If all is fair in love and war, then I guess I can understand how people might let their emotions lead them to abuse a system, especially when it comes to the quest for arcades, but here is a riddle that I'm having trouble figuring out.
I met a really cool guy today who needed to sell some of his games because he was moving.
He originally listed his ad on CL, but I found him through ebay and he seemed pretty happy to hear from me since he's got to be out of his place tomorrow. When I asked him why he pulled his CL ad, he said it got flagged right after he listed it. In a sense I could understand, he was only asking $150 for an very nice buck rogers game and maybe some of the flippers don't like seeing cheap games listed on the site for very long because whose really going to pay $1k for a game when you can get reasonable deals instead.
At first I didn't think much about it, but then I got home tonight and saw this CL posting show up in my RSS feed. The original ad has been flagged of course (within 3o mins of posting?), but it made me wonder who/how many would actually flag an ad for a $1500 machine, if that's already listed at the high end of the market anyway?
(phone number omitted)
What's hard to tell is whether one person is using some kind of software to override CL and control the local arcade market or if the larger arcade community sees flagging legitimate ads as some form of "fair competition" and are collectively "voting" the competition out. Personally, I think it's distasteful. I like that KLOV keeps their posts up for a long time, so you can see historical prices for what things sold at and would welcome a system where you could even pull up historical quotes on games/parts/locations. The data they leave up makes it more fair for buyers and for sellers.
Craigslist is CL after all, so the optimist in me says that this is just weirdos doing their spam thing for western union transfers if you ship your arcade across the ocean, but I can't help and wonder if there is more to it then that. Would be interesting to hear the answer to this lady's question, why is someone doing targeting the SF arcade community in this way and how widespread is this practice? Have you found that your arcade ads get buried a lot on CL and this is simply a way of life for those who use the site or do you think it's more likely something, someone is exploiting to try and distort the local market?
I met a really cool guy today who needed to sell some of his games because he was moving.
He originally listed his ad on CL, but I found him through ebay and he seemed pretty happy to hear from me since he's got to be out of his place tomorrow. When I asked him why he pulled his CL ad, he said it got flagged right after he listed it. In a sense I could understand, he was only asking $150 for an very nice buck rogers game and maybe some of the flippers don't like seeing cheap games listed on the site for very long because whose really going to pay $1k for a game when you can get reasonable deals instead.
At first I didn't think much about it, but then I got home tonight and saw this CL posting show up in my RSS feed. The original ad has been flagged of course (within 3o mins of posting?), but it made me wonder who/how many would actually flag an ad for a $1500 machine, if that's already listed at the high end of the market anyway?
Quote:
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"This is to the person that has repeatedly flagged our arcade game: Why are you doing this? We are honest people selling an antique collectible arcade game. If you have a problem and a backbone, why don't you let us know personally? email us and explain yourself, because we're sure you don't have the guts to call! Just in case you do" |
What's hard to tell is whether one person is using some kind of software to override CL and control the local arcade market or if the larger arcade community sees flagging legitimate ads as some form of "fair competition" and are collectively "voting" the competition out. Personally, I think it's distasteful. I like that KLOV keeps their posts up for a long time, so you can see historical prices for what things sold at and would welcome a system where you could even pull up historical quotes on games/parts/locations. The data they leave up makes it more fair for buyers and for sellers.
Craigslist is CL after all, so the optimist in me says that this is just weirdos doing their spam thing for western union transfers if you ship your arcade across the ocean, but I can't help and wonder if there is more to it then that. Would be interesting to hear the answer to this lady's question, why is someone doing targeting the SF arcade community in this way and how widespread is this practice? Have you found that your arcade ads get buried a lot on CL and this is simply a way of life for those who use the site or do you think it's more likely something, someone is exploiting to try and distort the local market?