When did Craigslist stop being good?

[immamac 43,571]

I am bored and not tired. Jumped on Craigslist to see if there was any distressed items for sale or just cool stuff. 

Its all complete garbage. People listing stuff that is full price for used stuff. People posting junk for 40 bucks. What the hell happened to Craigslist? There used to be crazy I need to pay rent in 2 days sell offs. Now it’s just full of delusional people asking for retail or higher.

looked at the resume section. Complete shit. Gig section filled with driver ads for apps. Cars are all dealers. No RVs worth a shit. 5k golf carts listed for 11k. People wanting 70k for tractors. What the actual fuck happened? 
 

[PhillyD 1,279]

It was dying a slow death when EBay got it and accelerated when they killed the Casual Encounters section.

[52-80 19,281]

not facetious... but its always been crap, shitty listings, full of hagglers

[Telegraph_it 3,374]

The Westin Copley always seemed like a bummer. 

[Mother mopar 3,343]

Craigslist is the Walmart of for sale boards. You know going in that's it's going to be a shitshow.

It was alright about 10-14 years ago when it was just basically west coast-based sites. I bought and sold a lot of stuff and the haggling/spam was rare then it has progressively gotten worse. I quit using it for that reason.

[NoRagrets 1,133]

I loathe Facebook but their marketplace section is decent. My wife posts things on offer up sometimes but I think she’s never sold anything ever on that site. 

[Castilian Cum Stain 25]

When they stopped the “seeking arrangements”

 

duh

[CooterBrown 18,095]

I loathe Facebook but their marketplace section is decent. My wife posts things on offer up sometimes but I think she’s never sold anything ever on that site. 

I sold a couple of things on Facebook Marketplace and everything was gone in minutes. Good stuff goes really quickly there.

[UT_OB1 2,227]

1 hour ago, NoRagrets said:

I loathe Facebook but their marketplace section is decent. My wife posts things on offer up sometimes but I think she’s never sold anything ever on that site. 

FB is mostly crap too. Rusted dumbbells selling for $2/lb, a lot of over priced used vehicles from dealers, a lot of scam vehicles, tools and materials for as much as you’d pay from the store new. You can find stuff there, but it has gotten incredibly difficult to wade through the shit

[Guest Lobo]

7 hours ago, immamac said:

I am bored and not tired. Jumped on Craigslist to see if there was any distressed items for sale or just cool stuff. 

What the actual fuck happened? 
 

When you started killing the hookers you met on there just to feel something again.  There are other ways, man.  

[phdhorn 6,224]

I dunno, where else can I get a car worth about $5,000 for $15,000?

[RDCanecutter 26,553]

I've never known a time when Craig's List was good.

[Fudge Nuggets 19,276]

Never used the Craiglist because I’m not poor and don’t have to buy used shit.

[66BUFF 2,578]

4 hours ago, Lobo said:

When you started killing the hookers you met on there just to feel something again.  There are other ways, man.  

He could go back to killing drifters to get an erection.

[Blotto 23,712]

I actually found my last two gigs on craigslist, both software sales for small companies here in Austin. The first one I found while I was living in CA still and was wanting to get back here.  The last one was almost 12 yrs ago and we're now part of a billion dollar enterprise software company after a series of acquisitions. It wasnt the only site I would check, but I did periodically browse the jobs board. Looking at the complete shit on there today, it seems preposterous that CL was even a consideration. When I first moved out to the bay area in the late 90's, you used CL for damn near everything you wanted to buy/sell/rent locally. The vast majority of shit on there was legit.

[RDCanecutter 26,553]

1 hour ago, Blotto said:

When I first moved out to the bay area in the late 90's, you used CL for damn near everything you wanted to buy/sell/rent locally. The vast majority of shit on there was legit.

So basically, CL was once the popular middle-class mall that is now boarded up except for the tattoo parlor, the thrift store, and the New Revelation Church of Christ Without Christ?

[atomheartbevo 90,058]

13 hours ago, 52-80 said:

not facetious... but its always been crap, shitty listings, full of hagglers

It was good in the past.  I will still prefer to use it over eBay, even if I can't get as much as eBay, just because I want shit gone, and don't want eBays bullshit return policies that cause people to fuck around on even small/cheap purchases.  I fucking loathe selling on eBay these days, and I respect the folks who do (and I've actually bought quite a bit on eBay over the last few years, but mostly obscure/small stuff - toys for the kids that they wanted, books that were overpriced on Amazon, etc.).

But yeah, haggling, I fucking hate agreeing upon a price in email or on the phone from a CL ad, going over to some grocery store parking lot, and then having the person try to haggle me on the spot.

