Do You Ignore Trade Offers? If So, Why?

[GuyBroMan 7]

This is just my experience from playing on ESPN, but 9 times out of 10 when the trade offer doesn’t get a response it is bc the other person didn’t see the trade.

[F@ndemonium 369]

Based on the varying responses, there isn't a clear cut "correct" response.  We all have our own taste-specific preferences, but there is no universal "right".....which is why the contributions to this thread are fun to monitor.     

 

As LM, vetting owners who share in similar behaviors and beliefs mitigates taste-specific pain points, and subsequently promotes league activity level and morale.    Easier to grow rapport/relationships, and subsequently trade, with folks who are generally likeminded.   

 

Joining a league "cold",  integrating owners to a format without background, or playing in a "friends league" results in  a mix of different personalities, skill and activity levels, which present numerous additional barriers....in addition to simply unattended trade offers.  

 

The assembly of a league is where the answer to the original problem is found.  Developing a culture, setting realistic expectations, and penalizing those who don't adhere, organically corrects the problem from the infancy stage on up.  

 

 

 

    

  

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by F@ndemonium

[SharkSwimmer 5,071]

56 minutes ago, Lamont Sanford said:

Ok, let me see if I understand...

You think the offer is ridiculous, and you don’t like receiving ridiculous offers, so in an effort to dissuade people from sending you ridiculous offers you employ a tactic by which you feign contemplation thus convincing the sender of the ridiculous offer that it wasn’t ridiculous at all, but in fact an offer worthy of your contemplation.

 

I never said I do not like receiving ridiculous offers.  I want my opponent to drop everything and wait on pins and needles to see if I will accept.  This may distract him from sending out other offers, working the waiver wire, or improving his team in other ways. 

[shakestreet 4,157]

It’s your team do whatever you want... let it sit do nothing, accept, decline or counter .... 

[YoungDro 21]

As an avid trader it's bad form to let offers sit unless you are actively considering them.  I've had people let some of mine sit as their way of telling me to kick rocks but I'd much rather them tell me to **** off than let my offers sit there.  

[SuperJoint 4,278]

When I first started out over a decade ago I did Y! public leagues and learned real quick how annoying it was that owners ignored trade offers. I guess you can call it a "code" or that type of thing that I consider it important to respond to someone that took the effort to offer a trade within at least 24 hours of receiving it. 

There's another side of it though because I realized through experience that many people simply don't have that same sense of urgency. They're actually taking some time to consider the deal and it could take days. If I get sent a trade offer I'll actually take the 20 seconds or so to let them know I'm considering it and give them a time frame for my own response - again many guy just don't do that. 

Ultimately the responsibility is on you - as the trade initiator - to get a clue and realize you're being trolled, ignored, whatever the problem is and yank the trade before there's any action. That's on YOU if you allow that to happen - I strongly disagree with some of the comments I've seen in here about kicking guys out of leagues. Caveat Emptor.

Now there's no way in hell I'd do that - like many have said here I'd pull my OWN trade offer if the guy I'm sending is seriously hurt - but some people would, and any person of reasonable intelligence knows that. You need to pull un-responded-to offers before any of the players in the trade play that week at the very least. A good general rule of thumb is pull it after 48 hours of no communication.

The best way to deal with all of this is do what I did - become the commish yourself and try to find quality people who enjoy playing and know what the hell they're doing. Many of these problems go away - like magic.

[kp96 706]

10 minutes ago, YoungDro said:

As an avid trader it's bad form to let offers sit unless you are actively considering them.  I've had people let some of mine sit as their way of telling me to kick rocks but I'd much rather them tell me to **** off than let my offers sit there.  

 

Well, first of all, if you make a terrible offer then the other owner doesn't really care what you prefer.  If he wants to just write you off, he will.  Not trying to be obnoxious, but put yourself in their shoes.  If you have a guy who just constantly makes bad offers (not saying that's you), then eventually you're just gonna blow him off and ignore his offers.  It's as simple as that.

The other thing is....it's like you guys don't realize you have some control here.  You can always text that owner.  Usually he will respond and give you a piece of his mind.  If he doesn't respond, then just rescind the offer and talk to another owner.  Who knows, maybe he IS thinking about it, and now you've taken that option from him.  Watch him come running back to you.  But more often than not, he simply doesn't want to trade with you.  That's it.  Accept it and move on.  It's no big deal.

 

[kp96 706]

Just now, SuperJoint said:

When I first started out over a decade ago I did Y! public leagues and learned real quick how annoying it was that owners ignored trade offers. I guess you can call it a "code" or that type of thing that I consider it important to respond to someone that took the effort to offer a trade within at least 24 hours of receiving it. 

