Online sales customers' bad attitude has me longing for a car boot sale – Hayley Matthews

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd admit to missing a good old car boot sale for shifting old things a bit too good for the charity bag.

Car boot sales seem a more pleasant way to sell unwanted goods than online (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

It's fairly easy to accumulate a lot of tat especially when you love of tat. The last car boot I did, I made about £80 and was very pleased with my efforts.

It was stress=free, with lots of happy customers, no rudeness and if someone didn't like/want something, they wouldn't start slagging it off, they'd just jog along on their merry way, off to find something else.

So why can’t it be this easy online? I don't know how many times I've tried to put a genuine item on, with receipt, and been slagged off for trying to sell a “wish special”.

It's not only the rudeness from people that's hard to let go over your head, the impatience is just gob-smacking. I think most people believe those selling on Facebook/ Gumtree are all sitting on their bums just waiting on some interest.

The amount of times I've had a message, saying: “Hi, Is this still available?” Then, after two hours, I'll get a “?” or a “hello????!!!!”

I'm tempted to reply with something along the lines of “please wait until a customer representative can handle your query as we're currently experiencing a toddler running his sharpies up and down the wall with a jobby in hind nappy. Somebody will be with you shortly.”

It's the nicer version of what I'd really like to say at times. Bring back the car boot sale ASAP please – otherwise I might have to hire a secretary!

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.