ebay vs audiogon

Bigjoe - I am a new Audiogon member in the process of completing my first Audiogon purchase, so you have infinitely more experience in the selling/buying process than I do. However, I question your dismissal of escrow because it is “the fasting growing scam out there with copy cat names.” There is no reason for a savvy seller to end up dealing with a “copy cat” or “fake” escrow company. First, Audiogon has a direct link on its Help page to Escrow.com, one of the largest escrow companies. Second, if a buyer insists on escrow, you, as the seller, should insist on choosing the escrow company or give the buyer a choice of several legitimate escrow companies. If the seller limits the choice of escrow company to legitimate escrow companies, I doubt there is a way the buyer can highjack the transaction and move it to a sham or fake escrow company. Of course, this approach requires you to use Escrow.com or research and select other escrow companies in advance of placing your ad. You may not want to spend that time and effort.

In a related thread, “What is it with Scams,” a post on 03/01/05 by Ga5556 suggests a scam that might be worked into the fabric of a legitimate escrow: a phony e-mail from
the escrow company. In the case of the seller being scammed, the phony e-mail would confirm that the buyer’s funds were good and instruct the seller to ship the quipment. I don’t know how ingenious scammers are in creating fake e-mails, but it seems to me the seller could sniff out a fake e-mail by comparing its origin with the origin of legitimate e-mails from the escrow company. Also, a separate e-mail (not a response to the suspected e-mail) or a telephone call from the seller to the escrow company asking for confirmation should be enough to uncover a fake e-mail instruction to ship.

There may be other reasons why you do not like to use escrow companies, like slower completion of the deal and the escrow fee, but I think concerns about a fake escrow company or fake e-mails can be eliminated with a small amount of effort.

One problem area I would have about using an escrow as a seller is the acceptance of credit card payment by escrow. Escrow.com accepts credit cards and its FAQ does not
discuss the ability of the buyer’s credit card company to yank back or "freeze" the funds after the equipment has been shipped. If an escrow company told me that it could not stop funds paid by credit card from being pulled out of escrow or being "frozen," I would not use escrow unless the escrow instructions for my sale specified that payment by credit card would not be allowed.

Incidentally, I think escrow avoids a “partial refund” claim of the type described in your 02/26/05 post to this thread. As I understand the escrow process, the buyer has a set period of time after delivery to accept or reject the item. If the buyer does not notify escrow that there is a problem, escrow automatically forwards all the money to the seller. If the buyer rejects the item, the buyer does not get a refund until the seller confirms receipt of the returned equipment. There is no procedure for a “part payment/part refund” - it’s either all or nothing. And at no time is the buyer allowed to have both the item and his money (provided the credit card issue discussed in the prior paragraph is eliminated).

A further thought on the “partial refund” transaction that was described in your post. That transaction was concluded face-to-face, so the seller could have put the amp into
his system and played it for the buyer just to confirm that it was in working order before handing it over. Of course, that wouldn’t have prevented the buyer from later lying
about the condition of the amp when it was handed over, but it would have given the seller some additional ammunition. If the seller really wanted to protect himself, he could have asked the buyer to sign a receipt confirming that: (i) the amp was delivered and (ii) the buyer had listened to the amp and it was in working order. This may sound a little over the top, but if you conclude a deal in person, you might as well get all the advantages it offers over transactions that involve shipping. The ability to confirm the condition of the equipment at the time of delivery to the buyer is one of those advantages (for both sides). Also keep in mind that a seller who ships has the carrier's receipt to prove that he shipped the equipment and maybe a tracking report or carrier’s record to prove it was delivered. As a seller in a face-to-face deal, you have neither, so you should create a receipt to at least verify delivery.

I don’t claim to be an expert, so any additional comments you can provide would be welcome.

Bigjoe - Thanks for your very informative welcome to Audiogon. I have two comments and a question.

Comment:
Although I am a recent member of Audiogon, I have been reading the Discussion Forums, particular Miscellaneous Audio, for almost two years. Every post I have read that mentioned escrow just referred to it in passing. Yours is the first post that discusses how it works in practice and examines it in detail from both sides. As a seller, you’re not worried about being scammed but don’t want to waste your time weeding out scam offers and having lookey-loo buyers audition your equipment. Perhaps you could discourage the scammers by stating in your ad that the only escrow company you will use is ***********, but I don’t see an easy answer to the problem of the equipment being auditioned. Having to pay the return shipping fee may deter people deliberately trying to audition the equipment, but it won’t deter a legitimate buyer who sincerely intended to buy the piece and then found out it doesn’t transform his system as he had hoped it would. Paying a shipping fee is a lot less than paying $2,000, $4,000 or more for a piece of equipment you no longer want. The only thing I can think of is a penalty payment (to be deducted from the buyer’s refund from escrow) if the equipment is returned for any reason other than damage, but that might be an incentive for the buyer to allege damage or actually damage the equipment so as to avoid the penalty.

Comment:
I agree with you 100% that when equipment is picked up in person, payment should be cash or a cash equivalent. When dealing face-to-face, each party should get its side of the bargain concurrently. The buyer gets possession of the equipment and the seller should get final payment. If either of the parties is nervous about dealing with a large amount of cash and a branch of the buyer’s bank is nearby the place of delivery, before exchanging the equipment for a bank check, the seller can go with the buyer to the buyer’s bank and watch the check being drawn, thus eliminating all questions about forgery (I almost made a purchase from a seller who lives nearby and was prepared to offer to do this). Now that the buyer has no ability to mess with the payment, the buyer might want assurance that the equipment at least works before turning over a good check or his cash. Playing the equipment in the seller’s system would serve this purpose. That’s not an audition, because it’s not in the buyer’s system, and the seller’s system would be run only for a minute or two to demonstrate that the equipment works properly - it would not be a listening session.

Question:
You say that you like to be paid by C.O.D. Several posters who used C.O.D. have told of being ripped off by NSF checks, phony money orders or phony bank checks that are given to the carrier. Sometimes the carrier’s delivery person doesn’t follow instructions about pament and sometimes the payment is a forgery. How do you deal with this problem? Anyone else have a comment about C.O.D. payments?