Protest

I am forever frustated by some people in the classifieds

PLEASE when you respond to a new advert and have PMd the seller let everyone else in the community know that you have.... this might spare others from any uncertainty of whether any item is under offer. Many times I have missed out because of interest expressed by PM only

Also, if there are several items on offer and you are interested in one, it's not good enough to say 'PM sent'

I am not bothered in that in the slightest, and would not hesitate to PM an offer even if someone else had placed an offer. They might have only offered 5 pence for all I know! I can imagine if I wanted to make a very cheeky offer, I might not want to make it public for fear of putting off other buyers. When I put "PM sent' it is for the benefit of the seller (a heads up)... not anyone else!

What does bother me... IMMENSELY... is people disputing the asking price, who have no intention of buying the item. Seller is entitled to ask whatever he wants... caveat emptor.

With Pentaxophile on this one.
As a seller I would not want other potential buyers to be put off if 1 person had made an offer. PM sent is only useful as a heads up.
As a buyer, it`s up to me to make an offer that is aceptable to both parties, if other people offer more then thats life.


Davex.

There are probably a lot of daft offers sent and I don't think
the person making the offer will want to make a post as well
confirming that he/she has sent in a daft offer.... nor will the
seller.

I can't see how it will work other than the way it is now with
no rules? obviously if a buyer is paying full price he will put
up a post saying that he is buying the item or the seller will
confirm that the item is sold subject to payment being received.

There are guidelines, it's not a free-for-all. When noticed in time, any off-topic comments are routinely removed and certainly comments like "that's far too expensive, you can get one from here at £100 less" are taken off as soon as possible.

The Classified section is for the buying/selling process only. However, sometimes off topic comments that are helpful are left alone.

It's all a matter of common sense.

I'm with Pentaxophile on this as well, if you want something, then get your offer in. Some people might not want their interest made public, so it would be wrong to say all interest should be in the thread.

If anything could be suggested here then maybe it should be up to the seller to let everyone know there is an offer on the table, after all, we all want the highest possible price for what we are selling, and it is in the sellers best interests to do so.


If this is to be done or is policy, then can I please ask for some consistency in this?

The macro lens we sold recently had an unwanted comment about the price after it was sold, yet remained even though you commented on it. Also a few weeks ago I posted that I had confirmed my interest in a sale via PM and it was removed!

As you say, common sense should prevail.

The comment after an item was sold may hav been there a while or not, but as the sale was already concluded I would probably leave it alone and just comment for next time. If the sale had not been concluded then it would have been removed.

Can't comment on the second one you mention as I don't recall it. Was it just a passing comment that you might be interested or an offer? In any event, we do our best and it's best to keep Classified Ad threads nice andclose to the subject.

It was not there a while, it was less than 5 hours after the sale concluded, and you replied within 2 hours of that. If comments like this are allowed to stay after the sale concludes, then it could get rather messy. Either they should be permitted or not.


This was in the 250-600 sale, whilst I'll admit it was an unusual thread, at least my removed post was to do with the sale, whilst other completely non sale relevant posts remained.

Can understand you have a difficult job to do John, so I can understand that you can't catch everything. This forum must be an almost fulltime job for you!

I agree with Pentaxophile here: if I see something I'm seriously interested in, the name of the game is "jump on it". PMs are a courtesy and the guidelines say exactly that, if I've read them correctly.

Bret

The 250-600 sale was a bit of an oddity. It wasn't originally a sale and was later moved to Classifieds whilst we were still discussing photos about it etc. so it would never have looked like a normal Classified list. It was then moved back to the original section. No point in taking it any further because of this.

I have on occasions sent a report asking for an unwanted comment to be removed (price pointing) and it has always been sorted within a couple of hours at most.

The one thing I hate is members going onto anothers sale thread and making stupid remarks about the worth of an item (a recent K10D sale being a case in point)

I admit I did something similar recently with regards to a Pentax flash but on that occasion the seller did ask for feedback as to why the item wasn't selling.

Agreed, it was unusual!

Only mentioned it as it highlighted my request for consistency, with a post of mine being removed where I believed it shouldn't have, whilst others remained.



Good point. Noted for future reference!

^^ corrected, don't know how that one slipped through?!

Bret

What I do find a little strange about this thread is that Pwynnej started his complaint in the classified thread, after it was noted that an item was sold. (Sorry to have responded there John, won't happen again!)

There was only one post to suggest any interest in one of the items and that post was from me! So I don't quite see why Pwynnej was so upset? My declaration of interest was the only one posted and had obviously not quelled his interest.

I didn't get the item and the seller is perfectly entitled to sell to whoever he/she chooses, as far as I'm concerned. Once both parties agree then the contract is made and should be stuck to but until that happens you shouldn't count your chickens.