There's another side of it though because I realized through experience that many people simply don't have that same sense of urgency. They're actually taking some time to consider the deal and it could take days. If I get sent a trade offer I'll actually take the 20 seconds or so to let them know I'm considering it and give them a time frame for my own response - again many guy just don't do that. 

Ultimately the responsibility is on you - as the trade initiator - to get a clue and realize you're being trolled, ignored, whatever the problem is and yank the trade before there's any action. That's on YOU if you allow that to happen - I strongly disagree with some of the comments I've seen in here about kicking guys out of leagues. Caveat Emptor.

Now there's no way in hell I'd do that - like many have said here I'd pull my OWN trade offer if the guy I'm sending is seriously hurt - but some people would, and any person of reasonable intelligence knows that. You need to pull un-responded-to offers before any of the players in the trade play that week at the very least. A good general rule of thumb is pull it after 48 hours of no communication.

The best way to deal with all of this is do what I did - become the commish yourself and try to find quality people who enjoy playing and know what the hell they're doing. Many of these problems go away - like magic.

 

Fantastic post

[devaster 4,441]

22 hours ago, The 7th Beatles said:

Only if they're terrible offers then I let them sit there until they expire. 

This.

[Jetdog16 703]

If you ignore trade offers you're a jerk who probably also puts ketchup directly on fries and pours your milk before you put the cereal in the bowl

[SharkSwimmer 5,071]

58 minutes ago, Jetdog16 said:

If you ignore trade offers you're a jerk who probably also puts ketchup directly on fries and pours your milk before you put the cereal in the bowl

People who politely respond and click reject on ludicrous trade offers probably also leave the cap off of the tube of toothpaste and hang the bathroom tissue roll upside down so it trails down closest to the wall as opposed to the right and proper configuration of the unused sheets hanging down from the front of the roll, farthest away from the wall.

[Jetdog16 703]

7 minutes ago, SharkSwimmer said:

People who politely respond and click reject on ludicrous trade offers probably also leave the cap off of the tube of toothpaste and hang the bathroom tissue roll upside down so it trails down closest to the wall as opposed to the right and proper configuration of the unused sheets hanging down from the front of the roll, farthest away from the wall.

100 percent true damn bro I feel completely exposed 

[MurderInc 588]

If it's a fair offer and I'm rejecting, I'll do so within 24 hours and give them a reason sometimes.

Some leagues have "serial traders" who send lopsided trade offers in their favor constantly. For those idiots, I do not respond. It's my way of saying (without saying), please don't make dumb trade offers to me again.

[Sternes 5,017]

I try to not let sit.  If I am thinking about it I will shoot the other owner a message.  What really sucks is the TNF games being so close to waivers processing and trying to punch a trade through if a player is involved in that game.  If they send bad offers I decline.  If they send an offer and I don't like it I will send a reply saying, "Thanks for the offer," and add some comments on it.  Ignoring trades are a nope to me.  Sending insults I pass on because even when I'm offered something fun like Singletary for Metcalf because, "Hey you need an RB for your bye week!", the guy might be in my league next year or he might have a more even offer and think to keep me involved.  The last thing I want is to be frozen out of trades.

[JE7HorseGod 2,757]

On 10/27/2020 at 5:23 PM, kp96 said:

 

If he's not responding, assume he is at best minimally interested.  If he is highly interested, he will get back to you so that you don't trade the player to someone else.

If you're not sure, try to contact him again.  If no response, move on.

No sense in trying to read his mind.  A non response does communicate something to you.

It's communicating something but is at best ambiguous because obviously it can be interpreted a lot of different ways.  Maybe they just don't care that much.  Maybe they're insulted and are "punishing you."  Maybe they're really indecisive.

In any event yes, IMO communication is the responsibility in part of both the speaker and the listener.  However the whole thing is less fun for me if I'm "talking" with people who are this indirect.  Some people may say it's less fun to be nagged with trade offers.  That's cool, we probably just shouldn't play in leagues together.

[kp96 706]

Do you guys pick up your phone for telemarketers?  Do you answer every time they call and say "Thank you for the call, but I'm not interested.  Have a nice day."?  Or do you not pick up your phone?

That's what the people who say it's ok to ignore trade offers are doing.  They're at the point where this owner who is offering bad trades is no better than a telemarketer and we ignore them, in hopes that they stop calling.  Typically this takes a lot of bad trade offers or horrible trade discussions ("you're dumb for not taking my offer" "your guys are garbage, i'm going to help you" etc.) for me to categorize them like that, but I do do it.

That's the easiest way I can explain it.

