Gumtree Australia

Believe it or not a lot of us do not use facebook as we value our privacy.

7 Likes

Iā€™ve always used ozrecycle.com to get rid of all old furniture etc . I stay as far away from ā€œFacelessbookā€ as much as possible .

3 Likes

I have used Ebay since it didnā€™t have an Australian presence (and a few years ago found that I had two accounts in their various databases, with the same name - causing a little bit of a mess).

Buying on Ebay is a snap. Mostly. Selling on Ebay can be frustrating, especially with the way they hide most of the costs until well after you have sold your item. On the bright side, I was able to avoid disaster a few months ago. I sold a smart watch, and before posting it rechecked just to make sure it booted okay. Nup. /panic! Fortunately, I was able to contact the seller, immediately refund their money, and avoid all the fees by doing what turned out to be a fairly simple cancellation.*

My sister suggested I try Gumtree for sales, and so I wandered over there to find that I had no idea how to find anything I might be interested in. It seemed full of stuff that nobody wanted, although that was only my first (and second, and third) impression. Maybe I should give it more time.

Finally, a quick comment @BrendanMays - not all of us are on BookStuffFace (I realised I need to stop calling it BookFace when I saw a physical bookshop of that name).

*Speaking of which, anyone here interested in an LG first generation smart watch? Comes with a brown leather band rather than the original plastic, and does indeed work now. Comes in the original box, with original ā€˜instructionā€™ manual and charging pad etc. (Maybe Choice Community can expand into a new area of expertise as part of its burgeoning online domainā€¦?)

3 Likes

@tndkemp @vax2000 @postulative - thanks for the feedback and apologies for any confusion I might have caused. My intent was not to make insinuations on your social media preferences, Iā€™m aware that many people choose to avoid or restrict their exposure to sites like Facebook for a variety of reasons. My reason for posting the article is it includes a number of buy, swap and sell sites along with some commentary on Gumtree and other sites that I saw as related to the discussion here.

2 Likes

Iā€™ve used gumtree for listing items I wish to rehome / give away rather than to sell or purchase. It works well for toys, etc.

I indicate that I am willing to mail if the recipient pays the postage, and allow funds to be deposited via paypal before mailing the item.

I would not use gumtree for valuable items to avoid receiving contact from those who are not really interested, have dubious intentions, or spam. I agree, keep your account information as minimal as possible.

Yes, you have to manage your ads more, such as removing them in a timely manner, etc. But this is a low cost site for me to pass on unwanted items rather than stuff go to the dump.

3 Likes

Iā€™ve had some time wasters when selling things on Gumtree, but I also had a guy fly from Griffith to Sydney to Adelaide to buy my car too.
I had more people stuff me around on FB (before I deleted it).

My experience is quite different. I buy and sell a lot on gumtree, because it is free. Now that Ebay has introduced GST on top of their 10% fees , it has become to expensive to use for a seller, in my opinion. And the feedback system is flawed, because you cannot give bad feedback to a buyer. The major drawback of gumtree is, that it has no feedback system and you get quite a few dishonest people on that site. But I have never had any technical issues placing or editing an ad. I still buy a fair bit through Ebay, but sell nothing on that site. The auction part of Ebay is shrinking that quickly, that it will vanish or become insignificant soon.

I have heard bad things about Gumtree and Craigslist; both are notorious for people selling puppies that come from puppy farms. Quite abhorrent, I think.

I used them as a seller and buyer, free options. Didnā€™t have loss of info or other issues you described. Perhaps your PC is infected with malware.
Their mobile app is a bit better to work with than the web interface. Iā€™d give it 8 stars. Itā€™s not as secure, I feel, as ebay regarding recovery from fraud. Iā€™ve never used their support services, so canā€™t comment on that.

Hi @rgolubev, my experience was specifically related to listing a motor vehicle for sale, and later needing to update/edit that listing.

The webpage design and construction on Gumtree that relates to vehicles is deficient; the product of lazy developers and insufficient testing ( or as has been noted by others, perhaps just a deliberate ploy to drive users to eBay ). Having been a software developer for micro-computers and PCs for 22 years, I can assure you that malware is not the cause. :wink:

1 Like

vehicle for sale is quite different from the rest. I was listing an automotive spare part and recall some interface deficiencies, though donā€™t remember the details. As it was a free listing, I wouldnā€™t have bothered to complain to the support. Iā€™ll try to relist as I have something and get back here.

1 Like

EEK :scream:! It has been a part of my world for so long!

An article regarding scammers tricking victims on Gumtree.

One of my wifeā€™s sisters who lives in Northern NSW listed a small car on Gumtree a few years ago and some scumbag who claimed to live in Darwin contacted her to say he really wanted it but he wanted to make one payment for the car and the transport to Darwin, so he asked her to transfer the transport payment costs to him so he could include it in the single bank transfer.

When she did not do so, this bottom feeding parasite sent her threating emails including ones with AFP images, and tried to claim she was liable to be charged with fraud.

She contacted us about her concerns but we advised her how to treat this sort of scum.

1 Like