I’ve had it! I’ve absolutely had it! Craigslist is a shell of its former self, leaving me with no choice but to sell my car parts on Facebook Marketplace. It’s a great platform in many ways, but it’s also severely flawed. Its worst problem is its inclusion of an automated response button for listings — a button that everyone I know loathes. But that wasn’t the only thing that made my attempt to sell some Jeep parts in LA a complete nightmare.
Have you ever had to sell something on Facebook Marketplace? If so, I’m sure you’ve become extremely, extremely tired of the phrase: “Hi [your name], is this still available?” It’s the auto-send message that Facebook lets people (and probably robots) send sellers, and it is unceasingly agitating. I just bought a Jeep Wrangler YJ with a hard top and two sets of doors. As I live in California, I have no interest in keeping that top, nor do I need the full-doors that accompany it; I’m a half door/soft top kind of man. I should be able to get at least $1200 out of that hard top and around a grand from those two doors, so I threw the parts up on Facebook Marketplace.
Here are the two listings:
The description for the door listing goes like this:
These YJ full doors are in very good condition! New paint, new interior panel, new mirrors; window seals are cracking, and there are tiny blemishes here and there. But these white doors look wonderful inside and out.
And here’s my description in the hardtop listing:
This hard top is in good condition. The glass handle will need to be taken off and either replaced or fixed, as twisting it doesn’t unlatch the glass (I just reach up and pull the cable by hand). There are a few minor imperfections on the outside, but overall the shape is good. The inside of the hardtop shows no cracking.
Sadly, it looks like I won’t be selling these Jeep parts anytime soon — at least not on Facebook Marketplace — because the app has become totally unusable. I have received no fewer than 70 messages about these two listings, and the vast majority have been of the automated variety. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s this little pre-filled box in the bottom right corner of a listing. Simply hit “send,” and the seller gets the automated message shown there: “Hi, is this available?”
Just look at this absurd number of mostly automated messages, all received in the span of 24 hours. The vast majority appear to have no interested in buying anything, and it’s not clear to me if these are humans or bots:
For some reason, no matter what I do with my post’s title, people keep thinking I’m selling the whole car. It’s gotten to a point that I think the world is messing with me. Look at Joshua here. I tell him I’m selling just the top, and he then replies “That’s all wrong, but does it work well? does it start and drive ok?”
A top, Joshua? Does a top start and drive OK? No, it doesn’t — it’s a freaking top!
A person named German seems confused as well, saying they’re interested in the [car emoji]. Again, it’s a hard top. It literally says “just the hard top” in the title!
Then there’s Eliel. He asks me if my Jeep’s doors are four-wheel drive. And when I reply that, hey, we’re just talking about doors here, he responds with: “is [it] 4×4?”
Eliel! No it’s not 4×4. Why would a hardtop need a drivetrain? What would those fours even represent? There are no wheels to drive! It’s 0x0!
Bahram managed to really crank up the level of discourse in my Facebook Marketplace inbox by replying to my hardtop listing with: “wath is mileg.”
Truly profound.
But among the people who enraged me most was this wise-guy, Geno. When he asks if he can pick up my hardtop, I tell him to bring a friend, for it’s rather heavy. “Wym does it run” he responds, apparently inquiring if my fiberglass hardtop somehow features an internal combustion engine, and if that engine runs.
I tell him it’s a top, and he seems to realize that I’m “not selling the keep.” I suggest that he look at the listing title; this seems to be something one should do prior to sending silly messages. He response with what I’m sure he knows is going to make my blood boil:
“You wanna sell the keep are not I have cash” — no punctuation, didn’t spellcheck a damn thing, just pure unadulterated annoyance in text form. Come on, Geno!:
Emilio was at least clear with his communication. “I want the whole car.” Fair enough, Emilio, but that’s not what’s for sale:
Ynnos decided to offer me $700 — half of my $1,400 asking price. And you know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if he, like the rest of Facebook Marketplace, thought he was offering me $700 for the whole rust-free, beautiful 4.0-liter YJ.
But nobody, I mean nobody, spiked my blood pressure as high as Yael, who I’m going to come right out and call a fool. I don’t like calling folks names, but what he did is the bane of any Facebook Marketplace-seller’s existence. He looked at my overall price, came up with a number way, way lower, and then sent that in the chat with absolutely no punctuation:
Screw you Yael. Screw you.
