Selling Or Buying Process?

[Jillser Nic Amhlaoibh]

As someone who's only recently joined the site a few months ago it's been interesting to read this thread - I'm a longtime member over at the Mandolin Cafe, and I guess online purchasing between private parties is more common in the mandolin world (as is a sometimes obsessive compulsion to "catch and release" mandolins: buying with the intent of playing it for awhile and then moving it on to buy one by a different maker or a different style). I've both bought and sold many mandolins, all online, and a few tenor banjos too, all instruments with values between $1200-$3500. The arrangement has always been payment via PayPal , with the purchaser getting 48 hour approval period starting upon receiving the instrument. When it's an instrument I've sold I never remove the funds from my PayPal account until after the approval period is complete. Once I know the buyer is satisfied only then will I transfer the $$ into my bank account. It's definitely nerve-wracking packing up a nice instrument and hoping that it survives the handling of whatever method of shipment I've chosen (generally UPS or USPS). Touch wood I've never packed an instrument up and had the buyer receive it damaged. I did once have a guy from England ship a banjo to me in Ireland and it arrived at my rural local post office without a case or box of any kind, simply wrapped in brown paper! Amazingly it was all in one piece!

[ceemonster]

I favor the four-hour drive, with extra treats built in to the excursion along the way. Second choice is escrow, but FYI, can't find the news story at this second, but there have been recent reports of scam online escrow companies. So there's vetting to be done for the escrow service as well as the instrument.

[Anglo-Irishman]

I remember the days when quality seond-hand goods, like musical instruments, were offered in the classified advertisements section of the local newspaper. This limited the distance between the seller and the potential buyer to a short drive, or even a local-transport bus journey, so viewing and trying out the article in question was no great impediment. In fact, I bought two banjos that way about 25 years ago.

Another aspect was that a local seller might have a reputation - good or bad - in town, and if you asked around a bit, you might find out whether he was easy to deal with.

 

Now, with the Internet, buyer and seller are often on different continents, or at opposite ends of a country, so viewing is out of the question. However, the question of the seller's character is, in a way, easier now than it used to be.

I've bought two concertinas via the Internet, but in both cases, I "knew somebody who knew" the seller. Cnet is the crux. There are so many postings about positive or negative experiences in buying off particular people - some of whom are themselves Cnetters - that one develops a "gut feeling" about who is safe to deal with and who might not be. Both my purchases were satisfactory.

 

And I've had the same experience with autoharps and autoharp parts. Here, it was the cyberpluckers mailing-list that provided the necessary confidence in certain vendors.

 

In short, the Internet solves the problems that we wouldn't have if we hadn't got the Internet!

 

But on the whole, finding and purchasing a good concertina is easier now than in pre-Internet days, IMHO

 

Cheers,

John.

[Button Pusher]

I am currently involved in a purchase of a concertina advertised on this site. We agreed to use Cash on Delivery (C.O.D.) via one of 3 common carriers. The USPS does COD's less than $1000 cash or larger amounts by various types of checks. UPS also does COD deliveries, but does not accept cash, checks only. We choose FedEx COD for the transaction because they accept larger amounts of cash for payment than any of the other services. Making a purchase COD using cash protects the seller from bogus checks and insures the buyer the instrument is delivered prior to paying for it. The downside is, the buyer has to depend on the seller to accurately describe the instrument condition and playability. In my case the seller was a member of this site, and I could trace the instrument back to the builder to verify it was indeed what was advertised. Not a perfect solution, but better for the buyer and seller than blind trust.

Update on FedEx C.O.D. Policy: Turns out FedEx does not accept cash after all only checks. In addition after being told by FedEx Shipping office that the receiver of a package could inspect it prior to accepting the deliver is wrong. When the concertina arrived from the seller, the driver refused to allow the an inspection until after I gave him the bank check and signed as accepting the shipment. FedEx needs to get their story straight between phone customer service, shipping offices and the driver. In the end everything worked out OK with the shipment, but only because the seller took a "blind leap of faith" and accepted a bank check and the buyer (me) gave in an accepted the delivery without being able to inspect it. Again, not a perfect solution, but still slightly better than sending a large check to someone you met on a internet forum chat room and hope they send you an instrument.