buyer question

A seller agrees to the terms of the service, in this case Audiogon, prior to listing. Conducting transactions outside of Audiogon after using Audiogon services to sell your item is 1) against the terms of usage and could/should get you banned 2) unethical no matter how you look at it 3) cheats Audiogon out of the funds that keep this site open and working for us. 

If the seller wants to avoid any fees, he/she is free to start their own trading exchange.

I would tell the seller to complete the sale on Audiogon or back out. Otherwise you have zero recourse should he turn out to be a fraudster. These rules are in place for everyone’s protection. If he gets snippy or threatens to write bad feedback, contact Audiogon support with the documentation trail and they will help you. They are very nice people.

Good luck.

Thanks everyone .

I have over 900 transactions on eBay with 100% perfect feedback. I've been buying and selling on line for many years.  I totally agree with the advice you received here.

Good advice but I have one comment. I have found the Audiogon email system to be unreliable. I have generally traded actual email addresses early in the process and communicated that way.

When you look at the listing/selling infrastructure and level of service that Audiogon provides it is just absurd to try to cheat them out of their fees. We need them to survive over the long term and that takes money.