My list of seller red flags

12inch45rpm-sounds like you have done much buying and selling online. You think all the risk is on the buyer which is not true. The buyer can be just as corrupt as a seller and PayPal doesn’t help the seller. For example: I have had people try this unsuccessfully against my sales but other sellers got screwed and that’s caused by a seller shipping a perfectly good piece to the buyer and the buyer claims it’s faulty and sends back to the seller a no -working piece that the buyer previously owned. Every sale I do I mark the item somewhere or right down the serial # and if they pursue sending back the item, I tell them that I will only accept the unit that matches the serial # or the markings. Both times they tried this to me, they decided not to send it back. Another scam is the buyer claiming they never received the piece when I always pay for signature required and I know before they claim this scam that they already received it.
paypal almost always protects the buyer. 1 more thing, if I ship overseas, I make the buyer use PayPal with friends and family payment.im not risking loss of an item in customs or transferring from 1 shipper to another.
All of these things are discussed before finishing the transaction, and if you don’t want to do business with me, that’s ok, because I might not want to do business with you too

I would add another irritating detail, the seller indicating that they have the original box and packing but will only allow local pickup and refuse to ship the item.

Well, I certainly wouldn't want to deal with the OP as a buyer, too many issues, It's just a piece of audio gear.

I don’t know about buying on Audiogon, but a lot of sellers on other sites assume that people will offer them less than the asking price, just because . . . so they price the item higher than they will accept so they have negotiating room to come down.  I hear all the time, “don’t pay what they are asking for it . . get them to come down.”  I know people that will say to me, “That’s a good/fair price”, but then they offer less to see if the person will accept the lower offer.  Some people are not good negotiators and always end up paying the asking price (me) or end up selling the thing for less than it is worth.  That might be one reason for stating that the price is “firm” so they don’t have to negotiate.

I recently bought a 40 year old tuner from a local guy on Craigslist.  He wrote “price firm” ($20) and when I texted him to ask if there was any problem with it, he responded, “As I stated in the ad, everything is working good”.  That sounded unfriendly, but I thought I would go look at it.  When I arrived at his house, he and his wife were friendly.  He told me the tuner suddenly stopped going into stereo mode and he gave it to me for free.  I think he had tired of dealing with some of the . . Let’s say unscrupulous . . buyers out there and has attitude at the ready just in case the next buyer is a jerk.  Turned out he was a nice guy that gave me a toy to tinker with and get working.  👍🏻

I always want to know about the flaws. why would you not want that information?