OMG seriously who are these people on Craigslist??

[Minnetonka4me]

Ok I got to get this off my chest. I just posted my 89 jetmate on Craigslist for $3000 a couple of days ago. Its on the high end, but its rare, been completely gone thru top to bottom...put together out of 3 JMs...best of all parts. Not only is the trailer is completely restored too, I had a $500 custom cover made up for it.

I put it up two days ago, and last night I got a email:

give 1000 based on the NADA http://www.nadaguides.com/Boats/1989/Kawasaki/JET-MATE+/10097992/Standard-Equipment


My reply:

Good luck with that.

His reply:

A simply no would have been fine, or maybe even a counter offer

You may want to be a little smoother in the future, I have a boat on Minnetonka in Wayzata and several Jet ski's

you definitely didn't just gain a new customer

Good luck yourself


I reply:

1/3 of the price is laughable and if you know anything about jetmates you would know how hard they are to find in this condition. The Nada and Blue Book are a joke on these types of machines. Better yet offer a 1000 for that shitbox jetmate in breezy and let me know what he says. That thing needs 2g worth of work to get to where mine is.

I wouldnt let mine go for less than 2800. I would have said no thanks if your offer was reasonable but what you offered was offensive to say the least.


He replies:

Leave it be man. You just keep digging the hole deeper. The thing has been for sale forever, better to throw a lowball offer based on the only resource I have for price (nada) then none at all. And no i am not a jetmate expert, and if you are that still gives you no reason to be a jerk. At least I informed you of why it was a low offer, so you should not have been offended, you should have countered Some people just aren't cut out to sell shit online

SOME PEOPLES CHILDREN!!


Am I off base?? I know that CL is filled with lowballers and I typically just reply with a no thanks, but an offer for 1/3 the price? Was I really that abrasive?

Heres my ad:

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/boa/3581100690.html

 

[Rick100]

Having sold a lot of really good stuff over the years like that jet mate I would have tried my best to get that dip shit out to look at it in person. If he shows up you can probably nail his dumb ass to the wall and get the asking price or close to it. I try to get a trade for a few bucks and turn it into a money maker at the same time. I personally like low ballers because it shows they have looked at the ad and took the time to e mail or call you. The trick it to get the dipwad to look at the piece you want to sell and work your magic on him. I did not find your response offensive and feel that way when I get low balled and this guy was probably a big J O but you just don't know until he gets to see the unit and put his fingers on it. Most of the time I watch to see if he is falling in love with the unit and if he is it's sold and I laugh all the way to the bank. Please take no offense to this post. Rick

 

[Dr Honda]

Hummmmmmm......................................................


OK... I'm sure you trust/respect my opinion... so I won't sugar coat it.


Personally... $3k is high. I fully understand that it's super clean, and you put time and effort into it... but some things don't hold value regardless. I also understand that NADA is only good for general pricing. But... on the other hand... this is a free country, and yo can ask any price you want. Also, you know your local market better than I do. (things like this sell at different prices, in different areas)

The thing with the jet mate is... they are small... and they don't have a "Cult" following to help keep the price up. Heck... let's face it... 90% of the people out there, don't even know something like that even existed. Becasue of that... people aren't looking for it.

With that all said... if I were selling it... I would have posted it for $2500, and probably taken $2200. It basically is the same as selling a clean, old ski. If I was going to buy it... I probably wouldn't pay more than $2k assuming it's really clean. But... that's becasue I'm the kind of guy who likes to buy the $500 project, and to a light restoration.


So... there it is in a nutshell.


As far as dealing with the guy who offered you $1k for it...

Knowing you have a company that sells parts... I would have done everything in my powers to be professional. Word of mouth in the local market is everything.

I would have responded with... "Thanks for the offer, but $2800 is as low as I am willing to go." Basically... don't give the "Buyer" any chance or reason to bad mouth you or your shop.



I know I sound like I am taking the other guy's side... but really, I'm not. I'm just giving you my thoughts about how to deal with a "Jack-off", and protect your image.



