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.
I’d assume the majority of the nonsense responses you got are either automated (bots) or scammer-types simply casting a wide net w/o really attempting to impersonate a real buyer, or some combination of the two.
Na, just real people. Just impulsive time wasters. They always hit you at 12am. Of course the next day they’re never going to be interested.
I still use Craigslist. Works just fine in Los Angeles. The bot-scammers are easy enough to spot and just delete.
Offerup is OK. If something is priced well, someone WILL show up.
Also, “is this still available” is the top of the list automated response, and it seems people often hit it when they’re actually just trying to save the ad for later viewing
I gave away a Kubota this weekend. There was no reasonable way to sell it other than putting a sign on it at the road side.
Gave it to a young man we know. Told him refurbish, then use it or sell it. Either way it helped him out and we’re both happy.
Also many who part out cars use eBay with some success – if you’re willing to deal with the fees it’s a reasonable way to get real people (like AutoTrader private listings are a good way to get real consumers).
eBay motors is a good option. I trust their radio spokesman Ray Magliozzi. He’s one of my heroes.
I have been selling on Craigslist for probably 25 years. Even though I completely hate fucking FB and it’s moron trump loving owner I tried Marketplace. It’s a total hot mess! Offer Up sucks also.
Maybe you could convince Doug DeMuro to start a “Carparts & Bids”.
Every time I log into Facebook (which is less and less these days) I get an e-mail from Facebook notifying me that someone tried to log into my account. No shit, me! Every damn time. Every time I log out, it won’t take the log out on the first try, then on the second attempt it asks do I really want to log out and I have to hit “yes” to make it finally log out. Every damn time.
Given this level of stellar user service on simple log in/out procedures, I can’t even imagine the quantum level of stupidity that happens when you try to use their marketplace.
Judo Boy needs a talking to.
I live in Utah, so I have the great fortune of being able to access and use KSL Classifieds, which is so much better than FB and CL. I’ve yet to sell anything, but the app design alone is so much better that I have abandoned the other two (dear FB, WHY THE HELL CAN’T WE SEARCH INDIVIDUAL MODELS OR FILTER BY TRANSMISSION?!)
When I sold my majestic 96 c1500 (mistake) with a rust free decent body, beautifully running drive train and (most importantly) brand new working AC, I got all kinds of stupid responses like “you can give me $500 and I’ll come get it,” and “my husband says it’s not worth more than $700.” I responded to that one by pointing out that the truck is worth $1,000,000 if someone is willing to pay that.
The correct response to that was “He also thought you were worth marrying, so I’d stop taking his advice.”
I hope you keep this handy..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_burn_centers_in_the_United_States
I’ve had mixed luck selling parts and cars on Marketplace. Unless someone’s willing to physically come to you, prospective buyers will at least save time and throw their stupid low-balls out up front. The last car I had on Marketplace (in the last couple months) the final low ball was maybe half-price. My response? “How about, “no.”, when I really wanted to say less charitable things.
I’ve had surprisingly good luck over the years with CL, even lately – like in the last month. After months of that same car on Marketplace and mostly crickets for a response, I put the Craigslist ad up for that car, had an email from the buyer first thing the next morning, and that buyer arrived on my door step with cash in hand by noon.
For Craigslist ads, I don’t accept text messages, period, just like a Boomer; I say that I can’t receive texts at the number given, it’s a landline, whatever. Speaking of phone numbers, I use a Google Voice number for calls (and I don’t forward GV texts to my phone), so I can quickly filter out the automated scam texts. If they’re real and have real interest, they’ll call or email.
Excellent advice, do as the boomers do! Just refuse the contact methods that result in the deluge of junk.
Won’t touch FB marketplace because it’s FB. CL is toxic, which is too bad. Used it for years. If I don’t use the Buy/sell section of a forum, I’ll usually use OfferUp, but I still anticipate the 10:2:1 rule. 10 exchanges, 2 are serious, 1 actually shows up. Oh, and if there is no punctuation I just delete. Sounds pedantic, but likely a preview of who or what I’d be dealing with.
Yep. It seems that in my area (close to DT) everyone from CL went to OfferUp so all that is left on CL is spam posts. OfferUp was annoying at first but when I learned to price high and expect low ball offers, it’s less frustrating.
I would check a forum like https://www.jeepforum.com out.
I use a couple of VerticalScope forums for bike stuff and I imagine this is similar. You probably have to make some posts before selling, to fight bots and scams, but it is at least targeting something other than the “click then think” Facebook masses and it may prove a useful community for you.
Agree with this. The specialist forums are the best way to go. FB has an e46 parts forum that I regularly check out, but I’ve had good luck on BMW forums and even through the BMW Club online classifieds. I’m sure there’s some YJ equivalent. Probably a good time for you to join some forums anyway, as I’m sure that Jeep will need to be wrenched on sooner or later.
Maybe try this site?
https://jeepingnation.com/classifieds/
.
I agree with your second post. Wholeheartedly.
That’s ridiculous…I bet someone on here would buy it
I just sold my 2-series on Marketplace, meaning I should probably change my username, and when I get another car I need to get another tailight to sacrifice to Torch, but it was okay all things considered.
