Buying and selling expensive kit, whether its UAVs, cameras or electronic geat can be easy - or a nightmare.
As a buyer I get really frustrated when there is stuff I want several hundred miles away and the seller refuses to post or to allow a courier to collect the item for me. The cost of driving to collect outweighs the value of the item to me. And surely sellers will do better by agreeing to post as it gets them a far wider pool of potential buyers.
As a seller I always worry that the buyer will somehow crash / wrongly assemble / drop or somehow mishandle an item I’ve sold and then try and claim it was broken when I sent it.
Some buyers are a pain if they do make a house call, having agreed the price to buy they then make the journey with the expectation of beating me down by a hefty percentage.
Having said that I have had most dealings on eBay at a distance - both buying and selling - andthe vast majority have been fine.
I’ve used eBay for loads of things, buying and selling expensive camera kit computers and never had trouble, I refuse to take payment outside of eBay/PayPal as you then have no comeback.
I have bought a few things from collect only sellers by getting a courier to pick it up at a conveient time for them.
Follow eBay rules and you will be fine, that’s my experience.
As long as a good feedback rating on ebay and pay via paypal and that way you are covered, perhaps if its miles away then maybe you know someone close by that could collect and post ? or would there be a way to start a collection by members etc those that want to help do so ???
NEVER post a car or th like on gumtree with a phone number as they are screened by cash for crash scammers for IV and personal data is stolen and scammers.
Also not sure but when selling the paypal scam where they send a fake email saying funds are on hold until you pay for collection or after you have posted it, paypal never hold money so beware.
Its hard to convey ones self on a text format so I always try and get a phone number at the very least and talk to the seller/buyer.
I was very nervous about sending my M2Z off to the eBay buyer in case I got scammed. Did what due diligence I could think of like checking out their address on Streetview to make sure it existed and wasn’t a lockup or something, googling them to see if there were any red flags, checking their feedback (I don’t put any faith in positives as they can be bought, but negatives would make me pause)… but at the end of the day, it was mostly just paying for the insurance from the courier and hoping for the best.
I have, back in the early days of eBay before they had much buyer protection from PayPal, been scammed out of about £300 I paid for a lens for my DSLR. eBay weren’t interested. The police told me there was nothing they could do about online fraud (this really was the early days of eBay). I ended up tracking the buyer down online and found he was on the committee of his local cricket club. Didn’t see a penny of the money back, but I took great pleasure in emailing all the other members of the committee with details of his scam. One of them did reply after speaking to the guy… I definitely got my man.
On the subject of collecting from sellers… have a relative who did quite a bit of buying on Facebook Marketplace recently. More than half the people she went to collect from tried to change the price when she arrived at their door.
My mate use to sell electrical refurbs etc on ebay, he gave up as almost everyone of them he sent to London a case was opened against him as not as described, after a long battle he would get the items back missing ram, CPU’s etc and tuned out the buyers had 2 accounts…1 to buy and 1 to repair laptops etc ! eBay as ever helpfull just did not listen to him and refnded the buyer ever time…possibly like 100 times.
I sold some BMW E38 LED tail lights 2018 and 1 week after they were sent a case was opened against me “not as described” “not working” I sent a message to the buyer saying that I had removed them from my car and they were 100% and could I help in any way…no reply, the following week I noticed he lived in Southampton and offered to collect and refund the money.no reply, eBay ever helpfull gave me another week before they refund so I went down and knocked his door ! BMW E38 sat outside with LED tail lamps on…strange ??? he answered and I asked if he were the name I posted to he said yes and I asked him what was wrong with them ? he went a bit white in the face and I asked if they were mine on his car ? he said yes and all sorted now thank you…I made him close the case in front of me !