Also add the word "mint" for anything not visibly broken in half, and "NIB" if a box exists, no matter how worn the box or contents.

ah yes I forgot mint, mint goes for anything that you can clean up with a can of dust off.

Edited my post to say its a joke so people don't think I'm serious.

Don't forget to not use any packing material or use some, but definitely not enough.

When the items arrives damaged at the buyer's address, blame the buyer or claim that they are trying to scam you.

Also block any sellers who dare to ask questions.

Local classifieds are pretty dire now too, no end of ppl listing vehicles like *single fuzzy photo taken at dusk* *zero details* Price if forced to list is $12345 i.e. no real price mentioned, and the ad goes "Come see it before you make an offer, no lowballers, no tire kickers"... and you gotta wonder what is going through Einstein's tiny little head, it practically guarantees that he gets "tire kickers" because they're hoping it's a later or earlier year or less miles or different options, better condition, you name it, all could have filtered themselves out with a few details in description, and "lowballers" because nobody knows the price in this guys head, and why he thinks his, now you can see it, 300,ooo mile rusted out piece of crap with base trim is worth SOOOO much more than the $500 you were willing to drag it out of his yard for (Probably literally needs dragging on soft tires and rusted up brakes)

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-08-04, 03:50:

Also block any sellers who dare to ask questions.

Yah, that's a stupidity in the generic advice on eBay related sites, "How to spot scammers" section, it goes something like, "if they ask generic questions THAT YOU HAVE ALREADY PUT THE ANSWERS TO IN YOUR AD" without the capitals, but dumbasses just read "if they ask questions" and put zero to slim details in their listings and think anyone asking ANYTHING is a scammer.

Ensure that every photo you take is just blurry enough so that it looks ok-ish in the thumbnail, but makes any text on the hardware completely unreadable at full size. And don't list any specs in the description, need to keep potential buyers guessing.

If someone contacts you and asks for a better photo, be sure to never respond.

Bonuses for extra Fleebay L33TN3ss :

- Contradictory specs (i.e. video card is described as both AGP and PCI, as both a Geforce and a Radeon, etc )
- Lots of non related keywords in posting so said posting comes up in as many keyword searches as possible (I see less of those, has there been a crackdown on the practice ?)
- Advertising an item as working and/or tested when the photo makes it obvious the affirmation is untrue (i.e. motherboard with missing BIOS ROM or keyboard controller)

Flagging the item as a "Retro Gaming" component will allow you to jack up the asking price even further. Pro tip: it doesn't need to be related to gaming, you can even do it with generic trash like I/O controllers or network cards!

Also, for motherboard sellers, make sure you ask full price in all cases, even if half of the PCChips 486 board you're selling is blue due to battery corrosion... it's an ultra vintage collector's item after all!

EDIT: both of the above are 100% based in real cases, sadly

"rare" - whilst nested among 12 other similar listings!

What I'm seeing from more and more from local classifieds is that the seller does not give a price, but says he accepts offers. Ofc the ad is only with one single photo and little to no information (untested). I have a good grasp on what the actual value is, so I make a reasonable offer, but that almost always get declined. Either I'm immediately ghosted or the seller makes a counteroffer 3 times my bid. Either these sellers just use your bid to drive up the price as a startpoint for price discussion, or they have a completely unreasonable price in mind which they for some reason won't disclose in the ad. It's such a waste of time.

Yeah... Or they say to make an offer and then tell you it is too low and also refuse to tell you what th y are looking to get.

I don't even bother with crap like that anymore. Not worth my time if they won't even bother to list a price.

Don't forget "L@@K".

I've found out, through several tedious and unfruitful interactions, that a lot of people don't actually know what the terms or abbreviations are that they are using on their listings. They just put them there because they see them on other listings and think it "is the right thing to say" or spices up or decorates the listing somehow. One instance, something listed at $23 OBO... so I figure they want $20 for it, so offer $20 and get a snotty "The price is $23" "Why did you put OBO then?" "It's just what you put.(Implied duh! Like I'm the idiot that didn't know things)" "It means Or Best Offer." "Well I want $23"...

Another pet peeve...Unfinished projects... like those where they were a couple of hundred feet out of their depth when they started and it got worse from there... usually advertised as "all the hard work done" .... meaning a bit of grunt labor done that probably did more damage than improvement. (However there's a few genuine things that don't need a lot to finish) .. quite often also a "blank canvas" meaning they've thrown out all the model specific parts that will take 5 years to hunt down, or even just field of application specific parts that are spendy and probably could have been reconditioned, and just all that stuff however worn or rotten that you could have used for patterns. Maybe even finished projects (Complete renovation!) done so crappily that the improvements have negative value, while buddy thinks he's tripled the price. In computer terms, "blank canvas" would be like a manufacturer specific formfactor case, maybe a Compaq Deskpro, where the motherboard has gone, maybe even the drive cages, and the front panel buttons and lights were snipped off flush at the rear, or all knocked out and gone. Riser card? Nope, according to our expert seller "it was no good" i.e. he'd never seen one before so didn't know what it did. Basically for this thing to ever be any use again, you'd need a complete donor system that had some very specific damage, like an elephant lightly stood on it, bending the metal out of shape but sparing everything else. Then "all the hard work done" would be like the above, but a Pentium 4 board thrown in there, hanging on two screws and none of the holes lining up. (I've seriously seen engine swaps listed "all the hard work done" where the motor is just dropped in the bay and the one or two mounts that matched up connected and nothing else)

Oh and if you want to sell on Arsebook, please don't list the price and at the same time tell people not to shame offer.

I've found lots of times that "untested" or "don't have cables to test" is usually codeword for "DEFECTIVE". Like you have a Mac SE and a power cable in the photo. you seriously didn't even plug it in to see if it turns on?

another pet peeve, but from buyers for local sales. "Whats your best price?" If I'm feeling charitable I will tell them that I've already listed a price,
but if they disagree with it they are welcome to make an offer. But usually I just delete their message and move on.

It just drives me nuts when people tell me they "dont want to haggle" (and in one case "I'm not a jew, i don't haggle") when in fact,
asking for someone's "best price" is one of the laziest if not rudest forms of haggling.

incidentally, i have a video I made a while ago on the topic of buying/selling retro that goes into some detail. I'm sure i've missed a few things, but its representative of some of the troubles i've had.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCXDx9-C11o

Also always refer to the services/platforms you extensively use to make money as fleebay, arsebook and have Word on your windows pc to autocorrect MS to M$.

Not fleabay but a lot of sellers just don't bother. They usually dump a blurry picture of the hardware, sometimes covered in dust, untested condition (of course), no model info, just a vague graphics card. I have one say they don't get paid enough to check out the model for their listing, take it or leave it 😁 Another type is listing a 'rare' board for a troll price like 678 and when asked, they are not really selling.

I have heard it said that some of the overpriced items are for fake purchase transactions for money laundering.

Not really about prices being jacked up, but I remember that 4 years ago I bought on eBay one SB16 CT2230 which was labeled as a SB16 CT2940 Vibra 16S and said it was untested. While the sound card was indeed a SB16 and worked fine it was a bit misleading to label it as a Vibra 16S, probably the seller didn't have any clue about the models.