I had the exact opposite experience, where I wanted to sell the whole car and people kept asking how much I wanted for the Dinan exhaust.
I deliberately asked more than I needed because I knew I’d get lowballed, and sold it for only a little less than I wanted. Facebook certainly didn’t make it easy, but at least it was better than Autotrader, where I paid $60 to post my listing and only got messages from 2 scammers.
I think The Autopian should open a classifieds section for parts and cars. Y’all are my type of people, and you have things I’d pay money for.
I second this idea. Seems like an easy page to add. Some small extra site revenue as well?
Well then, here we go..
For sale: 1988 Yugo GVS Rear Window Defogger Relay Connector.
To keep your hands warm while you’re pushing your Yugo to your destination, the scrap yard.
Any takers?
It sucks as a buyer too. Searching for a specific car is broken and has been for months.
I suspect they let people post free form text ads but then let buyers search for specifics as if they could do a reasonable db search for it. And they ain’t google on the search.
The worst part is I can’t search for key words in a category. If I want automobiles, I have to fill in make and model, I can’t just search “vr6” and filter price, mileage or transmission type.
Instead, Mark forces me to either look through every single item, car or not, in any state at any price that has vr6 in its description, or look exclusively at ALL Golfs, or Jettas, or Corrados, or Passats, or CC’s, and doesn’t even let me input the keyword VR6. It’s abysmal.
And 3/4 of the page will be items the algorithm thinks are related to what you searched for, so you’ll get a Volkswagen Beetle Hot Wheels, a VHS of the Love Bug, and a salt and pepper shaker set shaped like Type 2 vans, then, after much scrolling, one or two more actually relevant listings buried way down the page
My tactic on marketplace is just blocking anyone I don’t want to do business with, starting with any auto responses. I also put $10 towards ads for high value items to get it in front of the right people.
If you’re selling specialized items you need a specialized site. Even if you don’t find an active site for selling Jeep parts only in LA, it’ll be much easier to filter out the folks who want those sent to Ohio than to deal with the semi-automated scam replies.
This is where I’m at. If I want to buy something for one of my vehicles, I go to a forum for that vehicle and shop the classifieds there. I still browse Craigslist occasionally, but it has been years since I’ve bought anything on it because most sales end up being scams of various sorts. I have never, and likely will never, wasted my time with Facebook Marketplace.
I thought FB marketplace was only for stolen items? You didn’t steal those doors, did you?
If you get 75 responses almost guaranteed 74 are bots and/or scams.
SCJeff is 100% correct. Changing the title of the post to emphasize the non-entire-car nature of your ad probably wouldn’t reduce the number of replies at all. Most are certainly automated… scripts just trawling FB ads and then generating/sending replies. They’re basically generating potential ‘leads’ for scammers.
May I suggest you change the title to just ‘Tan Hardtop for YJ (Top Only)’
That should at least filter out the idiots who think a whole car is for sale and limit it to those in the know.
I’ll give you $800 for your RAV4 but I need to kick the tires before buying it.
Or if you’re interested I can also trade it for a kayak (ran when parked, don’t low ball me). It’s your loss if you don’t take my offer.
Why does it seem like one portion of that kayak is intentionally obscured in every picture?
Is that an open can of Bondo and a Bondo covered spatula amidst the empty beer bottles in the background?
No trades!
Probably the only way to get rid of the people thinking you’re offering the full car is to take the doors and top off and photograph them by themselves…
OTOH CL doesn’t have the automated response feature, which is nice.
Have you considered eBay? I haven’t sold on there and don’t know how much of a PITA it might be.
You could go really old-school and list the parts in one of those local bargain sheet newspapers; that would be an interesting experiment. It might not work but it would almost certainly be less aggravating.
Or this might be a good time to find and join a local Jeep enthusiast group (if you’re so inclined) or take the parts to an event that has a swap meet area.
Side note: I enjoyed your surprise at discovering there is pervasive jackassery on Facebook. 🙂
“You could go really old-school and list the parts in one of those local bargain sheet newspapers”
There is no way those still exist. If they do, it’s gotta be just as a money laundering front, like my local shoe repair shop.
SIDE NOTE: I went to my local shoe repair shop. It was completely dead. The owner refused to fix my shoe because he wouldn’t like how the end result would look. This was 4 years ago and I’m still obsessively irritated about it. I’ve never seen another car in the parking lot. Now I know why. IT’S A FRONT.
It wasn’t this bad for me when I was selling a bunch of furniture when I moved recently, but the zelle scams- SO MANY ZELLE SCAMS. I don’t know if Zelle has a legitimate use case at this point, I assume it is just a scam app.
Zelle itself is legit we use it to move money within the family but only well known people. I haven’t tried selling big stuff on Facebook just bicycle parts. We did buy a truck and some furniture off FB marketplace but it probably helps to be Ina small city so the population of scammers is also small.
“ Zelle itself is legit we use it to move money within the family but only well known people”
So.. it’s a money laundering front, for the Siberian mafia.
I’m on to you.
What ever happened to just using a Milanese bank to do that stuff, like in the good old days? Even laundering money has been reduced to an app now, where’s the personal service?