Recently I've noticed a lot of classifieds where the seller has added "SOLD" to their ad title rather than setting the ad status to sold so it no long shows up when users are searching and browsing. I understand why one might want to put "pending sale" or something like that before the sale firms up, but I don't see the point of updating the the title when it takes less effort to set the ad as sold properly. Lots of classified ad sites have problems with sellers who don't take their old downs due to laziness, but this behaviour is something else. Are these sellers just proud of themselves, or hoping one sold item will attract people to their other ads?

Is there a CAM policy on this sort of behaviour? It seems to me the site just gets polluted with old ads when people do this.

I could be talking out of my hat here, but I believe that if you mark an an ad as sold, it can no longer be responded to. Changing the title allows the purchaser to respond with some feedback (and perhaps encourages feedback???) before the ad disappears entirely from the listings.

Yup, find it annoying.

If you have the time to edit the ad title, why not just mark it as sold?

I see no reason for these antics.

Thanks for that. Setting an ad's status to sold does not restrict the feedback system, but if these Sellers are operating on the assumption it does, it might explain the behaviour.

Actually, you are Kevin... LOL! Once an ad is set to SOLD status, only the buyer can access it to leave feedback and it is no longer visible for searching or be responded to by anyone else. Changing the title to Sold keeps the ad active and respondable to by anyone.

To electrofixation, yes sellers are supposed to set their Sold ads to SOLD status, but some do not, so periodically the mods have to take a few hours of their time to individually warn these sellers to properly close their ads.

I would see somebody use this tactic, if he is close to a certain amount of listing, or sold items.

It's a marketing strategy...

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Along the same train of thought are those sellers who do not mark their title or their ad sold and when i have contacted them they respond to my email very abrubtly telling me " It Is Sold".
This is much more frustrating as these sellers including many Dealers do nothing to update the plethora of old useless ads on Cam.

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It would be counterproductive as a tactic zon, because if the ad is still active (not set to SOLD), then it still counts as part of that sellers weekly, monthly and yearly total max number of ads and will not automatically fall off his counter, especially if they are using the relist function.

Frustrating is when a seller has sold the item yet responds other inquiries the item is still for sale!

Simple solution: we need a status PENDING which allows everyone to see the item/details but indicates a binding contract has been transacted with a condition to be removed by X Date.
Much like real estate transactions have status - For Sale, Pending, or Sold
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Thinking more about this, how about the ability for the seller and buyer to "bind" the contract and status on the advertisement. Something like this:
Buyer and seller come to some agreement by way of Status Quo.

Buyer agrees to the terms and changes the status to AGREE (Not Public Yet)
Seller agrees to the terms and changes the status to AGREE (Now Public)

Buyer receives the goods and now changes the status to COMPLETE (Public Status SOLD)
Seller now changes the status to COMPLETE (Status is now archived)

Would this be a reasonable approach to managing the "Sold" status?

I recently did this with an item I had for sale. I had multiple people wanting to purchase at the listed price so thought, as a polite way to advise everyone that it was sold (as opposed to just having it disappear),posted it that way for a few hours before changing the status to sold.
Just trying to be courteously to my fellow CAM friends.

When I see "sold" in the caption heading, I assume that it means "sale pending" and that goods have not completely changed hands. It doesn't bother me one bit, I just move on.

I put sold on Ad when I have received an EMT payment. I do the Mark as Sold when transaction has been entirely completed. Works for me.

That is exactly how I do it. I mark the item Sold in the title of the ad to stop any further inquiries . Once the transaction is complete and the buyer has received the goods and all is well then I use the Mark as Sold to remove the ad.

I sometimes mark something as "Pending Sale" while waiting for payment / pickup, which could take a few days. What I'm annoyed by is when people leave their ad that way permanently. You use the advanced search function for "sold" in headlines to see most of the examples, there are dozens of ads dating back to October.

A "pending sale" status might help, perhaps it could provide a pop-up when a user replies so they know it might the item may not be for sale. Ideally the pending status could automatically switch the ad to "sold" status after x days if the Seller never changes it bad to "on".

-- 20 Dec 2016 10:55 --


If you're received payment why not turn the ad to sold status at that time? If you've been paid the deal is done and rest of us don't need to see your ad. The buyer can always access the listing from the link in the email correspondence.