My evil/good deed for the day

[pvcliff]

I highly recommend Nextdoor dot com. It is a great way to stay caught up with things going on in your neighborhood. In our case it seems every third day or so there is another post about the latest pet that has become coyote food. Never had coyotes in our area until recently and now it has suddenly become a real problem.

Anyhoo, I was catching up on the latest Nextdoor posts and there was a request for anyone who has a Marx Hootin' Hollow Haunted House. "I am attempting to reclaim part oft my friends childhood. She has been talking about this item that she had when she was a little girl and I wonder if any of you have seen this or perhaps would be willing to part with one". My **bleep** detector went off immediately.  So I stuck my nose in and responded with a simple one liner "If anyone has this item be aware one sold on eBay this past Sunday for $890".  Figured someone cleaning out their garage might as well make some money selling it to this guy who would then turn around and list it on eBay, rather than just giving it to him, which is what I'm sure he hoped!

[creoleorchid]

I love Nextdoor. Ours has what they call a "curb alert", where you can put out discards (what doesn't sell on ebay ) and within minutes, it's gone.  Alerts for car break ins, suspicious persons, need a plumber, babysitter, dog walker etc. It's great.

[retrose1]

One of my favorite ebay happening tales was back when I had my vintage B&M store and I would get dealers coming in scoping out the place looking for stuff that went hot on ebay that they think they would get cheap.

A regular customer brought in 5 pairs of his old black label Converse All Stars from the late 60s, slightly worn, still in the box size 12 that were still stored in his fathers house that was being cleaned out and sold.  He asked if I was interested and I told him that I would list them on ebay for him and listed one pair as an auction started at $9.99 to see whaat would happen.

I got over a dozen seperate offers within an hour that ran up to $600.  I politely declined and said that I would let the auction run to the end (and this was before disruptive innovation and free range scammers).  The auction ended with over 50 bids at almost $1,000 to the guy that offered $600.  The next week I listed another pair and it was obvious that the first pair was not a fluke.

Anyway about the second day of the second auction this guy walks into my store and looks around and hits the shoe area hard.  He isn't trying anything on just looking around like he is looking for something specific.  Finally I asked if I could help him and he said that yeahm, he was looking for a pair or two of Converse to use as costumes in a play, did I have any that weren't out yet.

I said I did, but they were consigned and I have them on ebay right now, so they aren't available right now.  He got this horrified look on his face as he stared at the display rack I had used to take the pictures of the shoes for ebay and I could hear him say an expletive that will be deleted, and he turned and said, they're yours, and I said yup and he left and I never saw him again.

By the way, my friend was quite pleased with the results of those listings.  There were parties at the store the evenings the listings were due to roll off as we would watch the snipe bids roll in the last minute of the listing.

[pvcliff]

Second most posted item on our Nextdoor is who the next poor soul is that did not lock their car doors. In our area there are low lifes who walk the neighborhood at night trying car doors. We "always" lock our cars, except when one of us has retrieved something that we were going to return to the vehicle, but then didn't. Lost an XM receiver (which we bricked) and a Garmin that way. XM was hubby's fault, Garmin mine.

[18704d]

I see we can't read that website

without giving up our email address

fwiw,

Lynn

[pvcliff]

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@18704d wrote:

I see we can't read that website

without giving up our email address

fwiw,

Lynn

---

Yes, they will notify you (unless you turn that off), when posts are made throughout the day (which is good if you want free stuff). Your neighbors don't see your email address.

[rainbowcolorz]

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@18704d wrote:

I see we can't read that website

without giving up our email address

fwiw,

Lynn

---

That's good to know.  I never like to give out my email address if I can help it.   I like the way CL does it with the option to have yours or  their own jumbled up email that people see in the ads.  

[retrose1]

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@creoleorchid wrote:

I love Nextdoor. Ours has what they call a "curb alert", where you can put out discards (what doesn't sell on ebay ) and within minutes, it's gone.  Alerts for car break ins, suspicious persons, need a plumber, babysitter, dog walker etc. It's great.

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I'd love to sign up, but they will not let me do so until I sign up to Yahoo.  Sorry, I am not signing up to anything else in order to use a site that should be a stand alone.

[d-k_treasures]

Since a lot of my neighbors are Amish, I don't think I would see much activity ....