Edited November 1, 2020 by kp96

[AlexxelA 156]

I think people are missing a big part of this discussion.  Who likes to leave notifications on their team page for the whole season?  You never know if the person deleted and sent you a new offer.  Personally it clutters up the page and is annoying to have the notification sitting there for weeks on end.  Maybe it's just me but I like be more organized.  I assume everyone swipes away notifications on their phones whenever they look at the phone.  I may be alone in this though.

[Lamont Sanford 1,833]

22 minutes ago, kp96 said:

Do you guys pick up your phone for telemarketers?  Do you answer every time they call and say "Thank you for the call, but I'm not interested.  Have a nice day."?  Or do you not pick up your phone?

That's what the people who say it's ok to ignore trade offers are doing.  They're at the point where this owner who is offering bad trades is no better than a telemarketer and we ignore them, in hopes that they stop calling.  Typically this takes a lot of bad trade offers or horrible trade discussions ("you're dumb for not taking my offer" "your guys are garbage, i'm going to help you" etc.) for me to categorize them like that, but I do do it.

That's the easiest way I can explain it.

If the telemarketer was legitimately in possession of something I desire, something I’ve had my eye on, and open to an interesting negotiation that could lead to my acquiring that which I desire at a fair price, I’d be happy to pick up the phone and talk. Understanding, of course, that the telemarketers first offer is never his or her best, but merely a necessary means of opening the dialogue through which the reward is ultimately attained.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Lamont Sanford

[harck 478]

Most of my best trades have come from counter-offers back and forth leading up to something reasonable. Think people truly miss out when they scoff at every offer right off the bat; I always shoot over a counter-offer even on the worst trade requests.

[Lamont Sanford 1,833]

5 minutes ago, harck said:

Most of my best trades have come from counter-offers back and forth leading up to something reasonable. Think people truly miss out when they scoff at every offer right off the bat; I always shoot over a counter-offer even on the worst trade requests.

Agreed, that’s how trading is supposed to work. Do some here think NFL teams blow other teams away with their very first trade offer? Or is it more likely that there’s a little back & forth, with the understanding that the first offer is rarely the best offer?

Also, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve targeted a player and eventually overpaid simply because I was intent on acquiring said player for whatever reason. The team on the other side wisely took advantage of an opportunity they otherwise wouldn’t have if they simply ignored me.

[Gryfter 1,065]

I go through life with the following: Treat others how you want to be treated. If it's not reciprocated, you treat them exactly how they treated you, no more, no less. 

 

With that being said, I don't ignore trade offers, initially. If I reject the offer, I'll always respond with a comment about open to working with other pieces. If it's an insulting offer, I'll still respond with some wise a** comment. 

 

If I send you a trade offer and I don't get a response after 2-3 days, I'll cancel the offer and will never deal with you again; ignoring all future offers from said person. And I remember every single prick in every league. 

 

Most of us are/should be functioning working adults. Checking emails at least once a day should be a given. 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Gryfter

[bhawks489 3,679]

Ill let them sit if the same person keeps sending me the same trades or if the offer is laughably bad.

[ccimore 385]

If it's a bad offer, I want that shiz rejected as soon as possible.  A few years ago, I had my phone in my pocket, and through some sort of black pocket magic, I somehow dropped my tight end.  I messaged the league and said it was a mistake.  Commissioner reversed it.  But ya I dont mess around with crappy trade offers. 

[jmcampbe11 1,037]

1 hour ago, harck said:

Most of my best trades have come from counter-offers back and forth leading up to something reasonable. Think people truly miss out when they scoff at every offer right off the bat; I always shoot over a counter-offer even on the worst trade requests.

 

This 1,000 times offer. If the trade offer is outlandish just politely decline and tell them "I think we're too far apart to work something out". If it's just a bit lopsided, but the other owner has players that you're interested in, make them a counter offer. Or better yet, send them feedback and let them know who you are / aren't interested in and who you're willing to trade. If you give the other owner feedback you empower them to make better trade offers. That's why ignoring trade offers is just an a$$hole move. The only time it's acceptable is is if you've given the other owner feedback and they continue to make terrible trade offers. 

[CharlesCC2 840]

If possible I prefer reaching out to people outside of the app for trade offers.  In person, over the phone, text, FB message, whatever means.  I feel like people are much more willing to negotiate when there's a stream of communication aside from trade offers, and people are less likely to offer laughable trades that they know they should be ashamed of offering.

But if I get a trade offer I know there's zero chance of me accepting I shoot it down the moment I realize its dead to me.  I try to keep things respectable with league mates, even when the offers made are borderline insulting.

Edited November 1, 2020 by CharlesCC2