Mobile Phone Etiquette & Human Nature

Posted by dadda (89 days ago)

Just interested in views here.

I have an apartment advertised through Asiaxpat where peple have the option of either writing an email msg to me, or they have my phone number.

Over the last 3 weeks I have had the ad here & have had 1 email. I have had 1 phone call & would estimate 40 SMS messages.

ALL the sms messages ask if it is still available & some then ask if I would accept a shorter lease, or similar.

I have repled favourably to ALL SMS, and have either called or replied by SMS.

EVERY SMS I have replied to with my own, short nice SMS has been ignored. ALL SMS I have replied to by calling them have not been picked up.

I am not an alien & know how to sound/write in a friendly manner.

My question is: why do all these people bother writing a lenghty sms to me, if they have NO interest in following through with it?

I find it quite rude & annoying. Just interested in why people interact in this way & feel it is acceptable.

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Posted by dannyboy77 (89 days ago)

I found exactly the same thing. Very weird behaviour.... the people that did pick up were pretty rude and treated me like a telesales person

Posted by iwilltry (89 days ago)

Dadda,

I've gone through this as an advertiser and as an interested buyer. I think there are various reasons for this;

1) they are not serious buyers (perhaps still at the planning stage) so don't bother to follow up;
2) if your phones are not from the same service provider, you're charged for the sms, (possibly they dont want to incur further cost after seeing your deal not so good and/or they forget which advertiser is sending that sms, assuming they sent to various others)
3) they just dont feel obliged to reply if they're not ok with the deal.

It depends on individual's nature i guess.

Posted by cookie09 (89 days ago)

could it be that they are agents trying to test the market?

Posted by dadda (89 days ago)

owilltry. agree with some of that. But I am very service oriented and always reply to any messages within 5 minutes. Find it hard to believe they forget about it, or change their mind on the deal within 5 minutes.

I thought perhaps they also have a property they are trying to move & maybe just testing to see if others have managed to do a deal or not. Very rude, but I assume sms brings that as seen as an anonymous request

sorry cookie - didn't see your post. Agree that may be it

Posted by axptguy38 (89 days ago)

This is unfortunately classic. For this very reason I never post my number in AsiaXpat classifieds any more. Just using the web site message interface is much less irritating.

Posted by dadda (89 days ago)

good point... may have to follow that from now..

Posted by Green-Catalonia (88 days ago)

Posted by axptguy38 (1 day ago)

<QUOTE>

This is unfortunately classic. For this very reason I never post my number in AsiaXpat classifieds any more. Just using the web site message interface is much less irritating.

<UNQUOTE>

I agree and add that there are so many time-wasters, Trolls & "No - Shows".

As an example there's a guy in Wanchai who - in more than 4 weeks - still hasn't come to collect an item he said he wanted - from near HKU in Western - even tho' he's admitted that TWICE he's been very close - eating with friends at Belchers.... about 500 yards away from me - but never any apology for persistent "No-Shows" - Ears burning Timothy?

Then, recently there have been "Trolls" that respond with obscene messages ... one is left wondering what sewer they were dragged up from, and their legitimacy.

Posted by evildeeds (87 days ago)

Time wasters both ways. Around 6 months ago a friend of mine contacted a seller on AXP for something like a baby crib or similar. Seller lived on Peak and my friend who lived in NT told them he'd be up at a particular time after work, confirming with them same day by both phone and text. He called when he finished work and drove up there. When calling to say he'd arrived he got no response. He continued calling for 30 minutes until someone actually answered the phone. They then told him the item had been sold........

Obviously obscenities thrown down the phone and had he seen them......... Obviously being Peak dwellers they ain't going to come out and face up to the more tough of the species who lives in the NT.

So can go both ways on here, bad sellers, bad buyers.