Buying Advice Advice on buying used tractors from a guy trying to sell tractors

Kenny G · Nov 26, 2018

I would like to help anyone looking at buying a used tractor. I am selling off my collection of Ford compacts. I have been using craigslist. Craigslist email relay does not work very good. When I get a response from a looker, I return their email, but they never get it, so they think that it is sold. This is happening to everyone. Online auctions & large sales co's like tractor house, require sellers to pay $300 or more plus a per cent of the price, which really raises the amount a buyer has to pay. My best advice is buy local. Good Luck, Kenny

cathy liebchen · Nov 26, 2018

Have them contact you directly. You can out your email in the CL ad, or your phone number. We do everything by text nowadays

TractorGuy · Nov 26, 2018

I only use the Craigslist email relay until I feel comfortable with the contact. At some point you have to give up your phone and address to sell something like a tractor but I proceed with caution. For some reason I get the original inquiry then the reply will go to my spam folder. Likewise some of the messages I send end up in the recipients spam folder. I just got in the habit of looking in my spam folder. I make sure and select when a reply goes there that isn't spam and click on the not spam icon to hopefully stop this from happening. It has been a while so it's possible my email client is catching on.

It's just part of dealing through CL but the price is right.

ning · Nov 26, 2018

I occasionally buy and sell with CL and I've never had trouble with their email relay.
I'll use real email / phone / text after I've established that they're a real potential buyer/seller.

mcfarmall · Nov 26, 2018

Facebook Marketplace beats CL hands down.

jaxs · Nov 26, 2018

I never put my email or phone in CL ads. Responses such as "is item still available","send more pictures" or other generics but no real inquiry about what you have are sure signs of phishing for info they can sell to marketers. To test CL relay,respond to a legit ad and see if you get a reply.

kendive · Nov 26, 2018

mcfarmall said:
Facebook Marketplace beats CL hands down.

For sure... I just bought my 2017 L2501 package and sold the B7510 all on FB market.

4570Man · Nov 27, 2018

mcfarmall said:
Facebook Marketplace beats CL hands down.

Market place has gone to crap. It’s 80 percent adds. Another gripe I have is the stupid “Good evening, is this available” button. It should read “I’m pressing this button because I enjoy wasting your time and you’ll never hear from me again” I do agree the communication with it is better than most other sites.

ning · Nov 27, 2018

4570Man said:
Market place has gone to crap. It’s 80 percent adds. Another gripe I have is the stupid “Good evening, is this available” button. It should read “I’m pressing this button because I enjoy wasting your time and you’ll never hear from me again” I do agree the communication with it is better than most other sites.

I don't touch facebook, for a variety of reasons.

Lately I've had some luck with nextdoor for certain classes of items, but probably not tractors & implements.

I almost never answer my phone - nobody I know calls me except for my mother. My phone automatically transcribes voicemail and sends it to me (text) so I can trivially see if someone has a reason to talk to me and I'll call them back if it's useful (or tell googs to block & mark spam the number otherwise); thus it's not a big deal for me to give my phone #. (voice.google.com - free account - you can have your cell provider forward messages to your account there and it'll transcribe pretty accurately for free and it will send them to you, text or email, as you configure.)