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why are people flakey?


pdxmonkeyboy

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I had four people scheduled to come by this weekend to pick up some things. 2 reef related, 2 craigslist.

 

I made it a point to be around on sunday and guess how many showed up?. ... 0. no call, no text, zip.

 

Am I just old fashioned or is that completely rude? I mean, in the age of texting, does your word mean nothing? Things come up, I get it, but I have always thought a simple text explaining things came up was just common courtesy? Or is it uncommon courtesy now? This is a serious question. I think perhaps i just have unrealistic expectations?

 

At any rate, i see why people just sell their frags on ebay or R2R. Post, get money, put in box and ship.

 

Done...and more profitable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I'm with you. People need to follow through or at least let you know. That is common courtesy.

Craigslist has always been hit our miss for me on the buyer or seller end. I mostly avoid it these days.

Selling online is definitely more work but maybe less hassle. You could always post your frags here too.



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I don't deal twice with people that pull that stunt.  If my time isn't valuable enough for a person to respect it then I have no time for them in the future.  We all have things come up but simple courtesy would be to stay in open communication when you are meeting someone and let them know as soon as you have any delays or hangups. 

Your expectations are not only realistic but I think you should stick to your guns and hold people accountable.  As for Craigslist... I dunno.  Can't be helped.  I try to stay off of there completely and always have.  Once in a while I find a reason but I usually regret it.  

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OK, well it is good to know that I am not completely off base or anything.  I have had good luck with CL and bad luck.   I remember once I posted that I had 700 1 gallon and 200 5 gallon plastic pots for free on my curb (left overs from a restoration job)..I just put my address in the post and said have at it.. 

 

 I heard yelling outside about 45 minutes later.  I came outside, and this guy in a pickup truck was throwing all the pots in as fast as he could and there was literally this old lady saying "wait, wait,wait".   I yelled stop! and then said whats going on.. the lady said "I only want a couple pots and the guy grabbed them out of my hands whenever i tried to get some".  He blurts out..."I WAS HERE FIRST".   I asked him straight up.. what the hell is wrong with you?  They are free,  she only wants a couple.. there is literally 900 pots here!!  

I told her she could take what she wanted, she took like 15 and said thank you.  

I have some acro frags and a bunch of zoas.  I am trying to find my camera battery charger to take decent pictures. 

 

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Well, at least I wasn't one of the 4 no shows 😃  Definitely think you are well within your rights to expect better communication and, while life can and does seem to wreck the best laid plans, I always try and let people know if I can't make an arranged meeting - as you say, common (or perhaps now uncommon) curtesy.  Very disappointing to think at least two of those were potentially members treating another member here with such a lack of respect.  On that note... what acro frags you got 😍

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I have some green slimmers..(oops fragging), a green with blue tip formousa, and a bunch of PC rainbow that needs less light.  The PC rainbow really doesn't like any PAR above say 250-300.  The stuff I have around 200 looks amazing,. but in the brighter light it just becomes solid palish purple.  

Zoas.. I have some of the best looking sunny D's you will EVER find.  Tremendous zoa, amazing, the best zoas, and I know zoas.   (ok, enough channeling trump).  Got lots of rastas, lots of orange zoas, I believe they are orange crush,   fruit loops, those yellowish center things from cuttle fish,  and a metric ton of reds. 

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[language filter] Fish Flakes! And I only have bad memories from Cregslist sales and "deals", so I steer clear of that for the most part.

And if your coming to the meeting this month maybe I could grab a frag pack from you, I could cut you some corals and have em ready for you by then.

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over the years I have participated in deals through pnwmas/craigslist etc. and had second thoughts before the purchase went down, but in every case I followed through to protect my reputation, and after all in the end, the only thing you have is your word.

Edited by Exodus
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I avoid selling on CL as no matter what price you charge, even extremely good deals, they try to beat you down on the price. I expect that but sometimes it's just rediculous what people offer. I'm surprised you didn't get people complaining of a broken pot or two when they were free, or expecting delivery. I tend to just throw stuff out now, or call a scrapper to get it for free if its metal. I've always referred to Portland as the half [language filter] capital of the world and every time I use CL I'm proven correct. I never give my address to anyone on CL, ever, anymore. Too many tweekers and thieves in Portland.

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Fish Flakes indeed! We should start a database of flagged flake users to avoid in the future. I’ve struggled with selling things on PNWMAS, even for ridiculously cheap. Of the couple frag sales I’ve made, I’ve probably gathered 15-20% return on what I paid. So if I shopped for a month, found rare amazing sales, spend $100, brought them home and grew them out to 400% original size, I would suspect I might get $20-40 total in return. My corals have been fairly entry level I’ll admit, and I try and pass the savings on to new reefers whose ambition surpasses their budget. 

Ive had many no call no shows. I’ve actually started to reply to the people online and via text and ask if plans changed or what gives. Never any responses though. That’s why it might be good to add their names to a fish flake database. 

 

Im in Salem and don’t have as big of a market as Portland. I went to the Christmas gathering in Salem and had better luck with buying and selling/trading than I did online.

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2 hours ago, TheClark said:

We used to have itrader, a rating system for buyers and sellers in the club.  Will have to see if something equivalent is back available.  It can cause controversy, but its nice having a feedback system.

I don’t remember that but may have been during my hiatus. It does make some sense although could be controversial if not used responsibly. 

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30 minutes ago, albertareef said:

I don’t remember that but may have been during my hiatus. It does make some sense although could be controversial if not used responsibly. 

It was really great, people took pride in building up 'good feedback'.  And the flakes stood out quickly!  Definitely some controversy though...

 

 

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Fish flakes suck, I am with you there! And these days it goes both ways...have had sellers ghost me...which is so odd...u wanna sell your crap or what?

 

And if it’s not for sale...take the ad down and don’t waste everyone’s time!

 

That being said, this community is overall pretty solid, especially when comparing to other similar setups like letgo and craigslist.

 

 

 

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