WHEN I decided to organise a garage sale, I never expected it to become such an unforgettable experience. Memorable because it allowed me to meet some really interesting people, and I would be a target of a scam.
I had planned to hold it over two weekends. But after the second round, I was still getting enquiries. And since there were lots to offload, I held a third weekend sale.
During those six days, the people who walked through my gate ranged from parents with toddlers and older families to young couples, individuals and small groups of friends. There were also buyers who didn’t come personally but bought things they saw posted on Facebook.
One early buyer was a middle-aged gentleman who looked rather fierce and unfriendly. But he spent quite a long time picking lots of small items, including a pretty little candy tin that seemed so unlikely to be of interest to him.
On his second visit, he picked up pink Tupperware and a pile of cookbooks. This was a classic case of how one should not judge a book by its cover. This initially unfriendly-looking guy turned out to be such a sweetie. On his third visit, he came with chilled drink cans and invited me to have a cuppa with him if ever I was in the vicinity of his office. Thank you, Mr Ooi.
Another person who came twice was an ex-colleague who “shopped” for his mum who lives in Ipoh. He did this using WhatsApp video to show her what was on sale and generously added a RM100 ang pow to his purchases. Thank you, Jon and your dear mum!I was also very happy to welcome mothers and daughters like Julian and Debbie (who came twice) and Vimala and Mitra who seemed to enjoy my sale.
I had an embarrassing situation involving a young couple, Adian and Stephanie, who bought a variety of stuff including a book on cryptocurrency that I had encouraged the husband to take for RM5.Unfortunately, that book was actually on loan from my daughter’s boyfriend. When she told him how I sold the almost new hardcover that he had bought for over RM100, her boyfriend was understandably upset. So I had to ask the buyer to please return it and that I would refund him.
But once I explained my mistake, Adian immediately agreed to return the book in person and refused my refund. How nice was that!
While quite a few people asked for discounts, there were those who bought my stuff without question.
Among them was Zul, a young physiotherapist who came with two friends, Zee and Judit. He turned out to be a Chinese tea and vinyl record enthusiast. He fell in love with two Chinese tea sets, a rather expensive box of aged Tuocha pu-er tea, and a Reader’s Digest box set of records and paid for them without haggling.
What greatly amused me was how Zul scouted around my house and found an aerobic step platform, which he wanted to use for his clients. I had no plans to sell that exercise equipment from 30 years ago but he was so keen, I had to let him have it.
Another buyer who piqued my interest was Melly because of what she bought – a set of miniature wooden bedroom furniture and a set of miniature ceramic fashion mannequins and accessories that she had spotted on my FB post.
As it turned out, Melly is a miniature enthusiast and wanted the furniture for her dollhouse. She gave me a “tour” of the beautifully furnished house via photos and a video on WhatsApp. At last, that set of never used furniture has found a home.
Nadirah was another person who made a purchase based on an FB post. She bought my old Underwood typewriter for RM200 and it was delivered to her by Grab.
As for the scam attempt, it happened the day before my second weekend sale. A person who identified himself as “Ben Thomas” texted me on WhatsApp saying he was interested in my Sharp refrigerator. He claimed he was in Singapore and therefore would get a courier company to contact me via email to get my address to pick up the fridge.
My alarm bells rang when I saw the badly written email from the “international courier”. Still, I decided to reply, and the response from the courier was: “OUR INFORMATION HAS BEEN SUSSERFULL THANKS FOR CHOOSING ALLS.” Huh?
I decided to play along and informed Ben that I had responded to the courier. Next thing I got was a dodgy-looking notice that went into my Spam box, purportedly from Scotia Bank telling me I had to pay RM200 immediately to a Maybank account of someone named Al Ghanasekaran. It was supposed to be the bank agent’s fee before it would release both the money for the fridge and RM200 fee that this Ben Thomas had supposedly credited to me.
It was an elaborate but poorly put together scam to just get RM200 from me. I berated Ben on WhatsApp, telling him his parents should be ashamed of him and he should get a decent job before blocking him. I also reported the number as a scam.
The fridge was finally bought by an ex-colleague, who was also the only one interested in my dad’s gardening tools and took quite a few away for his new hobby of farming. Way to go, Meng!
While I still have a lot of unsold goods to pack off, I still consider my garage sale to be quite a success. And there are some really good people I need to thank for that.
Folks, this is going to read like an Oscar acceptance speech, so bear with me. My gratitude goes to my daughter Kelly for doing a lot of the preparatory work and assisting on the first two weekends; Dianne, my niece and a busy mother-of-four young kids, who willingly stepped in to replace Kelly on the third weekend; my ex-colleague Ann who rallied to my call for help; my two besties, Leanne and Ping, for the hours spent arranging and pricing the items; and friends who came to support the sale and ended up buying things they probably didn’t need.
My thanks to Yvonne, who was a freelance writer for The Star when I was an editor. She reconnected with me and kindly helped publicise my Enid Blyton books and National Geographic magazines by posting them on relevant FB sites.
Thank you too to readers of my column who came to check out the sale or just to say hello, like Mr Lim, Vimala, Julia and Mrs Tan.
Mr Ng and Mr Chin were two readers who made repeated visits with their wives to buy stuff and just to chat with me.
There are also a couple I must truly thank: Yit Fong and her husband, Mr Tan, who bought about 35 items between them. Yit Fong was also the one who bought five dragon pots at a very good price, including the one I had a tough time scrubbing off the red paint.
Last and not the least is the Hendroff family, who recently moved into my neighbourhood.
I will miss getting to know them better. They bought several things and two of the most expensive items: my piano and an electric leather recliner. That helped end the sale on a high note.
I wish I could name everyone who came for my sale but I have already exceeded my word count.
If this were an Oscar acceptance speech, the music would have started playing. So just let me quickly end with a heartfelt shout-out to them: Thank You!
The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
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