Facebook Seller sold to someone else

[Estreet]

Hi,

So just wondering other people's views on this. Did the seller do anything wrong etc?

I've been looking out for a very specific style of bed that will suit my small cottage bedroom. They don't come up for sale very often. We have just moved in, so been sleeping on the floor for the last month whilst we wait for a bed to come up in budget that we like.

Spotted one listed on facebook at 7am. Seller said it needed to be gone by end of day, hence why it was cheap. I said yes no problem, we can meet asking price, and will get it at a time you choose today. We will have to sort a short term rental van because it won't fit in my little car. We agreed a pick up time. I told her that I had just paid for a van, and we'd be there at the agreed time.

I took the dog for a walk and left my phone in the house to charge. Came home after 30 mins to see the seller had messaged to ask for a phone number. Then another message 10 minutes after that, saying "sorry someone else provided a phone number before you so I've sold it to them. I'll let you know if they don't arrive on time".

WTF? Why did she needed my number so quickly? she had my facebook and we'd agreed all the details.

So I was left with having paid £40 for a van, and to top it off, we decided not to bid at auction for the same type bed, because we thought we'd sorted this one.

You should have transferred the money immediately when you’d agreed to buy it. I’ve done this before to secure something. There are so many flakey buyers I can understand whey she didn’t hang around if she wanted it gone urgently.

I recently tried to sell something on fb. Out of 20 odd messages I had 2 scams, 3 try to knock down the (already bargain) price, 2 try to get me to deliver to them and then I learnt and said collection only so 10 odd didn't reply once I'd said that. I didn't even have the item unplugged and ready to go when an actual buyer turned up because of so many flakes.

So yea...fb marketplace is well known for no shows and cf buyers so I don't consider anything sold until money passes hands.

Annoying but agree. People are so flakey. Even when I've been giving away stuff on Freecycle the people collecting have at times been flakey or acted like they were doing me a favour even once I though all was sorted. These days if I wanted to sell or give something away I'd go with whoever was most responsive and able to collect asap.

Agreed.

I tried to give away a shed recently - 7 people got in touch, before anyone actually came to get it!