I haven’t used ebay or paypal in years…is Paypal more or less required? Last time I used ebay I think I sent a cashier’s check in the mail.
Also, do they allow other options like Amazon or Google payments, or anything like that?
Those are competitors, so no. It’s up to the seller what payment format he/she will accept, but I believe the seller has to at least offer Paypal as a payment method (for sure that’s the case for international purchases). Many US sellers will accept cashier’s checks/money orders, etc. from US purchasers though.
I was a periodic purchaser on ebay over the past 10 years or so, and only had one negative experience (seller was clearly knowingly selling a damaged item and pretending it got damaged in transit – I called him on it and he quickly conceded and gave me a satisfactory rebate). Then in the last 90 days I started selling things as well (initially to raise funds for the Project Eternity Kickstarter), and it’s been an eye opening experience - at least 10% of “purchases” are never completed, as the “buyer” is either bidding on multiple auctions for the same item and just completing the cheapest one, or just seeing what price he/she can get the item for and THEN deciding whether or not to complete the sale. I had to sell a WoW:CE three times in order to finally get a sale completed, which was particularly annoying since I’d already contributed the anticipated proceeds to Project Eternity.
Plus international shipping costs from Canada are so absurd ($50+ to send something to Europe with a delivery time of 4-6 weeks(!) if the item weighs more than 2kg, like many collector’s edition games) which seems to cause a lot of animosity from potential buyers, as if that’s something within the seller’s control.
Becoming a seller is like riding public transit - you quickly realize how many jerks there are in the world.
Just curious. where is a good portal to sell semi costly collectables? If not e-bay
To me Craigslist seems like 10x the risk of ebay and paypal. Instead of risking having something stolen, instead you’re risking getting getting mugged or worse.
I’ve sold stuff on Craigslist a number of times. I always take a friend with me and we meet the buyer some place public with people. I actually choose a movie theater whenever possible because several of the ones around here will have a cop on duty during the prime time hours, plus then I can go see a movie after getting my money.
Yeah, I’m happy that I live in an apartment building with a controlled-access lobby for the few times that I’ve sold things via Craigslist. You call me and say you’re on your way, I meet you in the lobby with the item, you never get in my home. No sweat.
If you’re smart craigslist is as safe as can be. Well populated areas, daytime, bring a friend, etc. Add the fact that this area is extremely low crime and there’d be a dozen bored cops waiting for some moron to pull a gun around here, I’d say I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than getting hurt using Craigslist. I’ve been using it for years, I even got my current house through it, and have never had anything resembling an issue.
I find your country scary, when I read stuff like this. I don’t have anything to add other than that, but man…doesnt it burn you guys that it has to be like that?
“just use well populated areas” “daytime” “areas where there are bored cops” “bring a friend”
This shit sounds absolutely insane to me (and utterly horrifying) - is crime that prevalent that you need to do these things? What the hell are you selling, bullion? What value?
Well, the opposite would be driving out to an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere without telling anyone you were going… that’s how horror movies begin.
You are actually making it sound far worse than it is. I live at X, the buyer says they live in Y area, I pick a movie theater somewhere starting halfway between us and moving toward me (or just one near both of us). I bring my wife or a friend with me to go see a movie. I meet the buyer on the curb outside the theater, do the exchange, then my companion and I see a movie.
What I don’t do is agree to meet in unlit unpopulated areas after dark, because that’s just common sense.
The craigslist stuff is more of a common sense issue. I’ve bought and sold stuff like video games and generally prefer to meet at a convenience store because if either side pulls anything there are cameras and employees. I’ve sold furniture that way and one thing that makes me feel safer about random people coming in my house is answering the door holding back a german shepherd that loses her shit when someone she doesn’t know comes to the door.
Or maybe I’m just not a very trusting soul.
I met a dude from craig’s list to sell my 3GS iPhone. It was the closest I’ve come to a drug transaction in a quite a while. I met him in the turn around in front of the building where I work. He asked to see the phone and I held it up. I asked to see the money and he held it up. I asked him to count it. The agreed price was like $200 or something and after all this counting he’s short 40. WTF? I put the phone in my pocket and walk away and he’s like, “No, wait, wait.” Waiving 40 more dollars in the air. He acted all irritated with me. He’s like we have to negotiate! Pfft.
I had a similar exchange when I bought my iPhone 4. Some dude bought it new and used it for a few days before his 5 came in (that was his story, anyway), then sold it on Craigslist for $200.
We met in a parking lot and exchanged items. It all felt really shady. Still, I got an almost new iPhone4 for $200.