My final thoughts on this is... "Damage Control". You have a pissed off POTENTIAL customer. I know he gave you a STUPID low offer... but I would still do a little damage control. Personally... I would send him one last email, saying:

"Hi,

You are right, and I am sorry for my short answer originally. I know that NADA has the boat listed at only $1000, but this boat is in particularly clean condition. Also... the matching trailer, has been restored. And, along with it, is a new cover, that I just spent $500 for.

Regards.

Minnitonka"


Basically... just apologize, and don't make any excuses. Who knows... the guy may come back with a real offer after that. BUT... if he comes back, and is still a Jack-off... then just ignore his emails.



Please don't be mad at me... It's just my thoughts, and how I may have handled it.

 

[Dr Honda]

Oh... BTW.... SWEAT jetmate !!!! If you were closer, I'd come talk to you about it. :thumbsup:

 

[Minnetonka4me]

I appreciate the opinions...thats why I posted this. I know the CL game and get lowballed (and lowball myself) all the time. I typically do exactly what you said... graciously decline. It was a 1/3 of the price offer that got my goat.

Now...as far as price we all know prices are all over the board across the country. This area of the country the prices are much higher...I get $2500 for a 96 XP completely restored. I know that price is laughable in FL...it isnt even hard up here.

The jetmate was a very low production unit that was only made a few years. They are pretty hard to find. There is a pretty cult following for them out there surprisingly. Esp for something that in all reality is one of the worst designed jetskis ever made. BUT...the fact that they are hard to find keep the prices high.

Obviously people value things differently. I get that. I bartered a ski for the work on the trailer...or it would have been just sitting on a beater trailer. The cover is an absolute must on these things due to the retarded bilge drain design, and I didnt skimp on it.

I am waiting for the right customer....its got a storage spot and I dont have a reason to sell it. Plus...try to find one in this kind of original condition. Its not like mine is perfect, but prob one of 5 in existence as nice and as original.

Plus...look at my competition up here!!! LOL

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/boa/3562261735.html

http://duluth.craigslist.org/boa/3547236515.html


Crazy...just did a nationwide search and I feel pretty dang comfortable with my price....here you go Tony!

http://allentown.craigslist.org/boa/3548736920.html

 

[Spimothy Leary]

i'm so used to dealing with lowballers (i've pretty active as a seller on CL) that if the offer is so low to the point of insulting, I generally don't respond at all. but i don't advertise (generally) more than one ski at a time, since I keep my inventory to a bare minimum, so i'm anonymous to some degree... unless some really avid CL guy notices my #, which I don't always post, or I use a GVoice #...

funny tho, my buddy had his really really nice xp for sale for 2250, and bigdogtim lowballed me for 1700 (I did the listing for my buddy) and we turned him down kind of rudely.. 2 months later, we sold it to another guy for $1600 lol.. so go figure, his lowball was the best offer.

but screw lowballers...

its the scammers that drive me nuts, had a guy last night do the scam (said he was deaf so had to txt, not call) and of course it ended up being the cashiers check while i'm out of town scam. again, normally I don't even reply, but the fkr interrupted my nap with his 3 page text so I woke up, and texted him the first few chapters of the bible (cut & paste), it was probably at least 50 txt's into his inbox.. i hate those guys with a passion !

 

[Ronsse610]

i find everyone raised a good point! for me as working in the fam business, our image is everything and when we turn away a customer or turn our backs to a rude customer, it may come back to bite you, as well all know people have big mouths! it takes a long time to get a customer and just 2 seconds to lose him. i would do what doc said! its a tough swallow but well worth it as i am amusing there too many business like your's in you're area!

cheers

 

[Minnetonka4me]

Yup I prob should have taken the high road...he got me going thats all there was to it. If he would have offered $2g I would have had a completely different attitude.

Its funny but seriously most of the time it doesnt bother me at all. People have what they think its worth in their heads. But...I would NEVER even waste time emailing someone that has something posted for 3g and offer a g...even if the thing was really only worth a thousand.

