A plea to all sellers out there from a frustrated buyer

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hollyandivy123

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when you advertise your horse for sale please please please can you remember to put some basic information into the advert, i have been searching for a long time..............................but where the horse is as in which county would be good, i ring up to find it is aberdeen (you can't tell from a mobile)

another thing is age and height, you usually can't tell from a picture how old it is and also the height can be very missleading in a picture.

this will save me phoning up and you getting pissed off with me when i say where are you?...................oh thats too far or the horse is to big or to small i end up as a time waster!

if you know the breeding of your youngster ie dam was xhh, put that in the more information the better,

i am now off to see how many more times i be classed as a time waster!:rolleyes:
 
You forgot to say how important the price is. POA is a killer on an advert. I am too embarassed to call, in case I can't afford it and then feel like a cheapskate.
 
FabioandFreddy said:
My stepdad always said to me if you have to ask the price you can't afford it!
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What a silly, arrogant thing to post.

Whilst that saying is a good motto in the right circumstance is is utterly irrelevant to purchasing a horse.

A person may be quite able to afford a £3000 animal but not a £5000 one. These days people put POA of animals in this bracket, it is not restricted to just the high end market.

Can you tell from looking an an advert that gives away minimal information if the seller is suggesting the equine in question is worth £1000 or £5000?
 
Gluttonforpunishment said:
What a silly, arrogant thing to post.

Whilst that saying is a good motto in the right circumstance is is utterly irrelevant to purchasing a horse.

A person may be quite able to afford a £3000 animal but not a £5000 one. These days people put POA of animals in this bracket, it is not restricted to just the high end market.

Can you tell from looking an an advert that gives away minimal information if the seller is suggesting the equine in question is worth £1000 or £5000?
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Not really - most POA horses are high end and out of normal peoples budgets. Would put me off ringing straight away as you'd just think too expensive.
 
Not always. A girl I know put POA on an advert, then readvertised it later for £1500... It sold at that price, nobody rang when it was POA..

I accidentally didn't put height and age on my last ad - online they had catagories to fill in, such as height, age, colour.. These came up as subtitiles before the ad online. So I didn't put it in the ad. Then when the ad was put online the subtitiles weren't included, so the ad didn't have some vital info! He was such a good horse that people still rang thankfully. Initially I thought THEY were silly asking questions that I thought were in the ad, when I got the magazine I felt very silly!!
 
Sorry if thats how it came across, didn't mean it to be rude or aimed directly at the OP. Just meant that anything without a price tag is generally because its ridiculously expensive! Sorry.

When we sold last year we filled in all the age, height etc but was missed on the ad. Luckily was put in the 16.3+ section anyway so people could still see that it was going to be around that mark. Had lots of calls on the age though.
 
i know someone who put POA, so no one else at the yard would know how much she wanted for the horse? no one rang. if you want 5k, 7k, or 1500 then put the price on.

yes if you are selling a grand prix or its popped round badders a couple of times i understand if you have to ask then you can't afford it. but most horses wont have done this or will be able to do this, so please help us poor buyers:)

so i will amend my original wish and say put the price please, saves for the embarrassing silence when you think the horse is around the 3k mark and really the owners wants 13k. !
 
F&F, you're not rude. POA 99.9% of the time means that mere mortals can't afford it so I'm in agreement with you. POA horses are WELL above a £5k figure IME.
 
9tails said:
F&F, you're not rude. POA 99.9% of the time means that mere mortals can't afford it so I'm in agreement with you. POA horses are WELL above a £5k figure IME.
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What does IME mean?

I used to think the same, until I met a few people selling cheap horses POA. As someone else said, its to stop local people knowing, but it means nobody rings up so its generally pointless!
 
I'm afraid if an ad says POA, I usually don't take it any further, as I tend to assume it's out of my budget.

I do wish people would be clearer in their adverts for sure - the more details you can give, the less wasted enquiries you'll get, to clarify those basic details!
 
