Your experience selling on Craigslist

[dama]

Just curious about what your experiences have been like selling equipment on Craigslist. I recently posted my juno di there. If someone was interested, I think I'd rather meet them in a mall parking lot rather than invite them into my home. Then there would be an issue if they needed to try it first. It does run on batteries, so that's an option.

 

So, am I being too paranoid? Please share your experience.

[yorgatron]

I buy & sell stuff on craigslist all the time.

never had a problem, but then again I'm a 6'2" 300 lb. gorilla.

I've tried out/demonstrated stuff in coffee shops before, they usually have an outlet for people who want to use their computers.

I have a battery-powered amp for these occasions.

if you're worried about getting mugged or ripped off bring a friend, preferably a 6'2" 300 lb. gorilla.

[HAMEGZ]

I used to have good luck on it,

 

but lately its either spammers wanting to harvest my real email address(CL uses a nice relay system for emails) or tire kickers and low ballers...

 

Ive sold from my house or my work so they came to me ...

[mate stubb]

Creepy.

[hazerkeys]

personally, I would stick with ebay - I have had good luck buying and selling there .. Sweetwater also has a 'traders post" for that purpose as well ...

[MuzikTeechur]

I've bought and sold hundreds of items on CL with never a problem. Several cars, musical equipment, hardware, power equipment even a swimming pool.

If you don't want people coming to your home, meet them someplace public like a WalMart parking lot. If you're nervous, bring a friend. But in all cases follow your instincts. If something seems to good to be true, it probably is.

[FatFingers]

What I do is avoid putting my phone number in the ad, and ask them to reply via Craigslist with a phone number where I can contact them. At that point you will have both an email address and a phone number that might be useful in case the deal goes bad. Plus you might be able to weed out a few shady characters depending on how they talk on the phone when you call them. But I agree that safest bet would be to meet in a mall or some other public area. I've even taken photos on my cell phone of their car showing their license plate when they weren't looking. So far I've never had any problems.

[cphollis]

I've sold a lot of stuff on CL -- keyboards, amps, pinball machines, superautomatic coffee makers -- and so far so good.

 

As above, use the CL email forwarding system, don't leave your real email or phone number. Be clear on your terms (e.g. cash, no trades, etc.). And be prepared for a lot of random email inquiries.

 

I try and put as much content and context into the ads: what it is, how I use it, what I think of it, etc. Plenty of pictures, with links to external web resources for additional information.

 

I always have an extended dialog with potential customers -- email, phone -- so I have a good sense of where they are coming from.

 

If something doesn't feel right, I disengage. A bit time-consuming, but it works.

[OB Dave]

Depends on what I'm selling. Usually it's weirdo stuff like Leslie speakers and the like, where I figure the chances of getting ripped off are relatively low. So, yeah, I've bought and sold lots of stuff with no issues.

 

I would be more careful with high-demand / easily fenced items like cell phones, iPods, laptops, and the like. Dunno about your neighborhood, but in the past few years several shootings have occurred in San Diego with CL sales gone awry. I recently sold an iPhone on CL, and included this text in my ad:

Buying phones off Craiglist is always kind of a sketchy proposition, and I really don't want to get shot or ripped off trying to sell an iPhone. I'm going to assume that you don't want either of those things either. So for your sanity as well as mine, I'm going to establish some ground rules upfront, which are as follows:

 

Serious inquiries only. This phone is $300, firm. Please make no offers. If you want this phone, this is what it costs. Please do not play games with me, and I will not play games with you.

 

We will meet to conduct the sale at the Verizon store on Sports Arena Blvd. Once you've seen the phone and decide that you want to buy it, we'll activate it on the spot. That way you walk out of the store knowing that you've bought a phone that actually works, and I walk out with my $300, and everybody's happy.

 

If you offer to pay for this phone by mail, or by cashier's check, or by tattoo, or by (Lord help me) a Western Union moneygram, I will sign you up for promotional offers at freeviagra.com.

 

If you're cool with all that, give me a call at xxx-xxx-xxxx or send me an email.

 

I used very similar text when selling an Android phone also, and both times it was very effective and both transactions were smooth.

 

I can't find the ad I wrote for an RV I sold awhile back, but i said something like: "To close this sale, we will go to your bank, where we will walk up to the teller together. You will have the teller issue me a cashier's check. By doing this in a bank, together, I will establish that the check is not a forgery, and the bank will have me on videotape. This should ensure the safety of this transaction. If you are unable to agree to these terms, I suggest you buy your RV elsewhere."

