Posted by Sherman in Idaho [162.158.255.7] on Sunday, January 03, 2016 at 18:48:48 :
In Reply to: purchases posted by Jerry in Idaho [108.162.221.14] on Sunday, January 03, 2016 at 15:28:31 :
My feelings and practices vary depending on the value and scarcity of the item, how far away the person is, whether I know anyone who knows them, etc. Conventional practice is to have the buyer send payment before the seller ships. This is how all big businesses do it unless you have an open account with them. Anything out of the ordinary arouses suspicion.
If in a private party sale somebody asked me to send the item before they would send payment (by check, no less), I'd drop the deal. In my experience, the people who are the most suspicious of others are the ones you have to look out for. It's the guy who has thought through ever angle of how I might try to cheat him who is probably going to try to cheat me.
I had one guy, when I was selling a large lot of something on ebay, say that not only was I to ship everything to him before he paid for it, but he would go through and decide how many of the items were good enough for him and pay me accordingly once he got them. Needless to say I didn't even waste my time replying.
There are all kinds of reasons to not want to pay for used or surplus items up front, if you think they might not be good, but the only reasonable way around that is to go look at it yourself before you buy.