Introducing Greg, the Uber-Codbab

I need to take a couple deep breaths before I even start writing. I have a guy who has reached such incredible heights in codbaggery that it makes my brow furl and my cheeks burn every time I think about him. OK, I'm better.

Several weeks ago when we got in a Kona Ute Cargo Bike. (First of all, if you have never seen one of these, you gotta check them out. It’s a freakish cross between a pick-up truck and a mountain bike.)

So these things retail for about a grand. Ours had a couple minor issues (scratches and a missing pannier) so I listed it for $750 and threw it on craigslist. Three hours later… nibble, nibble, strike! I’ve got a codbag on the line. First this douche attempts the uninterested simpleton approach. “How much does that bike usually sell for?... Wow that seems like a lot for a bike. But yours is like damaged and stuff. Are you negotiable on the price? I have a long way to drive.” Blah, blah, blah. Of course this isn’t my first time on the merry-go-round, so I give him the standard, “I am pretty firm on the price. Why don’t you come by and take a look? “

Two hours later I hear one of my sales people struggling on the phone with somebody about the same bike. He cups the receiver and whispers, “This guy says he found a brand-new Ute in Tacoma for $650 and wants to know if we’ll come down on the price.” You should know that I grew up downwind of a dairy farm I can detect the smell of bullshit at 2 parts per million. This particular phone call reeked of it. So I responded (loud enough to be overheard,) “Tell him to buy one for himself and as many more as they will sell him. I’ll buy them all for $700 each. That’s a $50-profit for him and $50 for me.”

“Uh, he wants to talk to you.”

I snatched the phone and, Surprise! it’s the dill-hole from earlier. But he had acquired a miraculous new knowledge of bicycles. It seems, rather than not knowing anything about them, he was actually in the business of buying, repairing, modifying and reselling bikes for a profit. To his credit he stuck to his story about the low-ball comp and offered me $400 for a brand-newish, thousand-dollar bike. At this point I was simply annoyed and repeated my offer to buy every new Ute he could bring me for $700. He obviously wasn’t much of a businessman because a guaranteed 7.7% profit is a pretty good deal. Instead he recycled the same story 3 different ways, upped his offer to $500, claimed he was doing me a favor by removing a dead piece of inventory and blah, blah, blah. Finally I had had enough and erupted on him. I will paraphrase here: “Listen goddamn it. We both know you are lying out your ass. There is no $650 bike and I’m not going to sell you this one for $500 so all you are really doing is wasting my time. I may sell this bike for less than $750, but not to you. Your price is $750 FIRM! You can come up here and buy it or you can go to hell. I have no preference either way. “ and Click! I handed the phone back to my wide-eyed sales guy, received a high-five from an old dude who had been shopping nearby in the store. I smugly returned to my office, pleased to have called a spade a spade to his face.

But wait. There’s more.

This morning, while I was out, a guy walked into the store and acted genuinely interested in the UTE. He asked my people air up the tires and took it for a 10-minute test ride. He came back and had them find a tire gauge because something didn’t feel right, adjusted the pressure and then took another spin around the block. (As you may have guessed, it was my CodBag). When he returned, he said he would take it for $500. My salesperson wisely rebuffed saying the price wasn’t negotiable, sighting the current retail price. He countered with a $650 comp from a local bike shop. So my gal picked up the phone with him standing right there and called the bike store. (Coincidentally it was the same shop that does all our minor repairs.) OOOPS. The store didn’t even sell that bike, but if we wanted to special order one, they could have one delivered next week for $1195.

Time for a new tact I guess. As if he had anticipated this, the guy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a Meriam Webster definition of Liquidation he had printed out at home. I guess he figured he could mind-fuck us into giving him a better deal. He proceeded to walk around the store pointing out items that were, in his opinion, unreasonably close to retail.

God, how I wish I would have been there. I might have actually been able to knock a codbag out. I’m talking teeth on the curb, Ed Norton style, American History X take down. What a piece of work! But alas, I was nowhere to be found. Instead my sales gal killed him with transparently annoyed kindness and wished him a good day on his way out the door.