Also, CL is the reason why I use Google Voice so much these days - I swear way too many people responding to ads on CL are bots/people trying to build up email/phone # lists.

[atomheartbevo 90,058]

1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

So basically, CL was once the popular middle-class mall that is now boarded up except for the tattoo parlor, the thrift store, and the New Revelation Church of Christ Without Christ?

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13,153]

18 hours ago, PhillyD said:

It was dying a slow death when EBay got it and accelerated when they killed the Casual Encounters section.

The same day I logged on to Craigslist and discovered this gem had been removed was the same day I logged on to Shaggy and learned of the website was lost and we were migrating to Surly, thus my original username. It was a very sad day; both sites were very entertaining.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Coelenterate Fuccboi

[jimmyjazz 46,480]

I used to buy and sell audio gear for decent profit through CL and eBay.  Sometimes I'd list other random household shit on CL.

I recently went through a garage purge and put a half dozen items on CL for legitimate, reasonable prices.  Antique china, a ping pong table, whatever.  Priced damn near garage sale levels.  Not a bite.  Total crickets.  I think the market has dried up.

[Eastwood 4,394]

I used to buy and sell audio gear for decent profit through CL and eBay.  Sometimes I'd list other random household shit on CL.
I recently went through a garage purge and put a half dozen items on CL for legitimate, reasonable prices.  Antique china, a ping pong table, whatever.  Priced damn near garage sale levels.  Not a bite.  Total crickets.  I think the market has dried up.

I think it has more to do with scams being so prevalent. As Imma mentioned, the "legit" sellers are selling for sticker price on used items and people got jaded to the stuff that was reasonably priced being attached to sketchy shit like check fraud. You think you have a good find and then the seller asks you to pay in some way that is clearly indicative that they are about to scam you. I stopped trying to buy anything second hand. OfferUp is the same way, now.

[CooterBrown 18,095]

If you just want stuff gone and you’re on Facebook, join your local Buy Nothing group. As long as it’s not total shit, anything will be gone quickly. Everything is free so you can’t charge for it. I’ve given away lawnmowers, furniture, etc. I’ve gotten some nice camp chairs and a table from REI.

[jimmyjazz 46,480]

Yeah, I've gotten and given some decent stuff on my Buy Now.  Just yesterday a guy gave me a small Mackie mixing board.  Another guy gave me a brand new, unopened standing desk.  That thing is worth many hundreds of dollars.  He just wanted it gone, and I didn't ask why.

[XYZ 2,154]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Yeah, I've gotten and given some decent stuff on my Buy Now.  Just yesterday a guy gave me a small Mackie mixing board.  Another guy gave me a brand new, unopened standing desk.  That thing is worth many hundreds of dollars.  He just wanted it gone, and I didn't ask why.

You didn’t ask why???

[jimmyjazz 46,480]

30 minutes ago, XYZ said:

You didn’t ask why???

Nope.  Dude lived in a $2M house, I seriously doubt he stole it.

[RDCanecutter 26,553]

3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Nope.  Dude lived in a $2M house, I seriously doubt he stole it.

That's how he keeps getting away with it.

[jimmyjazz 46,480]

14 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

That's how he keeps getting away with it.

Well, it's mine now.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,551]

Many people just want someone gone and it’s not worth the hassle to attempt to sell/ship it. Give it away and maybe someone one else will get use out of it.

I figure that a fair amount of people get the free stuff and then they attempt to sell it. Good for them but they must live in a salvage yard.

[RDCanecutter 26,553]

1 minute ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I figure that a fair amount of people get the free stuff and then they attempt to sell it. Good for them but they must live in a salvage yard.

Almost 10 years ago I made steady money selling gaming collectible shit for my friends on eBay. It started out great, paid off my wife's car and other stuff. But what'd happen with collectible shit is you'd rapidly sell off the collectibles and get stuck with the shit. You'd go from being the equivalent of a nerd-Rolex store to a geek-Fred-Sanford junkyard in a few months.

[Celery Man 21,027]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Many people just want someone gone and it’s not worth the hassle to attempt to sell/ship it. Give it away and maybe someone one else will get use out of it.

I figure that a fair amount of people get the free stuff and then they attempt to sell it. Good for them but they must live in a salvage yard.

i had a bunch of medium value stuff (and one expensive chair leather ethan allen chair) that I needed to get rid of last year and it was SUCH an incredible pain in the ass. I don't think I listed anything for more than 10% of what it would cost new and it was such a fucking beating. I'm not going to spend my time being a furniture salesman and tracking down the people who are going to give me the exact value, and when I list stuff at the "just toss me a couple bucks" price and just get haggled I don't feel good about it. I had someone coming to take an $700 bookcase for $50 and when he showed up he offered $25. i told him to get lost and called up habitat for humanity to come take the rest, goddamn

[fattyflattie 4,639]

Craigslist hasn’t been good in 5+ years imo.  I still look for a few things occasionally.  I’ve found a couple of nice things on FB marketplace.   I live around a bunch of women that get rid of nearly new shit for other new shit.  It amazes me, and makes me consider how much $$$ people blow thru. It’s absurd. 

