Originally Posted by francophile

It depends. If there's something so totally off-base I'll point it out. Normally it's in cases where the seller either doesn't know what they have and thus it's priced even lower than damn-that's-a-steal level (yes, I'm that jerk!). Sometimes it's in cases where someone is making grossly false claims. Some cases that come to mind....

Had someone posting an OU8 for sale at $799/obo on eBay. Claimed in the body, "Possibly ridden by someone famous in the Tour de France". Shot them a message to let them know it was a basic OU8, attached a pic from the catalog showing the same bike, and explained "Gotta be careful, some buyers specifically look for auctions with misinformation to buy so they can file not-as-described claim after, then you're out shipping both ways and/or getting extorted out of the item". Their reply? "Are you making an offer on the bike? If not, I don't give a s***. Make an offer or move along, a**hole."

There was a person in California listing a PX10 frame/fork as something absurdly lesser model with a super-super low eBay price I actually posted about this in the eBay/CL "are you looking" thread here at BF a couple years back. Anyway, I reached out to let them know it was a PX10 and they should update the auction and starting price to reflect. They did and got much more than the original ask.

Just last month or month before, I saw someone on CL in Alabama (Birmingham area, IIRC) posting a couple of vintage Peugeots, claiming one was "nice, lightweight Reynolds tubed". In fact, there was a green/black tubing sticker on the frame by the downtube shifters, but I could tell from experience it was one of the Carbolite+ stickers I normally see on bikes out of the UK market. Emailed to say, "Can you doublecheck to see if that's a Reynolds sticker, or does it say Carbolite+, there's a pretty decent difference?" Sure enough, they messaged back a few minutes later to say thanks, and had updated the ad to reflect.

It's a mixed bag what you get. Seems to be very 50/50 on how people are going to react. The hostile replies I've gotten from people who know they're mis-advertising have been enough to make me not want to ever bother.