So the long and short of this story is, if you know someone who needs a sweet-ass Cargo bike I’ve got one. The price is negotiable to everyone except Greg from Tacoma, WA. Greg, your price is $1194.99. (A penny below retail.) I AM a liquidator after all.

Dear Canadian Codbags:

Dear Canadian Codbags:
International shipping means shipping between two nations. Canada and the United States are seperate nations. Therefore, if an ad says "No International Shipping," that includes you.
That is all.

Mandatory Testing for eBay Users

I am proposing a mandatory comprehension test for all new and existing eBay users.
I think users are actually getting dumber and recently I have had a slough of questions that lead me to believe that people don't even grasp the basic concept of eBay.

Take the 30" Kobe Range Hood we are auctioning. We started the bid at $99 and within a day got this question:

Q:I dont understand how you can sell this so cheaply... Am I missing something?
A: Most likely you are. First, you are missing an apostrophe in the word 'dont', but I also suspect you may be missing some cognitive skills. This is an auction. You bid on things, the price goes up and eventually the item sells for more money. Google it.

Then, on the same item, this gem:

Q:I am interested in a 36" hood is there a price difference? How do I order/bid on the 36" hood? Thanks! Bernadette
A: My suggestion would be to find someone who is selling a 36-inch hood and bid on theirs. This, as you can clearly see, is a 30-inch hood.

Back to my point. I'm not suggesting a hard test, mind you. I was thinking something more like the one you take after sexual harassment training at work. You know, "Patting a co-worker's ass is an appropriate way to say hello: True or False?" or "Which of the following is an appropriate thing to shout in a staff meeting: a) Where's all the white women at? b) That's what she said! c) I see London, I see France... or d) None of the Above

The intent is just to see if people have grasped the basic concept. There will always be codbags, but the really stupid ones are excessive time wasters for all involved.

E-Bay Circumventing Ignorant Cod-Bag

Yesterday we encountered a new breed of Cod-Bag. At least he was new to us. This may happen in big cities all the time... dunno.
A guy had seen a vacuum on eBay and decided to come to the store to buy it. On eBay it was a $99 auction with a $134 Buy-It-Now price. Coincidentally we had it for sale in the store for $134. So this old guy engages one of my employees claiming it is for sale on eBay for $99. My guy, wisely opens a browser session and offers the keyboard to the old fart to find the listing. Of course gramps starts back-pedaling, knowing full well that it was a starting price he was looking at, so he started negotiating from the standpoint of, "well it doesn't have any bids, so it is probably going to sell for that price."
My guy is a good salesperson and doesn't get flapped up very easily, (unlike me) so he calmly explained the concept of eBay. However, the codbag continued to play dumb and started griping about driving all this way and "woe is me for the gas I spent" and eluding to bait and switch, wha, wha, wha. Then he hits my guy with, "So what can you do for me?"
Now, my team has some leeway on prices and this could have been handled without me getting involved, but I think my guy just felt like pulling the pin on a grenade to see what would happen. He told the guy he would have to check with the boss and it was GAME ON!
Me and the guy went through an abbreviated version of the conversation I had just overheard, ending with the same question: "What can you do for me?"
My initial tact was to explain how snipers come in at the end and bid items up and that the vacuum would not end for $99. But then something wierd happened. Before my very eyes this old codger miraculously transformed into an eBay expert. Suddenly he knew everything about how it works, what stuff ends for, all eBay's fees, PayPal fees and the whole bit. Now his point was that I could avoid all those fees buy selling directly to him and it was a valid point, but rather than impress me with his knowledge he just pissed me off. Now I realized that, rather than a newb, I was dealing with a con-man. This was the pitiful old man version of the classic "Yo no jable the inglish" or the Phil Hartman caveman "Your strange ways frighten and confuse me." negotiating tactic.
Realizing I was being had, I shifted gears and decided to abbreviate the bullshit.
"Well sir, here is what I can do. If you'd like to buy it here in the store for $134 you'll save $20 on shipping. Or you could go home and bid on it and hope to get it for $99 and then drive back up here and pick it up. Of course we both know it's not going to sell for $99, so you will have to factor that into your decision. I've got a lot of stuff to do, so I will let you dwell it over and tell the cashier your decision." and I walked away.
I'd love to say the guy bought the thing for $134, but I think he had a little too much pride. Oh well, last I checked it was at $126 with 10 watchers on eBay. I think we'll do OK on the vacuum.