Small business is such a PITA. On one hand you want to try to bend over backwards for your customers, but on the other hand you dont want to be taken advantage of. And there is such a thing as a bad customer. I try to weed them out before I do any business by explaining that I do things correctly and dont cut corners which costs $$.

 

[Dr Honda]

Well.,.. if local to you... they are $1800, and $2300 for beaters... $3k is a good price to start.

I can't tell you the last time I've seen one posted in Pittsburgh. BUT... I would love to find one that isn't totally rotten for under $1k, and do a restoration on it.

Mr Leary is right... you got to expect the low-ballers on CL, and take the high road!

a word on price.....


There is always the "Right" buyer for an unusual product. (Like a clean Jet Mate) Heck... I had a guy come up from Louisiana, and gave me $4k for my Sportster. (NADA was only $1900) He asked "Why is the price so high"... and I told him "That's where the market price is for a clean sportster." After a few emails, he flew out to see it... and it went to a shipping depot to for the ride back. (bet it cost him $2k for air fair and shipping)


Anyway... hold to your price... and just treat the Jack-off's as you would a real offer. Then come back here to vent. :thumbsup:

 

[Minnetonka4me]

Thanks guys I appreciate it...I should have vented here first. We had the explorer out there since October and out of nowhere a guy made one call, came out and looked, and bought it without any haggling. At the end he said, I wanted to knock the price down a little but once I saw your collection and heard the knowledge you had I feel like Im getting a bargain and a mechanic that could fix it cheaper than anyone. You got that right buddy!

Of course a few days after it sold I was contacted by a in WV and absolutely wanted it...he was hot for specifically a nice explorer. Broke his heart telling him it sold.

 

[ocod]

Thanks guys I appreciate it...I should have vented here first. We had the explorer out there since October and out of nowhere a guy made one call, came out and looked, and bought it without any haggling. At the end he said, I wanted to knock the price down a little but once I saw your collection and heard the knowledge you had I feel like Im getting a bargain and a mechanic that could fix it cheaper than anyone. You got that right buddy!

Of course a few days after it sold I was contacted by a in WV and absolutely wanted it...he was hot for specifically a nice explorer. Broke his heart telling him it sold.

Thats a good way to end thread
iggy:

 

[Minnetonka4me]

Thats a good way to end thread
iggy:

Not sure about the pig...lol but yes that was last weekend. It was about 5 degrees and the snow wasnt plowed, yet somehow we sell a jetski. Amazing.

Then we loaded up the old Polaris sleds and hit the Waconia vintage sled show and got a few rips in on the foot of snow blown into the first 40' of lake ice. The rest was glare, clear ice 18-24" thick.

Damn that was a good day....hell made my whole winter!

 

[ocod]

Not sure about the pig...lol but yes that was last weekend. It was about 5 degrees and the snow wasnt plowed, yet somehow we sell a jetski. Amazing.

Then we loaded up the old Polaris sleds and hit the Waconia vintage sled show and got a few rips in on the foot of snow blown into the first 40' of lake ice. The rest was glare, clear ice 18-24" thick.

Damn that was a good day....hell made my whole winter!

You could always come back to south Florida .
It's gone and on to new project to restore.


throw up your sledding adventures....

 

[Minnetonka4me]

LOL well we ARE in the off topic section ....


Here's the best/worst ride ever...


A group of us started about 15miles west of the WI/MI border headed about 50 miles up into the UP to Silver City. It was about 25 degrees, sunny...perfect.

The last 15 miles before Silver City were on a closed highway road just for snowmobiles. This is in what they call the porcupine mountains which Im not sure qualify or not...but I digress. 4 sleds wide, super smooth. Not only that, when we hit the highway the lake effect snow hit us and we were in almost white out snow. There was a fresh 4" that no one had made a trail through.

Pretty much the best trail riding I have ever experienced... then we got to silver city. Here is what we were greeted to:



We got to this station and I had basically nothing in the tank. This station was OUT OF GAS. We had also not ate yet so we drove another mile to a bar and had some pizza.