 

As a general rule, I've found it very helpful to establish expectations up front. Seems to work well in many aspects of life.

[Song80s]

Just curious about what your experiences have been like selling equipment on Craigslist. I recently posted my juno di there. If someone was interested, I think I'd rather meet them in a mall parking lot rather than invite them into my home. Then there would be an issue if they needed to try it first. It does run on batteries, so that's an option.

 

So, am I being too paranoid? Please share your experience.

 

I have had success selling all my expensive gear on CL the past 5 years. There is crime related to CL in my area, so a seller has to be cautious. Plus I had to filter thru the many low ballers and parties who were fishing, to identify the serious buyers.

 

These days, I am more comfortable using CL instead of eBay. About 10 yrs ago, I would go eBay but that online venue has changed since then.

[Phil Aiken]

Mine has been good. You can weed out the spam mails pretty easily, and when selling musical gear, one can get a read pretty quickly on whether the person on the other end is a fellow traveller.

That said, I use Craig's list exclusively for items I don't wish to ship, and ebay otherwise.

 

[Aussie_Chicago]

Ive never sold but have brought a bit of gear lately on CL, never had a problem, but of course I don't show up with a pocket full of cash either. I think you can get a "gut" feeling about people, if theyre genuine, they will have no problem giving you the info you need to make a smooth transaction. If the buyer does come to your house, don't take him to your studio with all your gear visible, the less they see the better.

[Tusker]

I've bought and sold a few things on CL. Unless I knew the buyer by reputation, we met in a common place.

 

One or two guys have ended up becoming friends.

[wmp]

Never sold anything on CL but I've bought more than a few items. I use my own disposable email forwarders. We have to have a lucid email exchange and they need to send me a phone number. I've had no problems. Most of my CL activity in June and July was tracking my own stolen gear. It can be pretty useful for that too. I really can't talk about that except that the thefts had nothing to do with any contacts I made on CL. As Beethree said, it's pretty easy to tell when you 're talking with another muso. I've also made more than a few friends through CL over the years.

 

 

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

I bought my piano over CL. Of course I had to meet the guy at his house, and there had been several visits to other houses to see pianos before that.

 

I've bought and sold over CL, met at various places like bookstores, car dealerships (had the buyer come by while I was having maintenance done), bank parking lots, etc.

 

Pay attention and you can tell if someone is legit.

[sakari lindhen]

I posted my PC3 on the Swedish equivalent of Craigslist, Blocket, and had it sold within three days....

[Bill W]

I've had pretty good luck, but you have to be very patient. I'll never sell a big item on ebay again...the fees are out of control.

[Steve Force]

I have had good luck buying and selling on CL. Like most have said, be careful, meet in a neutral location, and be safe.

[J. Dan]

This is timely...I've never sold on CL, only bought, but am getting ready to sell a bunch of stuff, so I'm interested in what all have to say. I used to do a lot on ebay, but had paypal issues and have abandoned it for quite a number of years now. I'm getting ready to sell lots of keyboards, ipod, furniture, file cabinets, toys, etc... preparing for a move. So I'm hoping CL will be of assistance. I'll post the keyboard stuff on here when I'm ready, but am hoping CL comes through so I don't have to deal with shipping, payments, etc.

[Dr88s]

Craigslist (and in Canada Kijiji also) are great because you can do a transaction cash in hand and not really worry about credit card chargebacks, fraudulent shipping, etc.

 

The major drawback as a seller is the safety issue. For small items, as others have said above, it is very easy to go to the parking lot of a busy area or Dunkin' Donuts, etc. to have your seller inspect the merchandise and hand over the money if he/she is satisfied. This lends itself particularly well to battery powered devices.

 

The problem arises when selling large musical keyboards, monitors, or furniture. Unless you have space rented in a fairly busy public storage warehouse, you are going to have to deal with strangers coming into your house. Whereas a poster above described himself as a 300 pound gorilla, I am quite the opposite.

 

Last year I tried to sell a set of digital drums on craigslist. I had one guy interested and arranged to have him check out the set in my basement. I thought twice of it and only went ahead with it because I Google stalked him and saw that he was a professional who lives on one of the most expensive streets in my part of town, thus unlikely to kill me for a $300 drum set. The guy shows up with his 14 year old daughter and he is even smaller than I am. Nonetheless, I had a very strange feeling about letting a complete stranger into my house and will not do that again.

 

Your mileage will definitely vary depending on your comfort level.

