I deal alot with Paypal, mainly selling items to others but I found a smokin' deal on a bike that I want to get only I don't like sending out $3g without having the product. I was wondering if anyone has used any type of COD or payment upon delivery methods and if so, what are they, and how was your luck? Both the seller and I are verified but we were going to avoid listing and buying from ebay to save him the listing fee and just go straight to paypal to transfer funds. However, I don't want to just send out $3k without having some sort of assurance that the product will arrive. It's a brand new bike so I'm not worried about condition, more about delivery...
Safest way to do the deal?
- Thread starter NineFingers
- Start date
Long ago I bought a bike using escrow.com, which did in fact work well. The down side? Well, there's a sizable fee (something like 3% for bike-like quantities of cash), and it can really slow the process down because each step happen sequentially (you send money to escrow.com, they wait for the check to clear, notify the seller. seller ships the bike. when it shows up, you ok the bike and they release the money to seller -- it'll take a month).
Another option I've used was when buying a 'house brand' bike from a guy who lived near the 'house' -- in this case Charles Coker/Hammerhead Bikes. I contacted Charles and ended up paying him extra $$$ ($100?) to receive the frame, verify it's in as good a condition as the seller indicated, and pack and ship. That way, at least to some extent, there's a responsible third party (with a business he doesn't want to have a bad reputation) in the middle. As a plus side, Charles cleaned the frame, installed new bearings, and transfered the warranty to me...
Maybe one option would be to see if there are any Monkeys (or even better, shop Monkeys) near the seller. Slip them a little cash and have them act as buying agents for you...
Another option I've used was when buying a 'house brand' bike from a guy who lived near the 'house' -- in this case Charles Coker/Hammerhead Bikes. I contacted Charles and ended up paying him extra $$$ ($100?) to receive the frame, verify it's in as good a condition as the seller indicated, and pack and ship. That way, at least to some extent, there's a responsible third party (with a business he doesn't want to have a bad reputation) in the middle. As a plus side, Charles cleaned the frame, installed new bearings, and transfered the warranty to me...
Maybe one option would be to see if there are any Monkeys (or even better, shop Monkeys) near the seller. Slip them a little cash and have them act as buying agents for you...