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I would be reluctant to ship without a cleared payment first if it wasn't a well known member with established feedback. Too many scammers out there.

As a new guy who just made his first purchase, I have to say I wouldn't expect shipment until my check cleared. I opted to use money orders for payment to avoid check concerns. If I were selling I would wait until the check cleared.
 
Lol, you know you can deposit a check remotely, right? How do you get your mail, Pony Express?...

Some of us might have been using computers since before screens came in more than two colors. But whatever.

Ok, sounds reasonable. Have you been scammed?

I have been scammed though not by selling something and shipping it. There's lots of ways to do it. The ugliest scam I got caught in was when I paid someone by check through my business, they told me the check got lost and asked for a replacement, so I canceled the check at my bank and dutifully replaced the check. It was a couple grand. A few weeks later I got a message from one of those check cashing outfits saying that a check I signed had been returned and they wanted the money. It was the check I canceled with my bank, I explained that to them, and then they explained to me what "holder in due course" means -- what it means is that under the law of checks, I was bubblegumed. So I ended up paying that bill twice. No kidding -- that's the effing law. § 3-302. HOLDER IN DUE COURSE. If they took a check and had no reason to believe that it was bad by looking at the check, they get the money.

Lot's of scammers out there and handing over the goods with one hand while taking cash with the other is one way to avoid them. It does however bring up the risk of being robbed. So there's always bad with the good.
 
What is it with people not being willing to ship in the classifieds?

Because I like cash
Also I get to meet some decent folks, but mostly because I like cash
 
Lol, you know you can deposit a check remotely, right? How do you get your mail, Pony Express? You can print a label and the P.O. will come pick it up. Of course I know there's some old guys who probably don't know how to even turn on a computer, so there is that.

Funny too that the people unwilling to ship are usually the same ones bumping their adds every chance possible.
Old guy here, I was writing code before a lot of you were born(DOS) on an osborne and a trs80. Go ahead look them up I'll wait. You were still examining the poo you pulled outa your diaper when I was on the internet in the nineties. I am also old enough and experienced enough to know that nothing is secure and the only way to judge the mettle of a man is to look him in the eye. I only shop online when I can have some degree of security, and the amounts involved aren't of much consequence.
 
The issue is the opposite for me: People don't want me to ship and I live in NC so not shipping is an issue. I can easily go to a UPS or USPS location to ship.

Course, due to work time is an issue. If you buy from me, it could be weeks or two months before I can ship something out.
 
What is it with people not being willing to ship in the classifieds?

Because I like cash
Also I get to meet some decent folks, but mostly because I like cash

Cash is king. As mentioned, there are too many ways for non-cash payments to be scammed. And yes, money orders can be forged - anything can be forged (yes, including cash, but I have yet to be scammed with counterfeit cash).
 
Shipping introduces all sorts of ways the transaction can go wrong that are out of my control. Scammers, lost shipments, damage..etc.

If I meet a person and hand them the item, they can inspect it, and pay me cash. Transaction done. We walk away happy.

It is not that shipping is hard, it is that it complicates the transaction and I have no time or patience to deal with a sale that gets mangled because of the unknowns shipping introduces. Taking a half hour to go meet someone local is waaaaayyyyy easier than dealing with UPS or FedEx to figure out where my package went or who damaged it. Every bad or failed sale I have ever had included shipping. I'm done with it.
 
FWIW, I have accepted electronic payment for years with zero takers.

Shipping firearms is an incredible hassle. The last time I shipped a rifle some mouthy virtue signaling bee-yotch at Fedex was giving me a hard time. If I was going to do this again I'd rather just sell on Gunbroker and make 15-20% more and faster than I do here.
 
A couple of months ago I shipped and item that 50% of what I sold it for was the shipping cost. The buyer did low ball me on the first offer and then I relented on the second offer. My bad! If I had known the shipping cost, it would have been cheaper to trash the item. And going forward that is what I probably do. When I ask a fair price (no gouging, or 'what ever the market will bear' etc.) I will choose the benefits or lack thereof of 'shipping'. I like having items shipped to me and will respond in kind BUT it is my option.
 
There is no such thing as "Free" shipping. Someone will pay it because the USPS, UPS, Fedex, etc., won't work for free. When I sell stuff online, I practically never list an item with so-called free shipping. Just about anything over a pound in weight will be zone rated so not knowing where it will be going in the country means you won't know how much the shipping will cost. Being located on the west coast, you are guaranteed to have some buyers all the way across country in Zone 8, maximum shipping cost. I guess some sellers might try to average shipping costs over X number of transactions. That's too inexact for me. But a good deal of this is avoided by using USPS flat rate packaging. I specify shipping charges on small parcels, too. Which as a class/category, have experienced higher rate increases several times running as the PO discovered the true costs of processing them. I have a very good sell-through rate on stuff that I list. But then again, nearly all of it is one-off, it's not like I have 40 foot containers full of the same thing with lots of on-line competitors. There aren't a lot of buying options for what I sell.