Yeah, some of it is just common sense, but it’s common sense borne of lots of bad exchanges. I’d have been in a much worse position if I’d have exchanged the phone and then discovered the money was short. And with a big stack of bills it takes a few seconds to do the count. I’m not saying he was going to rip me off, but it didn’t feel too legit either.
Key is to meet them at your convenience. Basically, you know the price and can walk away without much hassle. ;)
Dick move. There’s nothing wrong with haggling, but that should be done before you’ve gone to the effort to meet them in person. And it’s especially shitty to brazenly attempt to short the amount.
I actually have people come to my house to buy stuff from craigslist frequently. I buy HDMI cables in bulk online to sell locally, but I just don’t make enough money on them to be driving all over town for meetings. I ask if they’re comfortable coming to my house. If they’re not I offer to meet them at a nearby Walmart. That’s generally the range I’m willing to accept for a sale.
Update:
Guy paid right away, and I sent the laptop, which got delivered the next day. We gave one another good feedback, funds cleared paypal and are in my bank account.
He got a good gaming laptop that I hadn’t used more than 4 or 5 times in the last year or so, I got cash, everybody happy.
ALSO: Some friends were over two weekends ago and noticed that I have like 8 bottles of Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Family Reserve. For a while I was getting 2 bottles per year, and maybe drinking 1. “You should sell one of those on Ebay” says a friend. So…I tried. Turns out that even if you advertise the bottle as empty on Ebay, they’re smarter than that and will take down your auction.
At this point though I’ve got a bee in my bonnet to sell a bottle, so I listed it on Craigslist, had about 6 offers in three hours, and did an easy face-to-face transaction at the foodcourt outside the movie theater at the local mall. Also an easy transaction. Buyer was a nice, normal dude who wanted some elite bourbon, and I was a guy looking to sell an extra bottle. I’m one bottle of Pappy poorer, but $500 richer. So that’s good.
Oh, and just to be an absolute dick since my auction for an empty collectible bottle was removed and I was threatened with an account suspension, I’m having fun reporting all the other “empty collectible bottle” auctions on Ebay right now.
It’s illegal to sell booze on ebay? I guess that makes sense. I had an auction pulled once before for selling pokerstars “play money” chips. Some of the new seller limits are pretty annoying (you can only list 5 games every 30 days, for instance, even if those are sold and you’ve received positive feedback for all of them), and ebay just holds onto the money for 21 days even though it charges you its listing/paypal fees.
Glad your laptop sale went well - I have to think most people are decent and honest, and that experience is going to be typical. But dishonest or unethical people will always try to exploit loopholes or people for short term gain. Still, it’s great to have outlets like ebay/amazon/craiglist – they’re great resources for buyers and make it a lot easier to sell items for a worthwhile return than the “pre-1995” methods of garage sales and classified ads.
O.k., re-reading this thread and am now a bit concerned about one of my current auctions as a seller – I’m selling a bunch more games to raise money for the Torment and Shroud of the Avatar kickstarter – not really that concerned about those, as I don’t expect to many will sell, and I’ve probably overpriced many (either kept my more valuable stuff or sold it already to raise money for Project Eternity), but have a few old 1980s SSI AD&D games, some UO stuff and Origin’s OGRE (seemed apt to give money back to Shroud of Eternity) and old SSI wargames, if anyone curious: http://www.ebay.com/sch/thedesslock/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686
But my concern is, while going through my shelves for this fundraising effort, I realized that I had some hardware just sitting around collecting dust, including an ATI 5970 2GB GPU – kept it, I guess, for backup, or to put in another desktop I have set up that I used to play LAN games on, but haven’t really done that in at least 10 years – realized that the 5970 was selling on ebay these days for about $400, and figured, hell, that’s probably a lot more worthwhile selling than any of the games. And that turned out to be true - there’s dozens of watchers for that item, and 10 bids in the first 24 hours.
Here’s where I need some advice – the first bidder had a feedback rating of (0), which concerned me. Then he was topped by a guy who had a rating of (-1). Finally, the current leading bidder has a feedback of (+5), which at least is some history. I’ve looked at the other GPU auctions around, and the bids seem to mostly be from guys with almost no history, or a negative history. I deliberately blocked anyone with negative strikes (but all you can do is block people with 2 strikes in the past 6 months, which isn’t much) or a rating of -2 or worse (again, the best you can do). All the bidders so far are from the US - no exotic locations.
Questions:
- under what circumstances would you not ship to a buyer, assuming he paid, because you were concerned of fraud?
- it doesn’t seem possible to avoid the “item not as described” scam, based upon the anecdotes above, or are there steps which I can take to avoid that trap? Don’t send to a non-confirmed paypal address, for instance, or to someone with a goofy phone number? Film the packaging of the item and mailing? Require signature on receipt? Insurance?