There are countless numbers of things, general things, things required to get one through life, things that you should learn through life experiences… things that people universally suck at. One of those things is learning how a turning circle works. In South Africa we drive on the left side of the road (most people manage to do this), so when entering a turning circle you would look and yield to the right. You would think that this most basic principle, even the most braindead 18 year-old that got his license on his birthday after only a few weeks of instruction and is still stalling on every second pulloff would be able to understand and follow it. Of course, if you thought or assumed this, you would be dead wrong, and have probably by now encountered numerous “close-calls” in one of these.

Another one of those things that people are generally horrible at is posting adverts. Without a set template or requirements to follow people inevitably post pathetic ads with little to no information. This is going to make me NOT want to buy whatever it is you’re selling. I like to save money so I tend to purchase a lot of used stuff and sell my old stuff in various places so this frustration comes from browsing thousands of classified ads. What kind of retard believes that “for sale” is an acceptable title for an advert? I already know it’s for sale, otherwise you wouldn’t be posting it in the classifieds. The title is meant to be briefly descriptive to catch the attention of the reader, it should be relatively simple to figure out what to use; here’s a hint: the item/product name is a good place to start… “car for sale” or “Ford for sale” is equally as useless when browsing vehicle classifieds thought the latter is marginally superior.

Following the title is generally the body of the ad. If you’re selling a vehicle there are a bunch of standard things that people ALWAYS want to know. Mileage… the number of people who leave this off a vehicle ad is absolutely staggering. The other obvious things would include: engine capacity, service history, life on wear and tear items (tyres, brake pads, etc.), modifications/additions (if you’ve ripped a R20k sound system out and left holes everywhere I want to know about it), location (seriously…), damage (accident or otherwise), finance situation (if the bank owns your vehicle, it changes the nature of the deal), colour (though I hope you included pictures), even the reason for sale and a plethora of other things. With regards to service history, more info than just FSH is always nice. Such details as: what was done in last service (I don’t consider just an oil change a service), and how long since the last service (if the vehicle is 500km from its next service, again, this changes things). Another thing, if you’re only going to include a photo that’s blurry, scratchy, overexposed, taken at night with no flash, pulled off the manufacturers website, or so tiny that I need to expand the thing to 500% size just to make the basic shape (since you’re certainly not getting any detail doing that), you may as well not bother in the first place.

On a related note, buyers suck, and the majority are completely unreliable. People apparently don’t know what a promise means. Promising to buy something does not mean: “I like the item and I’ll definitely take it today, but I’m not going to get back to you”, “I will only have the money in 3 months time and I may buy it then so please hold it till then and turn away legitimate buyers”, “please hold the item for me while I look for a better deal”, “please meet me at (location) but I’m not going to pitch so enjoy wasting your time”, or “here’s my fraudulent cheque, please hand over the item before it bounces in 10 days time”. Promising means that you’re on your way with cash in hand, or you’ve EFT’d the money already and you just need to collect. After having experienced all of the above, my standard policy is pretty much: the item goes to the first person to pony up the cash. In general I believe it’s the buyer’s responsibility to collect the item when it’s not being shipped, though I will do face-to-face meets at a common location on occasion. However, expecting me to take 2 hours out of my day and do a 100km round trip to drop off a R200 item clearly indicates that whatever it is you’re smoking has had quite a massive effect on your cognitive abilities. Either that, or you were born stupid.

This post is sponsored by all the morons who abbreviate the word “advert” to “add”.