Enough CAPTCHA! Seriously... Enough!

Craigslist! I understand the need to filter out douchebags, scammers and automated spiders. I get it! but goddamn CAPTCHA is just ridiculous. The only people confused by nonsense words are people who speak the english language. Nigerian con-men and spider programs would be just as easily confused by real words as by the garbage words captcha produces.

That said, today Captcha reached a new low... I may be old and stuck in my ways, but I think everyone would agree that the characters you need to type in should at least exist on the keyboard. See the image below. This was an actual screen capture as I tried to sell an item on the local craigslist.
I realize everything is made in China, but has it really come to this?

Let Me Google That For You!

I know you guys are gonna dig this.

A new employee pointed this website out to me the other day. www.lmgtfy.com
It is an acronym for "Let Me Google That For You" and here is how it works:

1. A time-wasting codbag asks you a question they could have easily looked up themselves. In my recent case it was "What is the size (motor amps) of the $0.99 vacuum cleaner you are selling?
2. Type in a search term, click a button and it produces a short web link.
3. Copy/Paste the link and send it to your codbag.
4. When they click the link a Google screen opens in their browser, the mouse moves to the search field, slowly types in the search term you entered, and the mouse clicks the "Google Search" button. Half a second later, Ta-Da, the same freeking Google results you would have gotten are now produced for the idiot who asked you the question.

Lets take a look at the process at work; shall we?

Codbag question: What is the size (motor amps) of this Vacuum?

Answer: Here is a link to a bunch of information on this item: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hoover+duros

Its beautiful in its simplicity.
Enjoy!

Scammers posing as CodBags

This isn't a new scam, but it is worth mentioning to our angry and militant masses. I got the following e-mail today from what appeared to be a slightly over the top CodBag:

I payed you and you didn`t ship me the item .I have reported you to eBay and to the police ! You will not get away with this .I`ll find you if it`s the last thing i do !!!

I might have sent my standard verbal middle finger if I hadn't been tipped off by one critical piece of the e-mail. The cops. This guy claims to have reported me to the cops. Here is what I know about the cops: They have less time for cod-bags than I do. Anyone contacting their local police about an eBay transaction gone bad would be so beat down and humiliated they would likely slink into a corner, curl up in a ball and suck their thumb for a week until their family eventually interjected and coaxed them to come out and eat something. After months of counseling, they would eventually reach the point where thinking about the whole ordeal would not immediately cause them to convulse into a fit of vomiting.

The last thing that person would do is pick-up a keyboard and send a threatening e-mail.

So here is how it works. Scammers know you don't want Viagera, or Ciallis or whatever the pill dejour is. They know you don't want to look at dude's schlongs. They send you all those e-mails so eventually you will send an irate response, screaming "Stop sending me pictures of Schlongs!" and then they've got you. They now know theer is a pulse on the other end of your e-mail address and you get elevated to the next tier in their scam factory. The same goes for the wolf in CodBag's clothing e-mail I got. Either I will hit a link in the e-mail or scream at them, or (most unlikely) remove my hat and start apologizing as I research a transaction that does not exist. But in all of those scenarios, "They got my ass!"

Well not this ass my Nigerian friend. Not this ass.

Unfortunately, the only viable defense was to add it to my spam filter and move on. Of coarse I didn't want to let all that rage go to waste, so I took it out on the douche three e-mails down who demanded positive feedback.