Beware, scammers everywhere

Hard RULE #1:  A Phone conversation prior to closing the deal. It's REAL easy to find out if the other party knows and understands the item at issue. 

@carlsbad2

My bad, I assumed that you were referring to this forum when you wrote

I recently sold a $3K used streamer to a fellow audiophile. It started out on the forum

@jetter  you assumed, but not wanting to make waves, I was purposely vague.

Yep ….. . they DO walk among us,

I use CAM and USAM with good results, but the low-lifes need to be excised there too.., All the major audio forums have their incidences.

It’s a common sense thing to hedge against the nuisance bottom-feeders.

(1) In God we trust….. everybody else pays cash.
Up here in Canada, we have our nation-wide major banks in a linked robust and secure banking system that makes EFT cash transfers a fast and ultra-simple bank account-to-bank account point & click instant fundstransfer….EZPZ.

(2) Cross-border / international deals are best served for me using PayPay and absorbing its fees as a relative accepted cost of insurance burden.

(3) If ,,,,absence of forum prior good positive feedback, and absence of priorforum participation postings; or recent new member sign-up profiles is an added harbinger for risk management caution, All responses to my ads on CAM are restricted to card-carrying members only,

(4) Regardless …. If buyers or sellers suddenly introduce kitschy new requests to do the deal ….then it’s a fast sayonara. If they press their BS any further, its a profane slang pejorative derived from Genesis 9:7 and a quick blocking out….full stop.

@akg_ca I agree that these low lifes do walk among us and never is it ever more prevalent than in social media dating websites. I have had good luck with a variety of transactions thru paypal and fleabay, though I havent bought anything thru ebay in a long time. I have found that most things available on ebay can be bought elsewhere less expensively. How to ensure your transaction is truly secure is nearly impossible. I try to stick to known businesses with a long track record of safe transactions. THough changes to the way outfits like Amazon associate with their suppliers is beginning to impact my level of trust in even these established businesses. It is a scary thing... bricks and mortar places are disappearing and online outlets are becoming less reliable, so what is left is fleamarkets I guess and totally cash transactions. Or at least that is the trend...