I agree, between pickers and all the pawn shop shows, every one thinks they have to throw out a low ball offer. I hate it when some one start negotiating over the phone, not having actually seen the item. When they start throwing out offers, I politely tell them, if you want to make an offer, come over here and see it, if you don't want to drive over here and see it, I'm not taking your offers seriously. If they are not close, I offer to send them pictures. There are a lot of tire kickers that get their jollies just see how far they can get you down on something, then never showing up. If some one is serious enough to drive over, then I will take their offers serious. If I'm looking for something to buy, I usually research it enough to know what its worth and what I'm ready to spend, if they want more than I;m willing to pay, I'll contact them to get all the details, go look at it, then make an offer, with cash in hand. If they want more than I'm wiling to pay, then so be it, I'll think them for their time and I'll move along, I'll leave them with my offer and number, if no one else is interested at their price, if they want to contact me later then they have my number. Usually I price stuff to sell, if I have it up for sale then I don't need it any more and i want it gone, but there is an amount that I think its worth that i won't go below. I had a guy wanting buy my car one time, he was a friend of a friend, I drove it over to him and gave him a very fair price, he started trying to pick it apart, I called BS on everything he said, he offered me half of what i was asking. I knew he just paid more than what i was asking for a similar car in nowhere near as good of shape as my car was. I told him again what I wanted, he repeated his ridiculous offer, I told thanks for wasting my time, told him   My friend apologized over and over to me for wasting my time with this guy. They next day, I sold the car for the asking price. To that guy, it was all about the game, not the car, I didn't have time for games. I've made low ball offer to people before, but it was usually based on what I had to spend, hard to offer more than you have. I told them the item was worth more than I had, and politely offered them what i had at the time, if they said no, I thanked them for their time and moved on, I left them with my number and told them to call if no one else was interested. Some times they called later, some times some one else bought it.