An hour later we came back out as the sun was starting to go down. The temp had gone from 20 to about 5, wind whipping at 20-30mph, and the little bit of snow coming down was going sideways. Oh and Im out of gas.

The bar told us there was a gas station 6miles south the way we were headed. I thought for sure I would have to be towed some of the way but made it. We all gas up and get ready for the grueling ride back. Oh...and note on the Pro-X sleds they are setup to stand the whole time with no wind protection.

So now its dark out, cold, windy, snowing....no moon. 45 mi back to the hotel. Also the night visability was you could see a headlight about 75ft in front of you, but maybe 20 to see a guys tail light. Snow going sideways. We stopped at every stop sign and made sure to count at every stop. If anyone would have broke down or gone off trail they would have had to stand in the trail and jump out of the way when someone drove past...it was that bad.

Amazingly we made it thru all the woods and 25mi back to Bessimer. Only thing open was a Dairy Queen. We stopped in and had about 10 cups of coffee and hot chocolate. The temp had dropped to below zero at this point and we still had 20mi to go. Even worse we stopped which makes your gear unfreeze and get wet. As we were leaving I decided to stand in the bathroom and spend a few mins trying to dry my facemask under the hand warmer. Got it pretty dry. Headed outside and we got back on the trail. I got about 10mins down the trail and my gloves are so freezing my fingers get hard to move. Had to stop every 10mins and heat my hands and gloves directly on my exhaust. Still couldnt move my fingers...so I was driving with my left glove froze around the bar, and pushing on the throttle with the front of my fingers/glove. My face was also so cold I had to start sitting and putting my head down. I knew the trail was straight so I kept straight by following the edge of the trail looking down and to the side and FINALLY...we got back to the hotel.

Now...remember I dried my facemask?? Well my buddy did not. We got back to the hotel and his mask was frozen to his neck. No joke. We all got into swim suits and headed to the hot tub. Still stuck to his neck. It took 5 mins of hot tub area heat before it finally broke loose. 3rd degree frostbite...still has scars on his neck.

How bout that for a sled story??

 

[ocod]

^ Amazing!
I wouldn't up give up sun and sand for that.

Thanks for sharing......

 

[Minnetonka4me]

Ive had some good rides....but that one was one of the most amazing rides I've ever been on. Sled or ski.

The day before we followed this gas line pretty much as far as the eye could see in this picture. Got to a sub station that everyone turned around at...except for us. We found a route through some trees and blazed trail another 10mi before we found a good crossroad to get back on a real trail. This was a day before the one above.



Rock on beeotchez!

 

[Ronsse610]

good to see your into the whole sledding! i myself go on long expeditions in quebec! we travel all around! theyre fun as hell to do!!!

 

[hfgreg]

That's awesome! Had to be funny for the cars driving down the road to see you guys passing them. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Minnetonka4me]

The road was closed in the winter to cars... The area got soooo much lake effect right there.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

 

[rotaxrule1]

I agree with dr Honda and the group, do some damage control and take the high road to protect your business. Some people don't know better with negotiating courtesy and come off as d-bags, but might turn out better after working with them a while and breaking the ice. Plus bad word of mouth spreads twice as fast as good word of mouth. With that out of the way, let me just say that I very much appreciate your business and the large amounts of money you have saved me with my PITA projects. (Not to mention your quick response and willingness to overnight a freakin part to flaming gorge campground for me when I was in a bind!)

By the way, hell of a trip you had on those sleds. I don't know if I would survive that!! I miss snowmobiling but don't miss the days like that at all, lol.

 

[Spimothy Leary]

Yup I prob should have taken the high road...he got me going thats all there was to it. If he would have offered $2g I would have had a completely different attitude.

Its funny but seriously most of the time it doesnt bother me at all. People have what they think its worth in their heads. But...I would NEVER even waste time emailing someone that has something posted for 3g and offer a g...even if the thing was really only worth a thousand.

