newportgambler

Have an IBM x40 and a Sony Vaio laptop that I'm looking at selling. Using my Dell x300 extensively now so the need for 3 laptops (I know, a geek at heart), isn't really needed anymore... was fumbling between all 3 of them, now on one...

Other than Craigslist and Ebay, any other sites known to sell laptops on? I've had problems on both sites with nigerian and indonesian scammers and other issues.

Any help appreciated... I'd list here on FT, but no forum exists for sales... hmmm.. mods... maybe setup one?

ScottC

Sales are not allowed on FT, and I doubt they'd want the hassle.

Selling on Ebay isn't all that hard, under your seller preferences you can block people without Paypal and people with low feedback. Only sell to people with a confirmed paypal account and confirmed address in the US and you are protected by Paypal. Also; always ship with a trackable service with signature confirmation.

osamede

Trust me it is. I just sold a laptop on Ebay and I got about 20 e-mails per day with "questions" from Chinese scammers, wanting to contact me or me to contat them. I got several spoof e-mails was well, from Ebay users trying to harvest my Ebay account login info with false eEbay links!

You cannot block these people from contacting you since they are Ebay users and you have an item up for sale - even if you are not selling in their country. Most have profile and feedback that is obviously falsified - I complained to Ebay and got several from letters, ie they are too fat dumb and happy to care.

I also had one bidder who I had to cancel because his profile and feedbackwas obviously phoney.

Paypal itself has its own issues since you can never be sure you have the money. They can make surprising decisons and reverse your transactions. It happens. Not a big deal if you sold a memory card for $20, but for the price of a laptop, I wouldnt entrust Paypal with that kind of money.

Lucky the laptop got sold, but after that ordeal, I will not be selling anything more on that website. You pay money for it, but it is not any better than Craigslist, which is free.

I'd say use the forum on Notebookreview.com or even put an ad in your local paper. Ebay is headed downhill on an express train.

pbjag

Another option would be to sell them on amazon. Although I have never sold a laptop there, I have sold some electronics and it was pretty easy. You may have to absorb some of the shipping costs, because Amazon sets fixed shipping credits, but you can factor that into your selling price.

nerd

For the X40, try the Marketplace forum on Thinkpads.com:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/

ScottC

I sell a LOT on ebay (Powerseller) and NEVER have problems with fake buyers.

I have the following settings:

Block buyers who:

Are registered in countries to which I don't ship (I ONLY ship to the US)
Have a feedback score of -1 or lower
Have received 2 Unpaid Item strikes in the last 30 days
Don't have a PayPal account

I sometimes get the odd email asking me to ship to Nigeria, but I simply ignore those. Scammers don't have paypal accounts since it's too easy to track them down.

Sometimes the buyer will pay with an unconfirmed address, and I'll simply refund them and ask them to confirm their address, every single one of them has and pays again. I NEVER ship to unconfirmed addresses since Paypal won't protect me if I do.

As for Paypal; as long as you follow the rules (ship within 7 days, ship to a confirmed address and ship with tracking/signature) you will never get in trouble, I've had tens of thousands go through Paypal without a single incident.

Too many people just list their stuff and ship to the first person that comes along, and THOSE people will and do get ripped off. Stick to a few simple rules and you won't get any problems at all. I've sold Notebooks for as high a $4500 on Ebay.

osamede

None of that stops them from sending you "questions" about your item via the "Ask seller a question" button on your action page. That funciton is not limited to people in countries yu haev declined to sell to. Why - ask Ebay, they couldnt explain to me

I am not joking, just last week on a laptop I had like 20 scamemrs a day asking "questions". Vast majority from China at first.

What is worse is by the end of the week, many of those questions were coming fror accounts with UK and European addresses. How I dont know, but it was basically all the same form letter.

I have no idea what Ebay has done trying to get market share in China, but they have royally screwed up, because now they have let a gigantic plague of scammers into the sytem, which is going to put people off from listing things there at all.

As usual, greed has got the better of Ebay.