2011.02.26 Selling An Old iPhone
After I upgraded to an iPhone4 last summer I was reluctant to part with my iPhone3G. The excuse I used out loud the most was that I intended to mesmerize the wife out of thinking such devices were evil and then gift it to her. And while I have, in fact, made some progress in that direction, there's no denying that part of my reluctance to sell it was pure affection.
But, really, the wife is going to want an iPhone4 of her own, and hanging onto a completely unused device that has served its purpose is silly. So, I sold it. Except, of course, it wasn't as straightforward as that.
Craigslist
I really like Craigslist. I like that it's mostly about people dealing with people, and I really like that it's not run as a blatantly parasitic operation. Not that I do a whole hell of a lot of buying or selling, so my affinity is mainly idealogical, and reinforced by the mostly-positive transactions I have had.
The price I picked was arbitrarily based on what it cost me as an upgrade fee back in 2008 and posted. The response was immediate and overwhelming, and I felt sheepish that I had undervalued the iPhone so badly. This sheepishness faded before too long as every single person who contacted me proceeded to sprout e-tentacles or otherwise go insane. No, I'm not willing to ship the item before you send me your bad cheque. I'm not even willing to send it after you send me the bad check. No, a fake money order won't cut it either. No, I'm not interested in sending you my Paypal information.
Who falls for this sort of idiotic shit? I guess somebody must, based on the volume of it. And I further suspect that people dealing with small and valuable electronic devices are particularly targeted to see if they're stupid - which might be coupled with how theft-prone such items are. Regardless, I was drowned in bogus scam action. And lowballs; insultingly low lowballs. I'm asking $200, and you ask if I'll take $45? Seriously? My answer, incidentally, was "yes, as long as you're OK with an additional $155 processing fee".
It got to be a game to see how quickly a responder would accidentally reveal themselves to be a scam. It turned out, actually, that very few are capable of keeping the story straight long enough to get to the actual scam attempt. Clearly, most of these people who are doing this sort of lame grift are, in fact, too stupid to do more worthwhile things (like working honourably at a fast-food joint).
- There's the trying-too-hard sort who sign off their request as "Joseph M. Burt, President, Real Business, Real Office Phone Number" (obviously scraped from a real business' web site) whilst the mailer is "normannguyen503". Pay attention to yourself, Norman, you ignorant slut.
- Norman's classier than the can't-keep-it-in-their-pants sort who try pathetically to goad fools in their greed, though. While offering more than the asking price might seem like an easy lure, for god's sake people, have some sense of proportion. Don't offer me nearly triple my asking price, especially for an outdated piece of tech where that price buys the latest-and-greatest. It's too obvious. Although, frankly, Nigeria 419 scams have been around too long now, and pretty much everybody knows that things that seem to good to be true are always scams. So offering more than the asking price without there being even a hint of a competitive bid is pure scammy telltale.
- Then there's the premature-admitters who haven't gotten to their particular flavour of advance/fake-fee fraud yet, but warn you that they're "out of town". Who the fuck shops for used cell phones when they're travelling? Just grit your teeth and hold back you moronic cheating fucks, and save a slightly-more-believable "sorry, I had to travel unexpected" for after the fish is actually on the hook and is hoping to close a deal. Amateurs.
- Oh, and the people who completely forget what they're pretending to be interested in buying. The whole listing was "iPhone 3G, black, 16gB - $200"; it had nothing to do with a "laptop", "TV", or "power tools" (?!?!). I left out the multitude if "iPod" folks, because that seems like a believable slip. But, still, seems like mostly a matter of failing to keep the various trawling lines from tangling.
I did, however, manage to eventually find an actual buyer. Which lead me to...
Walmart
Probably feeling just as tired with scammers as myself, and likely freaked out by how much people obviously suck, she asked for the phone-cash transaction to take place at a public place - and she chose the entrance to Walmart.
I really hate Walmart. It's not just the direct siphoning of money to China, their employee-hating ways, their sickening sprawliness, or their substandard offerings. No, what I really hate about Walmart is their customers. While I do hate pretty much everybody, I tend to hate these people more. Sure, there's a sizeable demographic of people just doing what they have to do to make ends meet and being efficient with their limited means. But there's also an awful lot of fat, ugly, lazy unclefuckers who have no taste or class.
So Simon and I show up at Walmart and drive by the entrance to reconnoiter people who might be my buyer. The parking lot is made of pure congestive horror. A horde of people pressing hard for available parking spots by driving fender-brushingly close to each other in their decaying SUV's and crapmobiles with a sicken disregard for pedestrians. The thing was, this was only happening within 100 meters or so of the entrance. The vast majority of the parking lot was, in fact, totally empty. These people were putting a truly amazing amount of effort and determination into being lazy. I realize that they might be having to haul an epic amount of low-quality crap out to their vehicle, but that's what the shopping carts are for.
We parked well away from the contentious area, and toddled carefully to the entrance. The exchange was simple and sweet; she verified that it was fully-functional, grinned a lot, and I got the agreed-upon pile of filthy lucre. We ambled back to the Battleship, and went home.
But there's a further Walmartian facet to gaze into here. During the out-of-car portion of the experience, Simon and I came into proximity of a fairly large number of people. And the vast majority of my experience as a daddy with my cute toddler out in public is that most people can't help but at least smile at us. Which makes sense; we're cute. Walmart shoppers appear to be entirely immune to our charms. No, more than that, because I think simple cuteness immunity would have resulted in plain indifference (though there was some of that). What we got was a surprisingly strong tendency for sneers and scowls. I'm assuming that Walmart denizens have no more psychic ability to divine my hatred of them than most everybody else, thus justifying the responses. And I'd also assert that we didn't look like the elitist scum we sort of are - I was in some outdated jeans and a worn jacket, and Simon was sporting pants that were too short and a well-used jacket liberally smeared with mucus.
This leaves me with the suspicion that our very cuteness was what offended the lumbering land-manatees. Possibly in conjunction with our appearance of health and happiness. The bright glints of intelligence and potential in our eyes were doubtlessly further insult to their fundamental dimness.
I'm sure all this really says more about me than anything else. But, still, aside from the notable exceptions, I really do hate people.