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

Paul_C

JookyChap said:

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

Heh - there's an old bloke who live round the corner from me who put abusive notes through my door a couple of times suggesting I ought to get a job (to begin with I was looking after two small children on my own, then working for myself from home) and used to pretend to mop his brow every time he walked past the house (which was a lot). Then there were a couple of weeks where I didn't see him and I was worried he'd died, despite him being a complete PITA  

ICBM

A long time ago my then boss at work offered me £1500 for my '68 Les Paul Custom, which was about the right price back then. A Custom was his dream guitar.

It then turned into "can I give you £500 now, then the rest next month? I don't have the whole lot just now". Which I accepted, thinking that he was my boss and he was on a decent income, so no big deal.

Which then turned into six weeks later "can I give you £500 in a couple of weeks? I'm a bit short this month. I'll give you the rest next month". Grrrrr…. OK. Sort of.

Which then about another six weeks later turned into "here's the £500. Can I give you this power drill, pair of hi-fi speakers, couple of FX pedals and other assorted crap instead of the other £500, since I'm not sure I'll be able to raise it."

Which I extremely grudgingly accepted on the grounds that it was better than never getting anything of the remaining £500, which seemed the most likely outcome at this point. Bear in mind this chancer was earning about three times what I did.

I miss that guitar.

octatonic

Lewligan said:

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.

I'd like to think so, but I doubt they had the stones.

richardhomer

Someone advertised that they were looking for a Rockman Stereo Chorus/Delay half rack unit. I had one, complete with the matching half-rack compressor in a Rockman rack. I checked the selling prices on eBay and offered both for significantly less than the lowest sale price on eBay - about £50 less - with the compressor thrown in, on the basis that I didn't want to split the two items.

The 'buyer' said that was a really good price as 'they are very rare' - he was 'amazed' I lived locally but blew it by telling me he was £20 short - "Could you do it for that?"

I explained he'd already told me it was 'cheap' and he was getting the compressor for free. So the answer's "No".

He got on one about it and I ended the call. Absolute waster....

freakboy1610

I was offered £75 cash for my pristine Musicman Stingray (with hard case) by a French chap on condition that I would meet him in Folkestone (or some other ferry port) to do the deal! I actually sold it for £750 and the buyer came and collected it from me!  

freakboy1610

I was gonna offer @Lewligan £30 for that TC Flashback Mini but I missed out on it by about 5 minutes!!! Doh. (

DefaultM

Encore Les Paul for a PRS CE22.

Ibanez RG1527 for an Ibanez Universe UV777BK, and when I said possibly depending on how much money you were thinking of adding he got all offended and tried to make me feel stupid for thinking they weren't worth the same.

IvisonGuitars

octatonic;921263" said:

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.

Same guy offered me £1200 for a £2400 Matchless stack.

Also had an offer from a member here to trade a £1700 guitar for some jewellery for my wife. Cash only, she can get her own bloody jewellery!

slacker

There was a guy on another forum, who everytime I put something up for sale wanted to trade. First his items were always new retail and mine were low value. Second he was always selling stuff. Third he lived in Scandanavia.

Here, I've had a couple of offers of gear I didnt want but that's mainly my fault as I do entertain trades. Also nobody's got upset when I said no thanks.

Nunogilberto

A Stagg Gothic Flying V for my Gibson LPJ...

Blueingreen

I put a Wal bass into a local guitar shop for a very minor repair.  The owner of the shop asked me if it was for sale. I said yes, and he offered me £400.  I thought this seemed too low (even one of his own employees whispered to me that I'd be crazy selling it to him at that price).

However I knew it was a niche market, I could struggle to find a buyer locally, and I'd replaced it with something I liked better, so after I got home I phoned him back and said, ok you can have it for £450.  He said no,  £400 is my final offer, take it or leave it.

I said no sale, listed it on Ebay, and sold it to an American after it was bid up to $2,600 (about £1,450 at current exchange rates).

JohnPerry

Some chancer offered me £250 for an all-original 1971 LP Goldtop Deluxe. Cheeky bastard.

Mind you, it was 1983 so I took it and bought a Jap Strat with a locking trem.

I have cried myself to sleep every night for 32 years.

richardhomer

JohnPerry;921396" said:

Some chancer offered me £250 for an all-original 1971 LP Goldtop Deluxe. Cheeky bastard.

Mind you, it was 1983 so I took it and bought a Jap Strat with a locking trem.

I have cried myself to sleep every night for 32 years.

I sold an all original 3 tone sunburst '65 Strat in 1984 for £500. It was exceptionally clean - probably £12,000's worth these days....

ICBM

If we're talking of stupid deals we did to ourselves, in the early 90s I sold an all-original '57 Les Paul Special - admittedly with a repaired headstock crack - for £1,250.

And used the money to by a home recording setup based on a then state-of-the-art TOA 8-track multitrack… cassette. Five years or so later having never really done anything serious with it, the TOA broke in an unrepairable way, I sold the outboards for whatever I could get, used the mixing desk for live band work for a many years (it was by far the most useful part of the whole thing in the end) then eventually sold that for £100 a few years ago.

The guitar would probably be worth at least six grand today I think.

oddball

Some bloke offered me £18,000 for a £50,000 CNC lathe last year and seemed a bit put out that I didn't bother to reply to him.

Phil_aka_Pip

In 1991, after I'd been made redundant from a £18k pa s/w eng job for a very civilised employer, some company tried to get me to join them for a job which

• involved constant travel and working away from home on user sites
• consisted of supporting software for which no requirements or design documentation was in existence
• paid £16k
• was (in their words) a "challenge"
  

I politely declined.

welshboyo

Phil_aka_Pip said:

In 1991, after I'd been made redundant from a £18k pa s/w eng job for a very civilised employer, some company tried to get me to join them for a job which

• involved constant travel and working away from home on user sites
• consisted of supporting software for which no requirements or design documentation was in existence
• paid £16k
• was (in their words) a "challenge"
  

I politely declined.

sounds like my job NOW :P

hobbio

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.

I'd have taken the green, as long as there was more than 2oz it'd have saved me money in the long run.

rossyamaha

Most mental swap offer I ever had. Bloke offered me a USA Fender Blues Deluxe in exchange for a POD 2.0. I worked for Line 6 at the time. Needless to say I did the deal. 

Adam_MD

hobbio;921478" said:

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.





I'd have taken the green, as long as there was more than 2oz it'd have saved me money in the long run.

I'd probably have gone for some sort of split.