Clown!

/ Jeff Cann

I opened Facebook Messenger to this message: You look like a Pedophile.

This was the final straw, and fortunately the final message during a hectic twenty-four hours selling my car.

Three years ago, when our daughter Sophie moved off the University of Vermont campus, Susan and I realized she needed a car to do those things independent adults do, such as buy groceries from someplace other than the corner 7-11.

My father’s twenty-year old Honda civic sat in the garage of his wife Diane’s house. Diane’s kids were about to sell the house because their mom died the prior month. My father stopped driving altogether a few months earlier when he and Diane moved full time into an assisted living facility. The car, while functional, was unimpressive—not dinged or dented but seriously underpowered. Susan and I bought the car off him, but we felt uncomfortable having Sophie drive it back and forth on a nine-hour trek between Gettysburg and Burlington. Instead, we gave her our 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe. Susan drove the Honda to work.

Sophie just finished her first seasonal job as a forester for the Bureau of Land Management. She wrapped up the gig and her six-month lease with nice bank account and promise of renewed work in the spring, so she bought herself a four-wheel drive pickup worthy of a young professional who spends her days driving up and down mountainous fire roads. Eli bought himself a car while he was in high school. We suddenly had an extra car.

My initial thought was to use the Civic as a trade-in car for Sophie’s pickup, but the dealership only offered us $750. Sophie and Eli protested. “You’ll get $1,200 for it on Facebook Marketplace.” As I posted the info about the car on Friday night and hit the publish button, Facebook asked the cryptic question, “Are you ready for what’s next?” I chuckled. How many people could want a twenty-year old car? When I sold my 1995 Dodge Dakota pre-Covid, about four people showed interest. And only one buyer seemed serious. He bought the truck for $400.

Seconds later, messages started pouring in. They ran the gamut of style and detail. Many people just hit the “Is this still available” button, but others added personal flair, trying to capture my attention. Stephanie wrote, “I’ll pay $3,800 for it right now.”

Amanda sent, “I’ll show up tomorrow morning cash in hand.”

Charlie went into a long explanation of how his wife totaled her car on Halloween night, and how ever since, they’ve been sharing one car working opposing shifts and never seeing each other. There were so many messages from so many people, I felt paralyzed. I didn’t know where to start. Sophie took over. She marked the sale pending; she let everyone know that we were already working on a deal with someone; and if that fell through, they might hear from us later.

Stephanie with the $3,800 to spend had a bad buyers’ rating on Facebook. Also, I doubted she would actually overpay on our vehicle by several thousand dollars. I decided to ignore her altogether. I contacted Amanda. Her message sounded serious, she had the cash, and she wanted to act fast.

Every time I try to sell something on Facebook, I run into communication problems. People never respond as I expect they will.

HI Amanda, can you come tomorrow morning at 10:00 to look at the car?

What’s your address?

Amanda, can you come tomorrow at 10:00?

I have some questions; can I call you? I gave her my number and walked into a different room so I wouldn’t disturb Susan and Sophie with my conversation.

Fifteen minutes later, still no call. I sent Amanda a FB message. Are you calling now or tomorrow at 10? I really want to move fast on this. Lots of people are interested.

Twenty minutes later, she responded. I’m in Florida and I won’t be back until next weekend. My step-father is a prominent local business man. Maybe he can check out the car and put down a deposit.

Christ! Thank God for Sophie: “Dad, tell her that her initial message was misleading and you’re moving on.”

Ultimately Charlie and his wife bought the car. He was only thirty-five minutes late the next morning, and wound up being the motivated buyer I searched for. After a test drive and twenty minutes looking under the hood asking me loads of maintenance questions I couldn’t answer, he counted out a stack of $100 bills into my hand. When we came out of the Tag & Title place where we transferred ownership, I had a series of messages from Stephanie:

If you sold to me, you’d have the cash now!

You made a big mistake!

Clown!

And then, just after dinner, I got the Pedophile message from Amanda. On Sunday morning I woke up to yet another Messenger alert. I sighed, shook my head, and clicked on the icon. The message came from my childhood friend Scott. Hey Jeff, Happy New Year…

25 thoughts on “Clown!”

    • No didn’t think to block them. I wish I took screen shots of the messages before I deleted them. Today, I realized that I would have liked to imbed them in the post. Nice to see you again.

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  2. first, how nice of you and your wife to give your daughter the Santa Fe instead of the Civic.

    I’ve never bought or sold anything on Facebook Marketplace, and your post certainly doesn’t motivate me to try it. And that was quite the prophetic message from Facebook…

    I’m glad you sold it!

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  4. Wow, what a dispiriting experience. I am so glad that I experienced none of this ugly nonsense when I sold our i30 Hyundai recently.
    I shake my head in despair at the poisonous side dishes that come free with so many social media transactions.
    I’m glad the Civic ended up with a decent local buyer.

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  5. How painful. I’ve haven’t tried to sell anything on FB messenger … and never will. However, the Civic looks remarkably like the one my mother left behind. It bounced around from me and Tom to my younger son. I remember how sad I was to see it go.

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  7. Jeff… a block party is in order. Uuuuuse the force. Lol Seriously, I have never had a desire to use Marketplace even with friends suggesting I do so. I don’t want to deal with other people’s brand of crazy. Too much.

    I am glad you found a serious buyer and also that your daughter helped out with a solid move on. It’s messed up, I wanna believe the best about people and then mess like that happens. I’m sorry that was even you’re experience. I miss word of mouth advertising so much. Happy New Year, Jeff! May the rest of this year prove to be prosperous and beneficial to you.

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  10. I felt your pain immediately when you said you were selling something on Facebook Marketplace because I sold a number of things when my parents and I moved in October to a detached one level townhouse. I was mostly selling things we’d no longer need like a lawnmower and snowblower. The snowblower about broke me because so many people (mainly guys) wanted it. It was just too many messages and the first guy I went with kept on delaying picking it up… his trailer had a flat tire, etc. I was patient to a point and finally said NO DEAL. The second I listed it again I was inundated with messages (not sure why I just didn’t go to the second bidder). I felt like the prettiest girl at the dance! Finally sold it to a nice guy around my age acting the same part I was playing: Facebook Tech person for parents! I also sold our rarely used treadmill and that thing almost literally killed us because we had to get it up a short flight of stairs and it was killer. The lady and her husband picking it up for her mother were very nice and I ended up giving them back $50 because it was so hard getting it out of the house. But in all my interactions people have been nice and no one has lashed out at me. Guess I lucked out but I also look like a very meek nerdy lady… hardly threatening (not that you look threatening… I also live in the meek and mild Midwest)!

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  11. Despite how unpleasant that sounded, you certainly milked a good read out of it. I had a similar experience on the other side of this scenario. Getting my car scrapped and buying another one – Carefully trying to navigate the honest and the dishonest. not on principle, but I hate cars, and all the money nightmare surrounding them.

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  12. FB marketplace is basically the worst and best of humanity in one place. It is a weird little hell. I so often have to weigh the money I’d be making off an item to the stress of dealing with buyers before usually deciding it’s not worth it and donating it for good universe karma, though I don’t know what I’d do if it was a car..

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    • LOL, if it was a car, by donating it, you’d just be transferring the hell to some poor nonprofit employee like me. It was really a weird experience. I’m not so excited about selling four nice-ish pieces of furniture and a freezer. They are worth a couple hundred dollars, but as you mention… the hell. As one reader pointed out, I got some good blog material out of the transaction as well as some money, so almost worth it. Hope you’re doing well. I’d estimate by now with the age of your kids you are about as busy a a person can be.

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