Small business is such a PITA. On one hand you want to try to bend over backwards for your customers, but on the other hand you dont want to be taken advantage of. And there is such a thing as a bad customer. I try to weed them out before I do any business by explaining that I do things correctly and dont cut corners which costs $$.

this is something thats important, i'm a small business owner myself, insurance practice since 1987, i've learned the hard way to weed out the bad seeds. after 10 years of trying to please everyone, i learned my lesson, over the past 15 years or so... I've "high-balled" many people, offering rates that i knew for sure the customer would reject, because I just knew they were going to be a pain in my arse if I ever sold them product. had one about a year ago, while I was running her quote, she told me about all the lawsuits she's filed over the years, my price was about $900 annual under her current price and I quickly changed some "criteria" to bump my price about $1500 over.. I wanted NOTHING to do with this lady...

same goes for my ski sales, if they seem like nice, reasonable people, they get my business card and cell #, and I'll gladly refer them to my mechanic, and even invite them to ride with me, if they seem like goobers, whiners, bitchy, crybaby types, its nothing more than a handshake and a goodbye...i'll add their # to my cell so I know who they are and I won't answer if/when they call, I want nothing to do with those types,in the long run you end up spinning your wheels trying to make someone happy that is never happy, and even if you do them a solid, you just know they will find an excuse to bitch and moan about your services... fk dat !!! (i'm not always right about my guesses, but I usually am..)

two months ago for example, I went and looked at a GTX for sale, locked up motor, I offered her a price about $200 under market value (i didn't need another project at the time) and she said no thanks, but was quite reasonable..and a nice lady... she got burned when she bought the ski... so I quickly changed gears, gave her some good advice, told her what I was going to do with the ski, (flip) and told her what she needed and why.... and sent her to the shop to have her ski rebuilt by my guy.... he made a few hundred in labor, she got back on the water quick and painless, everybody wins. if I had an inkling that she was going to turn into a pain in the arse, I would have simply got back in the car and drove off with a "thanks for your time and good luck"

bottom line, i think its important to weed out the bad customers, they're just not worth it unless your really really starving for the work.

 

[RFoster130]

I feel your pain. Ive had my boat on CL for 2 weeks now. Ive gotten some strange requests for trading (guy wanted to trade his landscape business), and low ball offers. It gets very discouraging. The scammers are what drive me nuts the most.

 

[Minnetonka4me]

The "still available" scam for your email is the one I hate the most. Theres a guy up here who tries to trade house furniture on everything Ive ever put up too.

 

[Spimothy Leary]

The "still available" scam for your email is the one I hate the most. Theres a guy up here who tries to trade house furniture on everything Ive ever put up too.

I hate the "still available" scams,,, i'm about to just stop replying to them... starting to wonder why I haven't

just had it two days ago on a ski for sale. you know for sure they're scamming when they say "have a blessed day" gives honest Christians a bad name, but honestly i'm leery even if I see a listing that says "God bless", always makes me suspicious.

here was my response to the "ya its still for sale" email.

Thanks for the quick response about the inquiry. Am quite comfortable with the item and would not mind adding an extra$50 to your asking price to keep the item in my favor. I would love to have been there for inspection but am be embarking on a 2-8weeks radiotherapy treatment tomorrow morning unfailingly. I am paying by Bank Certified Check and will be sure it gets to you by express mail if you consider selling to me. Most people do not accept check these days considering the fear behind it but i want to assure you i will not make pick up arrangement until you have your cash at hand.You may not have to worry about pick up as i have a Mover to handle it.

I will make arrangement for the pick-up after payment has been received and you have your cash at hand.I believe you will find other interested buyers within and afar but it's quite important i get this. I will be more than glad if it could be sold to me. Kindly get back to me with your full name, mailing address and phone number for check payment. I'll be waiting anxiously to hear back from you.
Thanks and have a Blessed Day.


Lisa

jerks !

 

[Seadoobuddy]

Cash in hand works best