In Ireland it's common to see POI on advertisements - Price on Inspection!! Yeah, I'm going to drive 100 miles to see a horse and then find it's not in my price range :confused:

You only have to look through the pages of ads in H&H to see how many are there with no age, no height, no sex, and no clue as to whether they are in John O'Groats or Lands End :rolleyes: You'd think magazines and websites would have some sort of proforma advert that people could use to make sure relevant information is included.

And a good confo shot would be handy ;)
 
I'll put another position out for consideration. We are in central Scotland and sometimes when people see that on an advert it puts them off calling, despite the fact we are 25 mins away from a major airport where there are very cheap flights. I don't put location and have frequently sold horses to people who said they wouldn't have called if they had known where we were but on hearing about the horse and what we do while they were on the phone subsequently travelled and bought the horse. Of course there may be others who didn't call because there was no location so it is an inprecise science deciding which approach is best.
 
Measles - on a slightly different vein, my OH bought his last mountain bike from ebay from a guy in Edinburgh - this bike was sold for way below what others sell for on ebay, I think purely because its further north people didn't want the long drive to pick it up. Well, my OH didn't mind, and we drove up to Edinburgh from Leeds on the saturday night to pick it up, had dinner and drove home :D

It annoys me when people don't put height, age, sex and price on an advert, those are basics I'd want to know straight off :)
 
Just regarding POA, I have always thought it meant very expensive too and I still think it normally does.

However my Mum was looking for a pony recently and one that seemed perfect popped up on a couple of searches. As the ad said POA and we expected it would be way over budget, she was too embarassed to call and simply disregarded him from the search. In the end I phoned up anyway unbeknownst to Mum and it turned out the pony was much cheaper than we thought and just as described - he is wonderful and grazing in our field now!

In this case I think the pony was special to the sellers and they wanted to vet potential purchasers more than anything else, as their other ads generally have a price on.

We also once called an ad without the price and discovered the horse was advertised for twice our budget on another website - again he was lovely and luckily the very kind owner reduced the asking price substantially for us and he came home :) If that price had been on the ad we saw we would never have enquired.

I would still be a bit unsure about phoning a POA horse but if it was what I was looking for I would still enquire as if you don't ask you don't know!
 
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If I see poa I assume either expensive or very cheap, depending on what type of horse it is. Sometimes its so you don't get suspicious of the low price, they'd rather get you on the phone to tell you its got manageable sweet itch, not been ridden in 6 months etc
 
FabioandFreddy said:
Sorry if thats how it came across, didn't mean it to be rude or aimed directly at the OP. Just meant that anything without a price tag is generally because its ridiculously expensive! Sorry.
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I don't think she means you were rude FabioandFreddy! It was the other poster who was being rude.
 
hollyandivy123 said:
but where the horse is as in which county would be good, i ring up to find it is aberdeen (you can't tell from a mobile)
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And whats wrong with Aberdeen?!?! No seriously though it really bugs me when people see the location as Aberdeen and then think its the end of the world. Its ridiculous. We have great horses up here and probably cheaper than down south yet nobody is willing to travel anymore for what they say on the phone sounds like their "perfect horse".
 
Something that irritates me- Why don't people put up pics of BOTH sides of their horse? Also, sellers who don't get back to you. I contacted two dealers/breeders of cobs, neither of which sent me any pictures, one didn't reply at all. I'm not going to chase someone in order to get them to sell me something. Ended up buying a nice little two year old from a private ad on everyone's favourite bargain bin website! Over budget, overgrown feet and wormy, but looks, age, height and temperament were as described, so I loaded him up and brought him home the same day.
 
