A Marketplace sale has fallen through after the seller became suspicious when a buyer responded to texts promptly, didn’t lowball, and then had the audacity to rock up at the agreed time with exact change.
John was selling a washing machine on Marketplace after upgrading recently. Having been burned by the cruel world of online markets before, John was wary of the task ahead of him. We spoke to John about his listing. He told The Times,
“Everything was going as smoothly as you’d expect it to. I think I had about 70 ‘is this still available’ messages followed by the inevitable ghosting. Sure it was annoying but it felt normal you know? Comfortable?”
His life was blown apart when a “Clint”, a user with a normal-looking profile messaged him about the washing machine. John told continued,
“It was farken weird mate, he initiated the conversation by showing some basic human decency. I think he even threw in a please. Looking at it made me shudder, what level of Marketplace hell had I just entered? What was going to happen to me?”
“Clint” rocked John’s foundations when he told John that he must be sick of all the time wasters so he’s willing to pay the asking price and can pick it up himself in 20minutes. John was shaking his head in anger,
“Some farken people mate, what game was he playing? I think I was shocked but deep down I knew this nightmare was going to end because there was no way I would be seeing this clown in 20 minutes. You just don’t get someone hopes up like that mate”
John needed a drink when after 15minutes, “Clint”, if that’s his real name, sent him a message saying he’d just been to the ATM is 5 away. John told us,
“I’ll never forget those words. ‘Just swung by the ATM be there in 5, mate’. Followed by a thumbs-up emoji. It was at this point I was getting really suspicious. This buyer was treating me like I’m an actual human being. Respecting my time? Something was fishy”
4 and a half minutes after sending the text, a man claiming to be “Clint” arrived at John’s door with 5 fresh pineapples and a trailer attached to his car. He’d even brought a mate to help hoist the washing machine onto the trailer and spare John any further disruption to his day.
John told us that this was the final straw,
“I told this Clint joker to get the fark off my property. This was just sick. I’ve never had a sale go this smoothly. Had to be setting up on me. Or staking out my house. I don’t know exactly what mate, but I gave him his marching orders”
We managed to track down Clint afterward and ask him how he felt about the sale falling through at the last minute, he told us,
“Yeah, he got me, ha ha, 4 of those fiddys were counterfeit. Bad counterfeits too. Looks like I came on a bit strong. I should’ve at least made it a bit more believable. Ahhh well, guess he smelled me for the piece of shit I am”
Good save, John.
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