Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Your thoughts on buying from a seller who mainly posts in the Classifieds?

i would be hard pressed to buy a gun in a non face-to-face transaction anymore. i have bought dozens online with no problems however, but consider it too risky anymore. the only time i had a bad transaction for anything online was on here for a scope several years ago. he only posted in the classifieds. when the scope was a blurry mess at anything but 2x, he said it looked fine to him and would not refund. it was 150 bucks wasted. so for me, i will avoid the guys who only come here to sell. i also use the ignore feature to keep a record of people who either have transaction issues or have made posts that lead me to believe they are not the type of people i would want to deal with in any fashion, financial or personal. i will be selling off some nice guns at some point soon and will be very selective about who i deal with.

anybody want to buy a bipod for a charger btw?

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THIS...in spades

Ditto

DF

I always call of ask for driver's license before i send money.
And the seller her to be a member for at least a year.

+1

Kinda makes a guy wonder how did Shotgun News and The Gun List survive so long? Was there really more honor and fewer scammers back then, or, did we lack access to "Deals Gone Bad?"

My dad traveled 2 nights/wk and if he had an ad going in either or both, I was in charge of taking the phone calls by the time I was in Jr. High. People would send checks or MO's to dad on nothing more than a paper ad and the descriptions given by an early teens kid on the phone.

I've been very fortunate in buying from people here as every one of my deals have left me knowing I just dealt with an honest person so I haven't given much thought to your question. Until now.

The best rule is to not engage in any deal you can’t survive a 100% loss on.

I've never had a problem with purchases here.Some do use this site as a way to sell stuff and that's about it.Sometimes it's not a problem,it really depends on who it is.I've bought a lot of brass from one person and I've never had an issue.I've bought a few scopes and never an issue either.One thing you can do is check out the users post.It can give you an idea about the person.I wouldn't purchase anything from a few people on here,others I would have no worries.It's always a chance you take even a face to face purchase can have issues later.

It is all part of reading the sign whether to pull the trigger on a sale. If the person has a lot of classified ads and is selling the items and no one complains and post a call out post that is a plus for me. On the other side of things, there are a lot of high post count individuals I would avoid if they put an item on the classified.

Low volume poster here. I'll probably never post 2000 times in my life. I've never sold anything here but might sell some low cost stuff (bullets, brass, etc.) someday. I ran an ad here looking for some bullets recently and bought some from some kind folks I've never met. I've bought and sold a fair amount on Gunbroker and have not had any real problems there. I'd have no qualms buying inexpensive things here, even if sight unseen. I'd probably not buy a big ticket item from someone who is not well known. It doesn't take long reading to get a feel for someone's character. It might be easier if members here were not so reluctant to criticize one another ; )

The best protection (for non gun purchases) is to use PayPal and pay the fee to get buyer protection.

There are some Campfire Bwanas and Oracles also that don’t do a damn thing except post nekkid pics of wimmin on the miscellaneous forum.

FWIW, I am not risk averse, actually, probably much to far in the other direction.

Like the comment by HitnRun, if I can't take the hit, I don't commit.

I see "call out" threads on occasion, but that is not my style and I've not had the occasion to do so up to now. I had no proof that the seller intended to defraud me, only suspicion.

A derivative of the old quote by Joseph Heller...... “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Just because one receives an empty Small Flat Rate box that was wrapped as if designed to burst when dropped due to the weight, and was mailed from a kiosk with no return address doesn't mean the box was full, It could have been shipped empty from the beginning. LOL

I did get about half my money back (the $50 insurance that USPS provides).

Consequently it seemed the prudent thing to do was to take my loss and carry on.

Joe Traylor's recent experience kinda tripped my trigger and was the impetus for my rhetorical question.

Appreciate the thoughtful comments.

Best,

GWB

It all depends....

I'll trust someone unless they show some reason not to. Reported and outed scammers get put on ignore, that's an easy reminder not to buy from them. Just bought some bullets from someone with 100% of posts on the classifieds but a little bit of investigation showed that other folks who bought things reported back that the seller was good to go. And he was.


Switching gears a bit, one thing I will NOT do is post items "free to a good kid/needy person". I watch those and 9 times out of 10 those items are snapped up within a very short time by someone with 95 to 100% of their posts on the classifieds - true classified commandos. The people who grab them get filed in memory as someone not to do business with since I'm pretty sure those "free to a good home" items are flipped for 100% profit as soon as possible. A while back one fellow accepted a free scope for a deserving kid who "could really use it", a quick investigation into that member's posts showed that this same person had sold a scope here not 3 weeks beforehand. Maybe that one he sold just wasn't good enough for the little tyke?


Life is risky, accumulate good karma whenever you can since you get what you give in life, and trust your gut.

I have noticed and thought the same thing. About the “for a kid” stuff

I try to give more than I receive as a general principle and have not had a bad experience other than wishing a few would be more communicative. I balance that with realizing I’m obsessive-compulsive about a lot of things.

A comment on the Good Guys’ List: it’s unmanageable and should be a Bad Guys’ List. Good, honest behavior should be the norm and the other, the exception, should be the ones publicized. It would stand out as a warning to those who would be on it.

But, GW, do you remember what the Catch-22 was? 😀

Ya!.

And I'd do business with most of those guys before I'd do business with a Classifieds Cowboy.

Hey!

Those pics aren't completely nude.

Yeah, and I never look at the fat ones either! Gotta have standards.