 

I have bought tons of things on craigslist and have only had one bad experience where I purchased a completely dead MIDI controller. I didn't bring any equipment to test it and took it on faith that it worked. Some people really suck.

 

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

When I sold my M-Audio Keystation 61ES, I brought my MacBook Pro with me so the buyer could try it out. He didn't bother.

 

I've made arrangements to meet up at places such as coffee shops and bookstores with coffee areas where the buyer could plug in to a wall outlet and at least see it powers on, but all have taken me at my word.

[churchkeybob]

I use Craigs List all the time. I never have people meet at my home, only at my business. Last board I sold (kurz sp88x) got lots of people who just wanted to play it but not buy. Same issue I had years ago with the news paper classified adds. So some things don't change. ~BOB

[KeyPlaya]

I've bought and sold a lot on CL over the years, and met some cool local musicians in the process, which was a bonus!

 

I still use CL occasionally because it gets TONS of traffic, but I'm a little more cautious these days - CL is attracting a lot more scammers and bad guys lately. Bad guys always screw up a good thing, don't they?

 

That said, there are also still lots of good guys using CL so, repeating the advice of other posters above:

 

- put LOTS of info and pictures in the ad so you won't have to field as many questions

 

- use a disposable email address AND the CL anonymizer

 

- don't put your phone number in the ad - wait until you've talked to the person through email and feel like it's a serious inquiry

 

- pay attention to your gut instincts

 

Good luck!

[Dr88s]

The last time I sold anything on Internet classifieds was a few months ago when I sold a cheap 25 key M-audio controller.

 

This really nerdy kid shows up to the coffee shop at the agreed time and brings out his laptop to test it out. No problems there - it's his right. But then he proceeds to launch Reaktor and calls up a dizzying array of elements with multiple oscilloscopes, etc. He proceeds to test every single key, button, and slider. And I don't mean just test to check that they work and transmit MIDI data; he was intently studying one of the oscilloscopes to ensure a perfect linear response of the mod wheel along its length. After about 20 minutes of this, I got a tad frustrated. This was a $60 controller, for heavens sake. And he seemed insulted when I finally barked at him to take it or leave it.

 

Yeesh. Two hours of my life for that.

[dama]

Thanks for the feedback and advice. I'm meeting with someone tomorrow in store parking lot. I think it should go OK.

[DulceLabs.com]

 

- don't put your phone number in the ad - wait until you've talked to the person through email and feel like it's a serious inquiry

 

 

Google Voice is a great, free tool. You can forward it to your cell or home phone OR call from your Google Voice account and the caller will never know your real number. You can also do text messaging through it.

[Polkahero]

I never put my phone number in a CL ad but I notice other sellers spelling out their phone numbers. What is the advantage to doing this?

[LarsHarner]

I used it on several occassions and it worked out well- as opposed to trading it into Guitar Center which I did do for 2 items.

 

I would recommend the following: never give out your last name; my answering machine only has my first name (Lars lol) also do not put your ACTUAL hometown in the ad.

 

Always meet in a public place

- I took my piano modules always to a starbucks- unfortunately one of them blew up at the starbucks (plug started to smoke)

So, bring a power strip as well:

Other than losing the piano module I sold monitors, a digital recorder and piano module all on the same day at the same starbucks to 3 different people.

I sold my Fatar Studio 900 in a parking lot; I brought a video taped the day before with it on along with a newspaper picture dated then.

I sold my P95 in the same parking lot, the people had a SUV with power in it to test the piano.

All in all I netted around $1,000 towards trade ins and new purchases.

However, I took less money for my Triton LE and Motif 6 because I found those more difficult to sell in a parking lot-

However I probably could have taken them into a starbucks.

If possible I would discourgae going to people's houses, having them to your's. Not worth the hassle. What if they break the item and blame you?

[KeyPlaya]

I never put my phone number in a CL ad but I notice other sellers spelling out their phone numbers. What is the advantage to doing this?

 

This is usually done for one of two reasons :

 

- spammers trying to elude filters or searches that look for their phone numbers

 

- unfortunate legitimate CL users who offer something that spammers don't want listed - the spammers will search for keywords or phone numbers to flag and remove the user's ads

[DanL]

I've bought and sold a fair amount of gear on CL. Once you determine the buyer is serious, I had no problem with them coming to my garage to check out the gear. One time I sold a keyboard to a guy from pretty far away, we met halfway. I've gone to other people's houses to buy gear as well. If it was shady looking I wouldn't go in, but I haven't had that experience. I leave my cash in the car and when I decide I want the gear, I go get the cash and have them bring the gear out.