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Change needed at Audiogon

Dear members,

I don't know how others feel about stupid inquiries from non-members about items for sale but I will no longer even bother to answer them. I take great care to word the ads as accurately as possible and include enough photos to properly show the listed item. I also try to be realistic with pricing.

I certainly don't mind being asked to soften my price or to do something a little special for an interested party. But when I list the item as being sold only in the U.S., including original box and manual, and the price is firm with the buyer paying for shipping and then an UNKNOWN person with a Hotmail account asks if I will ship to Canada, lower my price and inquires if the equipment includes the original box and manual I get angry. Can't these people read??

As a verified member I would like to see the owners of this website make two changes. We sellers should ONLY receive emails from registered users that have a REAL email address. I don't mind a buyer's real identity being hidden from me during the initial correspondence but feel strongly that Audiogon should know who they are. I would also like to see Audiogon institute a verified "buyer" service for a reduced fee. I know, as a seller, if a buyer were verified I would take even the lame inquiries more seriously. A verified buyer fee could be quite low and upgradeable to full verified status for the monetary difference.

The benefits would help everyone have a little more confidence with each other. It would provide an influx of revenue to Audiogon. It would save all the sellers the grief of crank inquiries.

I want to close this rant with expressing how much I value my association with the fine folks that provide this service and the community involved. All of my sales and purchases through this site have left me feeling that I have made friends. It's just a few anonymous jerks that need to be filtered out.

Feel better now,
Patrick
lugnut

Showing 3 responses by angela100

angela100
435 posts
 
Lugnut, first of all, this reply is in no way meant to address you personally or directly. You have brought up a point that has been discussed many times here in the past.
So my reply is to all of those discussions, not yours in particular.

The way I see it, if we have something for sale, we'd like lots of people to see the ad and that gives us more of an opportunity to sell it. These discussions have taken place by folks many times before, usually when they have just gotten one too many emails asking the same stupid questions. IMHO, that's part of the deal when we choose to sell our gear on line - I think we just have to deal with it.

I don't believe that this site is here to protect us, it is simply a vehicle for us. It is our own responsibility to know who we are dealing with and make our own choices.

The proposal to close off emails, bidding, communication to ONLY members feels WAY too snobby and too isolated for me and I for one, don't wish the site to go that route.
There are people everywhere that are either having a bad day or just don't read all the detail, but that's just the way it is. If we can't deal with it, then we probably should get out of selling gear on line.

just my two cents,
aj
angela100
435 posts
 
Sean, no hairy back here and I LOVE margaritas! Ring any bells?
Lugnut, thanks for your reply and thoughts and thanks for being open to other ideas and ESPECIALLY letting me know where we intersect and don't.

Bottom line, here's how I see it for moi
At the end of the day, I am the ONLY one that really cares about my a$$ and I keep that in mind every day in every way. No co-dependency here (or at least I really try to keep it that way).
cheers,
aj
angela100
435 posts
 
Hey JD, yer verified in my book any day ;-}
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