[Brisketexan 105,586]

Just caught am artificial Xmas tree off Craigslist a coupla weeks ago (we usually have a real tree, but won’t be able to get and water one with our planned travel schedule, so decided to get an artificial…to see they cost a shot load new). Got a nice one, all the lights work, $75.

[Biff Tannen 45,769]

11 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Almost 10 years ago I made steady money selling gaming collectible shit for my friends on eBay. It started out great, paid off my wife's car and other stuff. But what'd happen with collectible shit is you'd rapidly sell off the collectibles and get stuck with the shit. You'd go from being the equivalent of a nerd-Rolex store to a geek-Fred-Sanford junkyard in a few months.

Ah, the Mitch Cumsteen method. 

[Anastasis 23,514]

14 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Many people just want someone gone and it’s not worth the hassle to attempt to sell/ship it. Give it away and maybe someone one else will get use out of it.

I figure that a fair amount of people get the free stuff and then they attempt to sell it. Good for them but they must live in a salvage yard.

My wife posted a crib and a rocker and some other baby stuff for very reasonable prices on CL a few years back. Got a sob story from some lady and we ended up just giving her the stuff for free. It was reposted for more than we were originally posting it for a few hours later. Wife was pissed and called the lady and bitched at her. I was just happy the shit was gone. 

[Js1 85,765]

I've had general success.  Selling/donating everything before I move back to Texas and have slowly started putting things up.  Put up four barstools, got a quick response, picked up next day and no haggling.  

[CHIEF 5,098]

On 11/6/2021 at 8:08 AM, Eastwood said:

On 11/5/2021 at 8:12 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I used to buy and sell audio gear for decent profit through CL and eBay.  Sometimes I'd list other random household shit on CL.
I recently went through a garage purge and put a half dozen items on CL for legitimate, reasonable prices.  Antique china, a ping pong table, whatever.  Priced damn near garage sale levels.  Not a bite.  Total crickets.  I think the market has dried up.

I think it has more to do with scams being so prevalent. As Imma mentioned, the "legit" sellers are selling for sticker price on used items and people got jaded to the stuff that was reasonably priced being attached to sketchy shit like check fraud. You think you have a good find and then the seller asks you to pay in some way that is clearly indicative that they are about to scam you. I stopped trying to buy anything second hand. OfferUp is the same way, now.

This. I listed a $15000 item on Craigslist and got about 20-30 calls from Nigerians wanting me to send pictures so they could defraud people by listing at prices that were "too good to be true".

CHIEF

[LCHorn 2,646]

19 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Craigslist hasn’t been good in 5+ years imo.  I still look for a few things occasionally.  I’ve found a couple of nice things on FB marketplace.   I live around a bunch of women that get rid of nearly new shit for other new shit.  It amazes me, and makes me consider how much $$$ people blow thru. It’s absurd. 

I just buy whatever Cord Shiflet is trying to get rid of that day.  

[RDCanecutter 26,553]

Inspired by this thread, I looked at local CL for the first time in years. It is ... odd. But at least I found somebody offering those old brass 100 peso coins (worth about 1/2 a US cent now if you could convert them, which you can't) for $500 as "Gold."

I oughta call the sumbitch and act interested.

[atomheartbevo 90,058]

On 11/7/2021 at 12:41 PM, RDCanecutter said:

Almost 10 years ago I made steady money selling gaming collectible shit for my friends on eBay. It started out great, paid off my wife's car and other stuff. But what'd happen with collectible shit is you'd rapidly sell off the collectibles and get stuck with the shit. You'd go from being the equivalent of a nerd-Rolex store to a geek-Fred-Sanford junkyard in a few months.

I've been through this with video games - back in the 90s and into the early 2000s, lots of garage sales where parents were selling off their 80s/early 90s kids' stuff, and you'd get amazing deals on Atari, etc. stuff, the problem was that you couldn't buy it individually - there might be a $25 game in a batch of stuff, but they'd tell you "$10 and you take the whole bag!" which means you were stuck with a bunch of stuff.

For a while, when I was selling on eBay, I'd toss in "bonus games" which were just me trying to get rid of shit.

I've sold a bunch of stuff in the past few years to a friend, but I'm reaching another point of having one massive sale, like one for Atari Jaguar stuff (holy fucking shitballs Jaguar stuff blew up in price), one for Dreamcast, etc.