I’m largely kidding. I am somewhat amused by how poorly this is going, and I realize that some of the issue is a language barrier.
At this point, I’ve given up on selling this top and these doors. If I get 70 absurd messages a day, even if someone actually is interested in buying these parts sends me a note, it’s likely to be lost in the inbox of drivel. Facebook Marketplace is a shitshow.
So … are they “keep” still for sale?
Something I’ve found is that if something is in a picture, people assume it’s for sale. I sold a set of wheels a little while ago and, while the wheels weren’t on the car in the pictures, there was a canoe in the background, and I got no less than three people asking about it in the two days the ad was posted. Now I try to take pictures of the items alone, against a wall, just so people don’t get any ideas.
Now that you’re in L.A. you may want to investigate the old skool PennySaver.
David,
I know you’re trying to recoup some of the purchase price, but why bother going through all the effort? You’re just going to sell the YJ in a few months/years when another “holy grail” comes along, and/or you bought so many vehicles you don’t have the time and wherewithal to drive it.
Keep the spares in storage, and include them with the sale for the next owner, or take them to a Jeep Safari or swap meet and try to hawk them there.
Knowing your luck, you’ll either: a) successfully sell the doors and roof but want them later, or b) sell the YJ with the hard roof and doors, replace it with another one (or two, or twelve) other convertible jeeps, but for some reason the latest acquisition would somehow benefit from having a hard top and full doors – maybe for a friend (future lady friend, perhaps?) who shares your jeep passion/lunacy but lives up in Washington or Utah or something and needs the complete cold-weather kit, but since you sold it to get another in a long series of seemingly rare and special cars it’s now unobtanium. The sour grapes would come when you have to try to reach the seller through FBM/CL to try to buy the parts and you get ignored as a bot. And they’re the same parts you sold years earlier.
Enough people are sick of FB Marketplace’s shit, that Craigslist is starting to come back to life in Chicago. This pleases me greatly, because I am also sick of FB Marketplace’s shit.
I’m a hardcore CL user whose never understood the point of Facebook marketplace. CL is anonymous and (mostly) free for buyers and sellers, its easy to use, it allows sellers to write a decent description, add pics and even gives a map in just a few steps Best of all its email system firewalls buyers and sellers until enough trust is established that phone numbers can be exchanged.
Its got all the things I like without the things I hate. Seriously what is the point of Facebook? What value or convenience does it offer sellers OR buyers over CL? The handful of times I tried Facebook marketplace it seemed a cynically poor imitation of Craigslist specifically designed to be worse for everyone but facebook.
I made the move to FB Marketplace not because I liked it, but because that’s where all the buyers went. Enough people are sick of it’s shit though, that Craigslist is starting to come back to life. That makes me happy, because I much prefer Craigslist too.
In my region the only thing selling on Craigslist is dealers. I used to love skimming it for good deals now you are lucky if 1 listing is from a private citizen. FB Marketplace is terrible, but it is the only way to find people selling items.
I responded to a Nextdoor ad for a motor home. Because it was on Nextdoor, I fingered the MH was w/in 50 miles of where I live in NorCal. I got a response of “email my sister, she’s got pictures, etc.
Dutifully emailing “sister”, I got back a link to s FB marketplace ad. I wrote back asking for the location of the MH, saying I wasn’t gonna send off real money ‘till I see it. I kept getting responses for the link and the helpful info that FB would happily ship my purchase and they offered insurance (for a nominal fee).. I finally found that the MH was in Michigan, not exactly Nextdoor. It was a shitshow and felt like a scam.
Almost as frustrating are all of the “what’s your lowest price?” people… I listed the thing for 1400…that’s the price. If you want to skip the negotiation altogether, it’s 1500.
Dude, every single one of those messages was a scammer. Thats a super high ratio, I feel for you.
You need to title your ad “Tan Hardtop and doors for 87-93 Jeep Wrangler YJ” or somesuch.
“Tan Hardtop and Doors for Wrangler YJ. Not the Jeep itself. The Jeep is not for sale. Just the top and doors. I’M NOT SELLING THE JEEP. DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND, YAEL?!!”