9 Comments
Jul 6, 2023Liked by Sami Reiss

By the way I love my USM but there is a definite need for a Swiffer alternative that fits under the low feet. No store-bought sweeper things do.

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Jul 6, 2023Liked by Sami Reiss

One good extra step in a sniff test is to do a reverse image search, especially if someone lists a bunch of items at once. If the items seem real and naturally staged in a thumbnail then chances are they're pulled from other, real listings.

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author

Very true

But the Google image search is so worthless lately, it’s hard to get any granular results…

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Speaking to a source - one reason we’re seeing a lot more quality office furniture hit market is downstream of offices moving to remote, downsizing and selling off their furniture to liquidators. Deals imminent huh

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I went to his shop today. I still don’t know if it’s real or fake

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I took plenty photos and hoping the people at the USM store could help.

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I sell used furniture right now and do a lot of posting to FB / CL and Zelle has been the biggest scammer tell in my experience. I’m sure there’s some real ones, but the script is usually about paying with Zelle and then having a sibling or friend come pick it up, as soon as that happens it’s obvious even if the initial messages are real. The latest Facebook scammer ones add a second person to the message who starts messaging

Craigslist has been harder to spot scammers because Craigslist people tend to talk like bots? It takes a few messages to figure out if it’s a tech illiterate old person or a bot which is pretty fun

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Damn, very interesting - good info. My rule is generally if they don’t do cash it’s worth avoiding. Who doesn’t take cash?

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That's a good tell. We have the benefit of only doing in-store purchases, so the people that want to only pay online with CashApp or Zelle are easily discarded as spam. I'm sure some are real, but if they're bot-adjacent on FB it's not worth the time especially when the piece will sell no matter what. We're lower end in our area, so dressers, bed frames, etc will almost always sell within a day or so that trying to work with something sus online just isn't worth it.

We'll do phone payments for more expensive things when we get rare designer pieces donated. We got this Peter Lovig flip-top teak desk (https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/storage-case-pieces/desks/lovig-danish-fliptop-executive-desk-circa-1970s-peter-lovig-nielsen/id-f_33578222/) in from a military family that had to move quick, and some movers in Georgia like us and came to bring it in. Unfortunately one of the hinges was broken so you couldn't flip it down (and the hinge was particleboard, very pre-IKEA design for a solid wood piece). It's thrilling when we get designer donated in, but with our clientele + where we are in Florida it can be difficult to get the shopper that knows the value. Craigslist has been the best for that vs. FB Marketplace. Someone from Craigslist will actually drive 2+ hours and it's a near guarantee that they're a real shopper

We've had issues with getting posts deleted off CL before, since we're posting as a storefront, but if we weren't on FB or CL we'd lose at least 20-40% of business. Posting sucks and is my least favorite part of the gig but for furniture now you just don't have a choice.

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