MagicMelon said:
And whats wrong with Aberdeen?!?! No seriously though it really bugs me when people see the location as Aberdeen and then think its the end of the world. Its ridiculous. We have great horses up here and probably cheaper than down south yet nobody is willing to travel anymore for what they say on the phone sounds like their "perfect horse".
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There's nothing wrong with Aberdeen, but it is a long way from people that live in the midlands, and people are weary of the seller not being honest with them for them to then travel all that way and find the horse completely opposite of what was described. Just recently i was looking for a horse, i found one near london which meant 300mile round trip for me but i've spoken to the owner a few times, recieved a few pictures etc, and the horse sounded like my perfect horse, so i went to try him, i got there and the perfect hunter that is ready to compete at 3ft6 and will team chase straight away turned out to be a 10 year old that was spooky, seemed to have never seen the school, had a paddy over a 60cm xpole and had the balance of a just broken youngster, my friends 4year old has better balance. I think thats what puts people off the locations that are far away, the thought of travelling to Aberdeen just to find a horse that is completely not as described. Its the bad sellers out there that ruin it for the good sellers.
 
MagicMelon said:
And whats wrong with Aberdeen?!?! No seriously though it really bugs me when people see the location as Aberdeen and then think its the end of the world. Its ridiculous. We have great horses up here and probably cheaper than down south yet nobody is willing to travel anymore for what they say on the phone sounds like their "perfect horse".
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It's not so much the thought of travelling to Aberdeen that would put me off, it would be the thought of the drive back to the south coast with a 4 year old if I fell in love with it....best not to know what I'm missing!
 
MagicMelon said:
And whats wrong with Aberdeen?!?! No seriously though it really bugs me when people see the location as Aberdeen and then think its the end of the world. Its ridiculous. We have great horses up here and probably cheaper than down south yet nobody is willing to travel anymore for what they say on the phone sounds like their "perfect horse".
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i have been to aberdeen, lovely except for a vary scarey seafood risotto, which should have be named squid risotto and was made with cream yuk.

its after seeing over 20 horses in about 10 months, who were not as described, the 2yr old that was meant to be 15hh as it stood and i measured it as 13.2 that was a 3hr round trip, or the perfect 4hr that seemed to have lost a leg, if your horse is lame please let the buyer know otherwise it would waste both our time.

so a flight up to see something as wrongly advertised for me is an expensive for me in both time and money. unfortuantely its the time which is the problem at the momment not so much the money
 
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FabioandFreddy said:
My stepdad always said to me if you have to ask the price you can't afford it!
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I didn't read that as a rude or arrogant comment - I was sitting nodding! I read it as being tongue in cheek!

I don't know what it is about travelling sometimes, I was recently helping a friend look for her perfect horse and she was limiting herself to such a short distance that she was prepared to travel to look and then getting frustrated that she couldn't find anything.
 
hollyandivy123 said:
when you advertise your horse for sale please please please can you remember to put some basic information into the advert, i have been searching for a long time..............................but where the horse is as in which county would be good, i ring up to find it is aberdeen (you can't tell from a mobile)

another thing is age and height, you usually can't tell from a picture how old it is and also the height can be very missleading in a picture.

this will save me phoning up and you getting pissed off with me when i say where are you?...................oh thats too far or the horse is to big or to small i end up as a time waster!

if you know the breeding of your youngster ie dam was xhh, put that in the more information the better,

i am now off to see how many more times i be classed as a time waster!:rolleyes:
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Alot of the time I dont reply to posts but this one hit home. I agree!I have exactly the same issues despite putting a wanted ad in various websites. I had one woman ring but got furious with me - Im looking for a novice ride for me & my toddler, a well schooled confidence giver as in my ad - she got mad cos I wouldnt go & view her horse (15.3 hh but my ad states no bigger than 14.3hh) because in trot it will suddenly burst into canter whilst hacking - i was called a timewaster - LOL.:(
 
MagicMelon said:
And whats wrong with Aberdeen?!?! No seriously though it really bugs me when people see the location as Aberdeen and then think its the end of the world. Its ridiculous. We have great horses up here and probably cheaper than down south yet nobody is willing to travel anymore for what they say on the phone sounds like their "perfect horse".
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Living in Essex, I probably wouldn't want to transfort the poor soul all the way here!
 
can i also amend to my plea to sellers........................................ when you are talking to a new buyer on the phone that has just rang up not to rant about the other people that have seen the horse and that they are time wasters before putting the phone down on the a possible buyer!:rolleyes:
 
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