stuff for sale question

[greensleep]

Due to health failure, I have a lot of camping/hiking gear to sell. My question is: once I list items for sale on this forum, how should I handle payment? I've never sold anything on the net. How have you dealt with this? Do I need to worry about bounced checks, etc.?

[john844]

I like to use Paypal.

[HooKooDooKu]

When working with established members of a public forum, I've done fine making/receiving payment by check.

[bigcranky]

Paypal is pretty easy to use for the buyers, but it can be something of a challenge to set it up to link to your bank account so you can get the money out. I find Paypal is easiest for small items when I know I can use the payments to buy things myself using Paypal.

For most stuff I just ask them to mail me a check, and that's always worked out fine. Even for expensive stuff like camera gear.

[MuddyWaters]

Paypal is easiest.
They send money to your correct email address.
Watch out for auto capitalization of first letter. It matters.

You get email saying you got paid with link
You can enter credit card info i believe and it gets credited to it.

Ive never linked bank account to paypal, never will. My paypal was hacked once. I got email that i had transferred $180 balance to a bank acct. (Recent payment from selling sonething) I called them they immediately reversed it.

Lists of hacked paypal accts and passwords can be purchased on dark web. Up to buyer to use .

Credit cards cover fraud. Paypal only does IF they can recover money. If someone immediately transfers it out of receiving acct, you lose. This happens with fraudulent sales on ebay where buyer never ships goods. If theres no $ to recover, your out of luck. Paypal might cover a little loss out of goodwill. Not $500.

[Time Zone]

Due to health failure, I have a lot of camping/hiking gear to sell. My question is: once I list items for sale on this forum, how should I handle payment? I've never sold anything on the net. How have you dealt with this? Do I need to worry about bounced checks, etc.?

I'm very sorry to hear about your health issues. Hopefully you will get some satisfaction out of knowing your gear will continue to help others.

Since you stated that you've not sold anything on the net before, I'd like to suggest that selling on WB is not your only option for selling online. Selling locally via Craigslist is something I've done many times, and it saves having to ship stuff and enables the buyer to personally inspect the item, so they don't come back and claim you failed to disclose some flaw. A key safety practice IMO for selling through Craigslist is to meet in a public location where other people and/or security cameras are around. For instance, I often meet in front of a pharmacy near my subdivision. I sell for cash only, no checks.

There are other ways to sell online too - geartrade.com, ebay, etc. I can't speak much for those because I prefer the "old fashioned, classified ad in newspaper" flavor of Craigslist. Craigslist is free for personal stuff, but IIRC you can only create a new listing every 48 hrs. I have seen camping items "grouped" into one listing, though, with different prices for different items detailed in the text body of the ad.

[beefsmack]

I have used Vemo. It is a free app similar to Paypal but seems easier to use for me. Now....its not as well known as Paypal but quickly gaining in popularity. May create an account and ask the buyer if they happen to have. They would then deposit money into the account, your bank would be linked to the account, and then forward the deposit on. It is free for standard deposits (1-3) days but there is a fee for immediate deposits.

[Martzy13]

At the expense of possibly sounding like a fear-monger, I'd say be wary of Venmo and money transfer apps like it. Venmo has cited numerous security breaches resulting in consumers' banking info being sold to third-party interests. I've used it myself and never had any issue, but there have been many who weren't so lucky.

[Zalman]

I prefer Venmo. The payment can be made public, and is thus "secured" by establishing a public record of that payment. Most buyers seem to prefer Paypal, which is understandable because it allows the buyer to rescind payment if they didn't get the stuff they expected. Unfortunately, Paypal offers no protection to the seller in this case: anyone can rescind payment, and cause your money to be tied up indefinitely, if it is recoverable at all.

Note that you do not have to add a bank account to Venmo. You can just leave the money in Venmo and use it to pay others. That said, I haven't had any problems with bank info being hacked, and haven't heard of any that are based on normal use of the app. The security concerns are that with the default security settings, someone with your already-unlocked phone in hand can just open your Venmo app and transfer money from your account and pay themselves. The criticism is that there isn't an additional PIN to open the app, once the phone is open. If that sort of event isn't an issue for you, then I wouldn't be concerned about it. (If you're not concerned about handing strangers your unlocked phone already in general, then you might be a supremely trusting soul.) You can also add a PIN to open the app, by adjusting your Venmo settings.

[Dogwood]

I too find Paypal to make it easy but have no experience with Venom. I avoid using accessing paypal with a hand held.

When you post you're selling gear on WB it's a shared sales posting site meaning you have greater market exposure to get your stuff sold and receive offers. LWhiker is one well visited used gear selling forum. On https://lwhiker.com/used-gear-search is a list of the different sites you're WB selling thread will receive exposure. WB makes it easy to sell stuff. I've sold and bought many items on WB. HKDK

[Mockernut]

Venmo is a service of Paypal... it's owned by PayPal and uses the same type money transfer system. I use both equally. No issues.

[Zalman]

Venmo is a service of Paypal... it's owned by PayPal and uses the same type money transfer system. I use both equally. No issues.

Venmo is ultimately owned by Paypal (since Paypal bought Braintree), but run as a separate company. There are definitely differences: PayPal offers a "protection program" that can cause claims to be made against a sale up to 6 months after the fact, and it's up to the buyer to provide proof of delivery if such is questioned. So you'd better keep those UPS receipts and tracking detail screenshots for a long time.

(Also, until today, PayPal didn't offer the ability to transfer funds directly and immediately into a bank account. That feature is rolling out as I type though.)