Organizing Sales and Trades

I have several pieces of electronic equipment which I have posted on several internet classifieds too sell. I've just gotten a couple offers that I intend to accept, but I needed some help.

How do I go about making sure I don't get screwed. What is the etiquette for internet sales? Do I ship first and wait for payment, or vice versa? In other words, how do I get my money?

rs2sensen said:

I have several pieces of electronic equipment which I have posted on several internet classifieds too sell. I've just gotten a couple offers that I intend to accept, but I needed some help.

How do I go about making sure I don't get screwed. What is the etiquette for internet sales? Do I ship first and wait for payment, or vice versa? In other words, how do I get my money?

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If you are trading online, you should absolutely be using a legitimate feedback system, such as heatware.com. Also, you should trade the items in a well-visited and well-moderated forums. I would suggest the For Sale / For Trade sections at http://forums.anandtech.com and http://hardforum.com. Both of these forums have rules to protect both you and the seller. Please make sure that you read them and follow them to keep things safe and fun for everyone.

Also, the trollhunters are a group of individuals that help people caught up in bad trades. Their website has great suggestions for being safe when buying and selling online. http://www.trollhunters.com.

Try and use paypal. I got screwed out of my money and paypal totally refunded it for me. You can use paypal for any sort of money transfer it doesn't have to be ebay.

Wait to get all your money before you post anything! If the buyer sends cheque then wait for it to clear even if this means waiting 5 working days or whatever for it. Clearly state in your adverts that you're going to wait for money to be transferred before anything is sent. If they choose a slow method then thats there problem don't make it yours. Don't send stuff first. It leaves you very vulnerable.

Even if the sites that you post on look good it only take one waster to screw you so my advise to you is to be very very careful and cautious about this. If something sounds just not quite right then it’s probably not so just walk away.

This is the biggest problem. When I was on eBay, it was always payment first-either PayPal or by mail, and then it was Postal Money Orders only. If you are doing a swap, what I've done is agreed to send the stuff out at the same time and then we call from the post office with tracking info.

Nothing beats having somebody hand you cash, although if you don't care to meet people or on a tight schedule this is not a good alternative.