On occasion I partake in online sales. These usually take the form of Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace listings and an in-person meeting to either buy or sell an item. The vast majority of the time, things go according to what’s agreed upon. But to say this environment is a cesspool is an understatement. It can bring out people intent on the shadiest of things. Today, I offer a bit of a different story…
While posting a product online, I came across a well-developed scam. When I saw it, I wanted to humour the bad guys and see what information I might glean from the process. This is not something you should do, but the details I’ve gathered can help you look at these scams with a more critical […]
The story is all too common: I go onto Kijiji (a Canadian Craigslist clone) and find what I had been looking for: an iPad. I see the post’s price and presume it’s an “anchor” price, so I start off asking if the device is available and if they’d take a lower number. What follows is finding out the iPad posting was misrepresented as a “personal” sale, when in fact it was a business selling the product at a firm price, quoted without tax. Another asshole muddying what’s known as the “grey” market for the rest of us. Too many of these types of experiences, and you start to wonder if this can ever be improved past this level of failed experiment.
It’s going to become harder than ever to resell your valuable stuff. So I ask, why is it that an independent body hasn’t been developed to verify online goods?
You might remember the recent articles called Laws of craigslist: Sellers and Laws of Craigslist: Buyers. Both articles were a great introduction to the idea of buying and selling online and were an incredible success here on the blog. Such an amazing success, that I thought I would add some more points to those two articles. If you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you to go check those out and come back for more Online buying and selling tips.
As you’ll see, the dangers of people that will sell and handle these sales unscrupulously are so very real. After this experience, I think I’ve learned that that buying a product that you can’t fully test (at the moment of purchase) is a dangerous undertaking.