Of course, we don't have to lock our trucks or houses either where I live. And protection comes in many calibers.

[18704d]

"Yes, they will notify you (unless you turn that off), when posts are made throughout the day (which is good if you want free stuff). Your neighbors don't see your email address."

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It's not the notifications to me, or my neighbors

It's the probably that gobbledy-garbage in their User Agreement

will allow them to sell / share my email with any company who pays them.

Thanks,

Lynn

[itsjustasprain]

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@creoleorchid wrote:

Alerts for car break ins, suspicious persons, need a plumber, babysitter, dog walker etc. It's great.

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You get quadruple score bonus points if your babysitter posts an alert about a suspicious plumber walking his dog while breaking into cars.

I got burned by my own Ebay success once. Was at a garage sale looking for future projects and came across a widget just like one i sold just the past week for a nice three figures - only this one i found was really rough. It had a way high price on it anyway. I made my usual offer & pointed out the problems i would have to fix & ect. Only the guy was having none of it. He says 'No way. I cant come down that far. One of these just sold on Ebay for $xxx!' I didnt have the nerve to tell him that the guy who sold it for that much was standing right in front of him. 

[pvcliff]

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@18704d wrote:

"Yes, they will notify you (unless you turn that off), when posts are made throughout the day (which is good if you want free stuff). Your neighbors don't see your email address."

----------

It's not the notifications to me, or my neighbors

It's the probably that gobbledy-garbage in their User Agreement

will allow them to sell / share my email with any company who pays them.

Thanks,

Lynn

---

Maybe so, but I haven't seen any extra spam in the 10 or so months I've been using Nextdoor.

[chipper01work]

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@itsjustasprain wrote:

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@creoleorchid wrote:

Alerts for car break ins, suspicious persons, need a plumber, babysitter, dog walker etc. It's great.

---

You get quadruple score bonus points if your babysitter posts an alert about a suspicious plumber walking his dog while breaking into cars.

I got burned by my own Ebay success once. Was at a garage sale looking for future projects and came across a widget just like one i sold just the past week for a nice three figures - only this one i found was really rough. It had a way high price on it anyway. I made my usual offer & pointed out the problems i would have to fix & ect. Only the guy was having none of it. He says 'No way. I cant come down that far. One of these just sold on Ebay for $xxx!' I didnt have the nerve to tell him that the guy who sold it for that much was standing right in front of him. 

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Don't you just love it when sellers at flea markets or yard sales start quoting eBay prices? I often point out that if they want that kind of money they should.....

1. Photograph it 

2. Inspect it.

3 Describe it.

4 Sell it.

5. Pack it.

6. Ship it.

7. Guarantee it.

8. Pay eBay/Paypal 13%

9. Be prepared to show profit/loss to IRS

And I will.....

1. Sleep in

2. Save my gasoline.

3. Buy it while on my lazy-boy drinking a beer.

4. Wait for my Mailman to bring it to my door.

5. Return it if there is a problem.

That usually leaves them with a really silly look on their face.

[lookng2015]

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@itsjustasprain wrote:

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@creoleorchid wrote:

Alerts for car break ins, suspicious persons, need a plumber, babysitter, dog walker etc. It's great.

---

You get quadruple score bonus points if your babysitter posts an alert about a suspicious plumber walking his dog while breaking into cars.

I got burned by my own Ebay success once. Was at a garage sale looking for future projects and came across a widget just like one i sold just the past week for a nice three figures - only this one i found was really rough. It had a way high price on it anyway. I made my usual offer & pointed out the problems i would have to fix & ect. Only the guy was having none of it. He says 'No way. I cant come down that far. One of these just sold on Ebay for $xxx!' I didnt have the nerve to tell him that the guy who sold it for that much was standing right in front of him. 

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I would have told him his item would take a "lot of hard work" to get it into the same state as the one which sold.

[zzydny]

Never been to that site; sounds interesting.  But I have learned a thing or two about coyotes.  My old kitty Daisy likes to nap on the screen porch.  I never imagined that a coyote would actually jump through the screen to try to get her but that's what happened.  I only just rescued her in time, and she subsequently had a nervous breakdown from which she has never fully recovered.  A few days later, my yard cat Aggie was not so lucky and she became dinner.  I do NOT like coyotes.