My list of seller red flags

Interesting discussion
Definitely had horror stories with Ebay. Be wary of buying used subs, as damage by shippers, one amp destroyed by USPS(took forever to get money back, badly packed, and needed insurance copy from seller, did leave negative), another UPS, working, but front upper corners damaged, took a month, but got decent partial amount back.

Old unique sound processor did not work , burning fuses, in agreement, mostly refunded, but have product so only about 12 dollars. Believe left negative. Sometime may spend $30, local electrical audio guy, who has worked on Legacy Whispers that I have seen, maybe can at least fix the amp. 



A top Cardas cable (think canuckaudiomart but US seller), seller had the cleaner in ad and did not send that, so asked. Got mad at me, talking about purity of audio. Good price on cable and cleaner cheap, so let it go.

On here, the Gon (as I call it), seller was not clear in ad about paypal fee, so complained and we split it. Little unhappy, but product was mint as stated which was nice. And still not clear to me reading this discussion about paypal fees.
But this was minor and have not had any issues with purchases here.


Interesting question, got new, but old stock upper level Optoma projector for about $500, retail 7k. Very happy with it. Bluray, of course, not 4K (BTW, was UPS ground and perfect. Marked fragile all over box.)
Clearly (think Ebay, high rating) seller making money off of this.


Or how about Cardas EM5813 earphone, now older model, was $425, now max $250 online sellers, mine $100 from Drop. No trial, that is the risk. Was very happy, but sadly one side just failed. Well under warranty, and Cardas good company, so not worried.

But again, these discounts are amazing from original retail price.

  To get the units that I for upgrade and resale, I use eBay. So then, I am the one who has to pick between lies and price. The ads go out of their way to lie about the component in some cases. Fully tested/inspected means it was plugged in and the light came on. One seller even takes the lid off of the unit to show the craftsmanship inside. Since I work on these exact units, I can clearly see that absolutely nothing has been done.
>>>>>>Then there is the price. I get that the unit Might be in great shape for it's age. It may even come with the original manual and box, but that just doesn't make it good as new. The capacitors inside the unit in these cases are 30 years old to begin with, and I routinely see corrosion inside the RCA jacks from the back view.
 Fortunately for me, I am able restore these units regardless of electrical condition, but if I were buy/plug/play, it would easily be considered a ripoff.

I stopped buy gear from private sellers on the net many years ago. Why, well the list above has a bit do with it.  Back in the early part of this century "Buying On Line"  was smooth with only a few bumps.  Once the scam artists learned to use computers, private sales became much harder.  Of the four pieces I have purchased lately only one was used and I drove 140 miles to see was I was getting.  The remainder were New or Demo from Commercial sellers on this site.  George said it "All Things Must Pass"