Has anyone sold over $35k worth of equipment over the net? How do you protect yourself?
I currently own a Moon 861 amp. I am considering buying a Moon 891 preamp/streamer. Sometimes, I get a bit nervous owning this much in gear. If I ever wanted to sell it, we are talking about $35k payment through paypal or a like service. I read where a buyer could dispute the transaction with their bank even if they bought it through paypal (or zelle) and the seller would lose the money.
Has anyone else sold this much in gear before over the net? How do you handle this kind of risk?
100% @bigtwin For smaller purchases, PP F/F is fine. Anything major, wire transfer, or cash on pick up. It is up to the buyer to vet the seller through conversation, feedback, etc. Always ship fully insured, after payment received and cleared into your account. Many will ask you to devalue the shipment to save them on duties or taxes. Don't do that. I recently sold high value speakers to Taiwan; the buyer completely trusted me based on USAudiomart feedback. |
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More like 15K of gear in this market :p There’s no way to 100% de-risk anything. That said, I’ve sold a lot of audio components over the years (always at a loss), certainly into 6-figures, and no incidents of note. I’ve only ever sold through dedicated hifi audio marketplaces: e.g. here (audiogon), usam, head-fi. That’s a decent 1st filter. Next, you judge the potential buyer. All-green if their communication is good and feedback is 100%. I’ve sold to members with no feedback before, but I’m very wary of anyone with a NEW account and no feedback. If they communicate poorly, request anything weird, or I just simply get annoyed by them - I STOP communicating. It’s really that easy. You get to be as picky as you like up front, BEFORE money changes hands. I generally use PayPal, and don’t require friends & family. Probably your bigger risk here is damage or loss in transity, and there UPS and FedEx are pretty good in my experience. I’ve had UPS lose a VPI speed controller - that’s it. Either use factory packing or do a REALLY good job. |
What @mulveling said. +1 |
Having just recently gone through selling a fairly expensive car in doing my research really only a couple fail safe ways to do this. One is wire transfer, two is cash but you better have black light for checking forged bills. Anything printed on paper is liable to be forged so no cashiers check, on checks of any king. None of these apps such as Zelle, PP, Venmo are absolutely safe either. I ended up selling car locally using cashiers check, met purchaser at his credit union, they printed out cashiers check in front of me. I deposited immediately into my checking account at my bank, before I could withdraw any cash they had to speak via telephone to credit union cashiers check was drawn on, the teller stated she had seen too many sad tales of forged cashiers checks, thus this policy.
As for audio purchases and sales, I've never had an issue. I look for plenty of feedback and personal contact, paypal ff only when I'm completely sure. I also purchase perhaps half my items from dealers, willing to pay a bit more for the peace of mind and ease of transactions. |
