Selling large ticket items on eBay (how to avoid getting scammed-R)
Brian
7,618 Posts
Hey, I haven't sold anything on eBay for a while. I'm strongly considering getting rid of all my production hardware (mostly synths and drum machines.) Everything I throw on eBay will be at least a thousand dollars so I'm a little worried about getting ripped off. How do I get around the whole "hey we're freezing your money for 21 days but you still gotta ship the item" bullshit and is there anything else I should look out for? I have some leads on some buyers already but just wanna prepare in the event that I need to throw shit up on eBay. Thanks.
Comments
local swap meet/flea
there is no real way to avoid the fuckery of ebay/paypal
if they want to hold your money you are beat
odds are in your favor that there will be no problems IN THE LONG RUN
but they [ebay/paypal/customers] might make you sweat a little
once you sign on especially as a newbie you are their profit puppet
Also if you pay for shipping through ebay it gets pulled from the payment before the hold. Hope this info helps...
thanks
Mark your schitt before it goes out so you do end up with your product back if there is a return.
Take multiple pictures.
Expect to give partial refunds to make people happy.
I sold some hefty car parts in the past, been thru the bullschitt with car guys. They are scammers. They like to trick you
with their old parts as evidence of your parts being delivered as broken or not to your description.
Pack well, be a good communicator, post your phone number, get their phone number, keep all transcripts of communication.
One horror story, I heard was dude selling a $5000 pinball machine, shipped it, dude received it, 2 months later said it didn't work, ebay took the buyers side, two months later! extreme case but you get the picture.
Post your schitt on here, facebook, other music forums, & craigslist. Schitt will sell.
This won't do anything as they can freeze money from your attached account.
My attached account is a credit card, if I think I'm being big time scammed just report the card lost or stolen to the bank so they issue new one with different number, game over
Again, that won't do anything.
If you think Paypal hasn't anticipated shit like this, you're tripping.
I hate to keep squashing people's dreams, but this won't do a lot either.
If Paypal decides to recover $1000 from you from a transaction, but you only have $100 in your bank account, you still owe them the difference and not paying it will be just like not paying a credit card bill.
Or, if you have $900 or more in overdraft protection on your account, your bank will give that to them and you'll owe your bank the money.
I would strongly consider selling it locally, especially considering that it's gear and not records (am I correct?).
Yes, you might not get as much $$$$ as you would on eBay, but you get paid in cash and that's that.
Say you sell a synth for $2000 on ebay: i believe the fees are around 15% of that, Paypal takes another 4 or 5%, you have the tension of possible chargebacks, etc... you could also sell it locally or here for $1500 and be done with it :-)
but won't some CCs, like AmEx, cover some bullshit like this for you?
i thought AmEx had this "i got your back" thing going.
i mean, not every time, but maybe once?
As far as seling locally goes, I might be able to unload some of this stuff but I've had trouble selling stuff in the past so I might have to resort to eBay. Unreal that I can give someone a 20ish% discount locally and still come out the same as selling it on eBay though.
to be honest its safer for delicate electrical items anyway