What's the most ridiculous lowball/swap offer you've ever received..?

Lewligan

God loves a trier, but what offers have you received that just left you shaking your head in disgust..?

I only ask as I've just seen someone offer a mate of mine a US Standard Strat as a straight swap for his US '62 Vintage Reissue.

The one that always springs to mind for me is when I was selling a 1980 Gibson ES-335 Pro.

Think I had it up at £1500, might've been a touch less.

Had a bloke offer me 900 quid for it, and he was genuinely disgusted when I turned him down.

He couldn't believe it. Seemed to think he was doing me some sort of favour by giving me £900 for it.

Very strange character.

I directed him to the (then new) ES-335 Studio range, told him he might have more luck there. He wasn't best pleased.

So what's the worst offer you've ever received..?

Adam_MD

I was offered a line 6 spider, a cort prs copy and £250 for a goldtop McCarty I was selling. The guy told me I'd never get more than that because goldtop isn't a very popular colour. Also according to him having a US prs is a total waste because you'd never gig an expensive guitar. Apparently id have been much better off with a cort copy as no one could tell them apart.

For some reason he got really angry when I said no and emailed me everyday for a week asking if I'd changed my mind on his offer yet!

JookyChap

Yes, sorry about that @Adam_MD

stimpsonslostson

I had a guy offer me his "daughter" for the night in exchange for my watch when I was doing fieldwork in Kenya. 

I had to VERY politely decline.

Chalky

Bloke offered me a Ford Sierra for my Strat. Even sent me pictures of the rust heap and sang praises of it being a very good starter, even when damp, and although it only had a couple of months MOT left it would "fly throught the MOT because it always does".

welshboyo

£49 for a Blade RH4 (one of the originals with Strat headstock) as a trade in for a substantially more expensive guitar at Gamlins in Cardiff..

Majorscale

I'm fed up with people asking me to put an item on hold as they will "definitely" pay for it when they get paid / move money around etc. A few days without communication passes and then when prompted they invent some lame excuse why they can't buy it. This has happened multiple times with folks on this forum. In my world, when you give your word to buy or do something you follow through...

Lewligan

welshboyo said:

£49 for a Blade RH4 (one of the originals with Strat headstock) as a trade in for a substantially more expensive guitar at Gamlins in Cardiff..

Wow...

Adam_MD

JookyChap;921249" said:

Yes, sorry about that @Adam_MD

It's ok @JookyChap I forgive you. In fairness it probably would have looked better covered in rust, gold foil and glitter anyway

octatonic

So, so many.

Most recently a trader was posing as a buyer 'with bad GAS' for my Princeton.

Offered me something like £300 for it, about half its value.

Eventually worked out he was a dealer- TTony banned him for having duplicate user names and it all came out.

Seems that there is more of this happening- these days I don't even bother replying to lowballers, so if you've ever PM'ed me and not got a response then YOU'RE ONE OF THEM!

JookyChap

Every time I've ever put a Jooky on ebay, I get the same guy offering me a beaten up Strat body and neck that has had the frets removed as a straight swap. Every time I politely decline and every time he gets abusive. I reported him a few times and he has just come back with new accounts and started again. The really sad thing is that I've wanted to stop making them for years and then I feel guilty as I'm not sure he would have a reason to go on, so I can't stop. I've even taken to buying old ones back to put on ebay just to feel his abuse, so that I know he is OK. It is quite troubling

thomasross20

stimpsonslostson;921250" said:

I had a guy offer me his "daughter" for the night in exchange for my watch when I was doing fieldwork in Kenya. I had to VERY politely decline.

Serious!?

Phil_aka_Pip

Some chancer offered me £145k for my house, which was for sale at £189k at the time.

stimpsonslostson

On the guitar front, I had a guy come round to buy my old acoustic. He offered me the full £250 value!

In weed. With my then 2 year old playing in the same room. I asked for cash instead. 

He was really nice about it and said he'd give me a ring when he'd sold his stash. Which he did and then gave me the cash.

Sporky

Probably being offered half market value for a colour-of-the-year Rickenbacker 360 because shop X had a knackered Jetglo 330 for a bit less than the asking price.

octatonic

stimpsonslostson said:

On the guitar front, I had a guy come round to buy my old acoustic. He offered me the full £250 value!

In weed. With my then 2 year old playing in the same room. I asked for cash instead. 

He was really nice about it and said he'd give me a ring when he'd sold his stash. Which he did and then gave me the cash.

GAH!

This is why I don't like letting people in my house- that is proper sketchy.

I have a strict 'one person in the house' rule these days as well, after having someone try to distract me whilst the other one had a nosey around.

Lewligan

Had a fella calling himself "Matt The Vagrant" messaging me on eBay a while back.

By the end of our correspondence (after I'd turned down numerous lowball offers), he had told me to "stop being Jewish", that he was "skint as fuck" and that he was "never getting any fanny back to his camper without this Strat".

Part of me wanted to help a brother out, but unfortunately we couldn't come to an agreement.

Shame, as I'm sure it would have been an experience meeting him.

stimpsonslostson

thomasross20 said:

stimpsonslostson;921250" said:

I had a guy offer me his "daughter" for the night in exchange for my watch when I was doing fieldwork in Kenya. I had to VERY politely decline.

Serious!?

Yup. 

We were passing through the town and only stopped to buy water etc. so we were on the road again within 25mins later. I'm inclined to believe he was a pimp, but still had to be very diplomatic to avoid any offence.

It's not even a particularly nice watch- just an old solar G-shock. When working abroad I usually tie a bandana over it to cover it, as we were in the van all day I'd obviously forgotten.

Richardj

I had a Belgian guy offer to swap his Status bass for my Parker Southern Nitefly loaded with a set of Ash's finest Oil City's.

When I queried the £200 difference in asking prices (mine was more expensive) he said I should be grateful for the offer as the Parker was really undesirable and would need the 'unknown' brand pickups changing out for Seymours again.

Told him to feck right off!

octatonic

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Some chancer offered me £145k for my house, which was for sale at £189k at the time.

Oh yeah we had a few of those.

Most recently, when we were selling to move here to Oxford someone came in £200k under the asking price.

I told the agent that my reply was to say 'a sphincter says what'.

I'm not sure if my message was relayed or not.

Lewligan

octatonic said:

I told the agent that my reply was to say 'a sphincter says what'.

I'm not sure if my message was relayed or not.

I really, really, REALLY hope that it was.