I wonder at those exorbitant shipping costs that you sometimes see quoted. You have to wonder what the seller is thinking. Are they expecting some fool to not see the shipping cost and buy the thing unaware? That just leads to trouble.

Did I mention that I sold items on Ebay? Items that had to be shipped?

Yah, there is no "free" in this world. Duh. Especially when the govt talks about "free healthcare, free college, free housing, free food, free stimulus money, etc etc etc".

When I sold items on Ebay, it was easier for me to use the flat rate shipping, include the cost in the price of the item, and advertise "free shipping" because it attracts buyers and free shipping is what the lions share of Ebay buyers want. Gunbroker buyers are just the opposite, we expect to pay high shipping fees.

Not seeing the shipping cost... I sold some scuba ankle weights to a buyer on Ebay. The price of the weights was about what you would expect used weights to go for. But they are heavy. And tho the shipping cost was listed right there for every buyer to see, after the transaction was completed the buyer gave me a negative feedback rating on Ebay. Turns out she was an entitled female millennial that didn't notice the shipping cost, nor how much she was paying when she clicked the "Buy" icon. When contacted, she lost her crap with me about how evil I was. I told her it's not my problem, that the cost was clearly visible and that she is responsible for due diligence. After that experience, I always always used "free shipping" and flat rate shipping costs when selling.
 
I just want to know why people start threads that are CLEARY "Off Topic" in The "General Fire Arm" Discussion Forum?
:s0092:

Can't find a mod when you need one.

I just wonder why people/members start threads criticizing others and then continue to be argumentative when people are pointing to reason.
 
My personal rule is the seller or buyer needs a good feedback rating here or can reference one elsewhere, is someone known and in good standing, or (when not even asked) offers to ship the item and receive their payment when the item arrives...I've actually had newer NWFA guys here offer that option. I've also sent expensive tools to members to borrow as long as they pay shipping and return in good condition, and never been burned. To each his own though. My $0.02
 
Two very recent classified experiences:

1. Just sold ammo. Offered to ship. Still had a guy 90 miles away ask if I would meet up. :rolleyes: no. Guy did not want to share his address, ok I get that. Did not need to sell the stuff just did it since its surplus to me and guys out there cant get it. (before any ammo troll comments, it sold under market and $10 went into the board donation button)

2. Cut a trade (gun for gun) for a "Brand New Desert Eagle" 3hrs North of me in WA. So FFL shipping my gun for his gun. BUT he just joined PNWF in May, only had 14 posts to his name, and every post was trying to trade/sell the Deagle off. Zippo other posts. When asking for any ammo he had to go with it, the "new" DE had 8 rounds..... Ok, now we have too many red flags. Shipping is no longer an option. I opted to drive the 6hr round trip to see this DE in person and deliver my trade vs ship. I also thought long and hard on the trade as it was clear to me this was a fired gun, not brand new. Even fired I was ok with the trade, just not happy it was miss represented. But my #1 concern was "did it exist at all."

Got there and sure enough, it was real but, it was indeed fired. Great condition overall but yes fired. The seller claimed "test-fired" at the factory. Finger into the mag showed the mag with the gun also had been fired. I pointed out, they don't test fire mags. The response was "well its only been shoot like less than 10 times". :s0002: My plan all along is to also shoot it so still got it, again just wish the seller had the honor to represent it correctly. Why I did not ship this transaction.
 
Buy/sell between private partys is generally a negotiation to get to some middle ground. I suppose one negotiating technique is to whine and stomp your little feet on a pubic forum. Let me know how that works out for you.
 
The main reason I won't ship is because it seems the expectation is that shipping costs are paid by the seller. Since that has been an issue every single time I've been asked to ship, I don't.
 
The main reason I won't ship is because it seems the expectation is that shipping costs are paid by the seller. Since that has been an issue every single time I've been asked to ship, I don't.

This is called the "Amazon effect". Where online buyers expect all orders to be in the stock, ship right away for free and show up within 2 days.

This actually is a real thing.
 
I'm not sure how much one really misses out by not shipping. I've done my fair share of buying/selling/trading and I've extremely rarely specifically said "no shipping" in my ads, but I can recall only a time or two that anyone has ever even asked... and of those one was a Californian and I didn't wanna mess with their laws about what's even legal to own over there. Basically, I don't get the impression that's there's a vast sea of buyers on this forum that would be buying my stuff if only I'd been willing to ship. In general I'd ship things like parts, accessories, or magazines but not firearms or ammo just because of the hassle and relative expense.
I seen a couple guys in Idaho that lived in the middle a nowheres saying "no shipping" for some pedestrian gewgaw and I was all :rolleyes:.
 

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