Would an illiterate seller put you off buying?

Would an illiterate seller put you off buying?

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Discussion

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Saturday 1st August 2015
quotequote all
Ebay in particular seems littered with poorly-worded listings. Would you still be willing to bid - particularly for a relatively rare item?

Is it wrong to infer anything about a seller's bona fides from their grasp of the English language?

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Sunday 2nd August 2015
quotequote all
I absolutely love a badly written Ebay advert, and have got many a bargain from them.

People like you lot, and most other people, will cheerfully ignore a piss-poor advert with awful spelling and bad photos, and then I come along with a bid and possibly win it cheaply. It works to my advantage.

On a number of occasions I have then taken really good photos of the item/car in question, written a much better advert and resold it at a profit.

Recent example from a couple of weeks ago: Needed a new air compressor, and found a Kaeser unit for sale on eBay with an absolutely terrible advert and one bad blurry photo. The text of the advert almost literally said "used compressor 4 sale. Buyer must collect plz", and that was it. No make or model, spec, condition, hours, or anything at all. Terrible. And clearly no one was interested in it.

Undeterred, I phoned up about it and found out it was an engineering company selling it, they bought it new and it had only done 20 hours from new, almost unused. I quickly realised this thing had cost nearly £8000 inc vat and just hadn't been used. I very, very cheeky and offered £3k cash for it and the guy agreed. Went to get it and it was literally like brand new and only used for about 3 days then kept shrink wrapped as a spare.

When I was collecting it the guy commented that no one on eBay seemed really interested in it which amazed him! smile

His dreadful advert cost him dearly but snagged me a mega bargain.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Sunday 2nd August 2015
quotequote all
Thanks for the replies, chaps. It looks like the majority verdict is; "yes, but I'd take a punt if local".

I'd have to agree, but I do feel a twinge of guilt for making somewhat stereotyped judgments!

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Tuesday 4th August 2015
quotequote all
Never had much luck as the success stories in the posts. Text speak straight away don't bother to even carry on reading, rather a normal advert.

I have to say the opposite advert ones, too many surpurilous words to describe no proper servicing and other excuses when they have run the car on a budget and getting rid.