[Bevo&Pevo 5,390]

Any time you go to the second-hand market (either selling or buying) you're gonna have to deal with some BS.   I recently scored a Coleman camp stove off CL with a gallon of fluid for 30 bucks.  Doesn't look like it was ever fired up.  

[RDCanecutter 26,553]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

I've been through this with video games - back in the 90s and into the early 2000s, lots of garage sales where parents were selling off their 80s/early 90s kids' stuff, and you'd get amazing deals on Atari, etc. stuff, the problem was that you couldn't buy it individually - there might be a $25 game in a batch of stuff, but they'd tell you "$10 and you take the whole bag!" which means you were stuck with a bunch of stuff.

For a while, when I was selling on eBay, I'd toss in "bonus games" which were just me trying to get rid of shit.

I've sold a bunch of stuff in the past few years to a friend, but I'm reaching another point of having one massive sale, like one for Atari Jaguar stuff (holy fucking shitballs Jaguar stuff blew up in price), one for Dreamcast, etc.

As you know, it can be done. The thing is, to do it right, it has to be the main thing you do. I just couldn't see myself in ten years boxing up old games to send across the country, not even crisp first edition Avalon Hill classics with unpunched counters.

[DougO 5,257]

It's still as great as ever at providing a platform for pieces of shit to rip people off.

[Parliament 14,377]

CL jumped the shark when they surrender the adultery market over to Ashley Madison.

[BurdineBandit 815]

I've been looking more at Facebook's marketplace if I need actual goods. Like you I also peruse Craigslist once every few weeks or maybe months, just to see what's there, it's usually shit. 

I did get a last minute Leon Bridges concert ticket by trade a couple months ago. That was just good luck though. I had another ticket he wanted (and asked for in the post). 

[Jiggy-Z 3,469]

Items I lightly traffic in have been way off since the pandemic hit.  Large sporting goods items that are relatively expensive and hard to ship.  Camper shells, Kayaks, and mountain bikes etc.

I like to buy and sell camper shells that have some component that I like.  I buy a shell take what I want clean them up, do minor repairs and then sell them again.  Not too many good ones are coming up and some are just way too expensive.  However, if you are willing to sit on one for a few weeks the market is there.

Bikes are for shit right now.

New Hobie kayaks are on back order all over the country/world.  Nothing good going on there either.

I don't really deal in these things for profit, its more of an exercise in constant upgrading to save money and occupy my time.

Facebook marketplace seems like it sucks, was probably better before the pandemic.

[UT_OB1 2,227]

On 11/10/2021 at 3:30 PM, Jiggy-Z said:

Items I lightly traffic in have been way off since the pandemic hit.  Large sporting goods items that are relatively expensive and hard to ship.  Camper shells, Kayaks, and mountain bikes etc.

I like to buy and sell camper shells that have some component that I like.  I buy a shell take what I want clean them up, do minor repairs and then sell them again.  Not too many good ones are coming up and some are just way too expensive.  However, if you are willing to sit on one for a few weeks the market is there.

Bikes are for shit right now.

New Hobie kayaks are on back order all over the country/world.  Nothing good going on there either.

I don't really deal in these things for profit, its more of an exercise in constant upgrading to save money and occupy my time.

Facebook marketplace seems like it sucks, was probably better before the pandemic.

I did find a good barely used 20” bike for my 6 yo for $25 on FB about 6 months ago. Less than what I paid for his Lightning McQueen 16” from academy a few years ago by quite a bit. Took a while to find though. 

[jimmyjazz 46,480]

Yeah, but those Lightning McQueen 16" are the Ferrari 488 of kids' bikes.  

[UT_OB1 2,227]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Yeah, but those Lightning McQueen 16" are the Ferrari 488 of kids' bikes.  

The boy sure as shit thought it was. For 3 months. And then was on to the next cool thing (Batman I think).  

One of those parent in hindsight things - we started him on a balance bike (and to my wife’s credit i thought they were hippy millennial bullshit), and I wish we’d gone to a peddle bike sooner (he skipped training wheels thanks to balance bike), and I also wish I’d found an 18” sooner rather than waiting for when I thought he was ready for a 20”. Just one of those things I didn’t think he was ready, and I held him back. 

[Pescado_Rojo 19,454]

On 11/5/2021 at 4:41 PM, RDCanecutter said:

So basically, CL was once the popular middle-class mall that is now boarded up except for the tattoo parlor, the thrift store, and the New Revelation Church of Christ Without Christ?

Don't forget the kiosk guys in the middle selling fake gold, phone cases, and essential oils. 

[Bernard 879]

When I want something gone, the Free section of CL is awesome.

Bernard