowd. I hate when my wife wants to have a garage sale. Nothing is more insulting than having someone try to offer you a dime for an item you priced at 25¢ that is worth $10. I always feel like, really? Are you ****ing kidding me?

12

What amazes me most is that there really are “flippers” who make a living buying stuff on open forums and then reselling it on open forums.

Rather than start a legit business that can get dealer prices from wholesalers, their business model seems to be to troll the internet looking for the “best possible deal” and then badger the seller down another 20-30% in order to allow room for a markup on the flip.

It’s important to remember this is what they are doing. I used to fall for the “sad story” and the “money is tight” crap until I saw the stuff I sold at a loss up for sale at MORE than I was originally asking. I have been through every version of the BS story from “I’m a cop…do you have LE discounts?” to “Can you donate or offer huge discounts so I can donate to a museum or cause?” to “I’m a loveable forum member having hard times, can you hook a brother up?”

99% of them are pure BS.

Shoot me an email from your PD email address and I’ll give you LE pricing. And I never hear from them again.

How about YOU buy it at my asking price then YOU can donate it to the museum or cause. And I never hear from them again.

Sorry brother, I’m having hard times too, which is why I’m selling some of my stuff, can you help me out by buying some of it? And I never hear from them again.

13

By far the worst interactions for me have been through Armslist. Great, so there’s no fees… And bad, because there’s no fees. People will list the same overpriced items over and over and over looking for a sucker. One benefit is that it’s mostly local sales like Craigslist so you can actually see the item.

Anyway, one thing I’ve run into on there: Trades where whatever they are selling is gold and whatever you have is apparently worth 5% of MSRP.

Heaven help you if you put something up and say you’re open to trades. Someone is going to offer you a half pack of Newports and $4 for it, no matter what.

14

You and me both. Seems like a majority of the sellers are asking new prices.

Ever noticed how many ads say mounted never used. Wonder how true that really is? Seems nuts to me to go spend money (some of which is high dollar) just to let it sit.

My favorite is the Obo, you give them your offer, then they say no my list is this… So say firm on the listing then and I won’t waste our time…

15

My “favorite” is the jerks who advertise something as “like new” when it’s really “used but not abused.” “Like new” is supposed to mean you literally did nothing more than take it out of the packaging, maybe inserted a mag in it or fired five rounds through it, or at the absolute outside you turned the cylinder on a new revolver but never got around to firing it.

I’ve run across firearms and accessories that were obviously used, albeit taken care of. You can’t shoot 300 rounds through something and call it “like new.” You can’t say that the item is “mint except for one scratch on it.” You can’t mount a scope (putting that scope ring scuff on it), sight it in, then decide you don’t like it and sell it as “like new.” It’s used. Not abused maybe, but definitely used.

No, “like new” is supposed to mean “mint” except for the fact you fondled it or ditched the original box or something.

16

Not as applicable to a forum buying a selling experience, but one thing that happens on the local classifieds would be when you actually do commit to buy something, start driving down to pick it up and pay for it, then have the item sold out from under you. One time in particular I had driven about 45 minutes one way to pick up a Colt AR, only to have the guy send me a text saying he had just sold it to someone else. I tried to call him, but I guess he didn’t have the balls to even talk to me over the phone. I have become much more cynical about buying and selling. If you want to buy from me, either pay for shipping, or come to me and pick it up, I never travel to sell unless I know the person. Like was mentioned previously, here in Utah the local classifieds seem to have lots of ‘emergencies’ happening to people after they commit to buy. As many people who have had a car accident, car broke down, got sick, dog got sick, wife went to the hospital, etc. that goes on with people asking to buy stuff from me, I’m starting to think I have some sort of bad juju :slight_smile:

17

I understand a new scam is to claim to be selling something, then when the buyer travels a long way to see it and pay the “seller”, the “seller” robs the buyer of his money.

I would never agree to buy or sell anything without knowing the person unless the meeting place is a gun show with plenty of witnesses or something.

I also have read enough fiascos with people selling things firearm-related vis PayPal, whether it was supposed to be designated “gift” or otherwise, that I won’t do that anymore.

And requesting a US Postal money order is not without pitfalls either. I once sold something that the buyer claims to have sent me a money order for. Well, I never got the money order. I’m sure that buyer now thinks I’m the thief. The thought crossed my mind that he was scamming me. He sent me another money order, and I strongly cautioned him to send it priority mail with tracking. I sent his item priority with tracking and everybody was happy.

It just goes to show you never have a guarantee of a smooth transaction.

18

It is worth a premium not to have the alphabet agencies know what you have. The current system is unconstitutional and conflicts with natural law.

19

pet peeve is the part out crowd.

When Trying to sell a complete rifle.
“Will you just sell me the hammer spring?”

“No, trying to sell it as whole”

“If you don’t sell it today will you just sell me the hammer spring?”

20

I have heard of the same thing. I have also had people come meet me to buy something, then claim to not have enough money (ie. agreed price is $200, but they show up with “only $150”) hoping you will just give in and take the lower amount. I used to sell things quite a bit, and now I just don’t, the hassle and the derp/dishonesty/scams you have to deal with just isn’t worth it.