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Gumtree woes


omikin

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I am selling a bass on Gumtree right now as I need to free up some cash, and alas it's one of those that we can't sell or trade here.

It's also on a couple of facebook bass sales groups, with a lot of likes but no offers as yet, and I put it on Gumtree with not a lot of hope, but I thought I would do that before the dreaded eBay. Imagine my delight when I received a message within 10 minutes of placing the ad asking if it was still available. I did think that was a bit odd as the ad has the date on it, but I thought hey ho and replied. The guy then asked the price (again odd as it's on the ad) and said he would pay with paypal and get someone to collect. We had a bit of back and forth but he asked nothing about the bass itself, just seemed to be so eager to throw his money at me. 

I was well suspicious by this time so googled "Gumtree Paypal scams" and sure enough it fit right into the description. You agree a price, you receive a PayPal email saying you've been paid, then someone picks up your valuable thing before you've checked and found out there's no money in your account. 

I went back to him and said I would prefer cash on collection and it all went very quiet.

 

So my question is - where else apart from eBay would you sell a bass? Am I missing a trick?

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I have successfully sold basses and other gear through Facebook. I’ve posted on the music/gear groups specific to my geographic area, that way I’ve been able to do face-to-face business. I’ve not dealt with one of ‘those’ basses though, no doubt the whole process could  become more complicated!

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1 hour ago, omikin said:

I was well suspicious by this time so googled "Gumtree Paypal scams" and sure enough it fit right into the description. You agree a price, you receive a PayPal email saying you've been paid, then someone picks up your valuable thing before you've checked and found out there's no money in your account. 

I went back to him and said I would prefer cash on collection and it all went very quiet.

There's another scam with PayPal which goes like this:

  1. Buyer genuinely pays with PayPal and collects the item in person.
  2. Buyer subsequently opens a dispute with PayPal claiming the item was not received.
  3. PayPal requests a proof of delivery from the seller. This cannot be produced (because it doesn't exist, because item was not sent through a postal service); PayPal sides with the buyer.

You made the correct move here: i.e. never use PayPal for a transaction made in person.

 

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2 hours ago, omikin said:

I am selling a bass on Gumtree right now as I need to free up some cash, and alas it's one of those that we can't sell or trade here.

It's also on a couple of facebook bass sales groups, with a lot of likes but no offers as yet, and I put it on Gumtree with not a lot of hope, but I thought I would do that before the dreaded eBay. Imagine my delight when I received a message within 10 minutes of placing the ad asking if it was still available. I did think that was a bit odd as the ad has the date on it, but I thought hey ho and replied. The guy then asked the price (again odd as it's on the ad) and said he would pay with paypal and get someone to collect. We had a bit of back and forth but he asked nothing about the bass itself, just seemed to be so eager to throw his money at me. 

I was well suspicious by this time so googled "Gumtree Paypal scams" and sure enough it fit right into the description. You agree a price, you receive a PayPal email saying you've been paid, then someone picks up your valuable thing before you've checked and found out there's no money in your account. 

I went back to him and said I would prefer cash on collection and it all went very quiet.

 

So my question is - where else apart from eBay would you sell a bass? Am I missing a trick?

I sold a bass within an hour on Reverb to someone uk based, all went very well. It had been on Facebook for a while and I got "is it still available?" from two Americans and a German but nothing remotely solid in terms of interest. I didn't bother with Gumtree and I leave eBay as a last resort. 

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I don’t think it’s the platform per se

 

More to do with the unscrupulous people who feast on the vulnerable.  
I almost fell for the PayPal email scam years ago, but something felt wrong about the number of thank yous and pleases in the correspondences and when I checked my account there was no cash in it.  Scumbag said he was buying the bass for a terminally ill son he had and I almost fell for it as I was distracted by this little heart string tugger.

 

The scumbags are everywhere unfortunately.  Basschat imho has been 100% solid for all the trading I have done here.

Edited by Black Coffee
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That message  "  Is this still available "   on Gumtree ads,   are mostly not from people interested  in the item.   I've had many of those, and ignore them if there's no other text.  This is because that one sentence is generated by Gumtree / Ebay.  The people are real, i think, but they didnt send the message.

If the message says  "  Is this still available "  plus a bit more like  " can you tell me about the condition "  then this is a genuine message, rather than a Gumtree generated  sentence  (always the same one line sentence  )

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22 hours ago, omikin said:

I am selling a bass on Gumtree right now as I need to free up some cash, and alas it's one of those that we can't sell or trade here.

It's also on a couple of facebook bass sales groups, with a lot of likes but no offers as yet, and I put it on Gumtree with not a lot of hope, but I thought I would do that before the dreaded eBay. Imagine my delight when I received a message within 10 minutes of placing the ad asking if it was still available. I did think that was a bit odd as the ad has the date on it, but I thought hey ho and replied. The guy then asked the price (again odd as it's on the ad) and said he would pay with paypal and get someone to collect. We had a bit of back and forth but he asked nothing about the bass itself, just seemed to be so eager to throw his money at me. 

I was well suspicious by this time so googled "Gumtree Paypal scams" and sure enough it fit right into the description. You agree a price, you receive a PayPal email saying you've been paid, then someone picks up your valuable thing before you've checked and found out there's no money in your account. 

I went back to him and said I would prefer cash on collection and it all went very quiet.

 

So my question is - where else apart from eBay would you sell a bass? Am I missing a trick?

 

Yeah, those scams are an unfortunate part of gumtreee these days. The good news is it's easy to avoid: you want my stuff, come get it in person and don't give me your life story. You'll get a buyer in the end, but it's annoying when you go "oh, goody, two people texted me!" and then you realise they're just would-be scammers. I put my old car for sale on Gumtree at the beginning of the year and I had about 50-50 scammers-real offers. Car sold easily though: the first person who actually came to see it, liked it and drove it away. I still use gumtree for stuff I don't want to post, but yeah, you just need to ignore those people.

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I have to say my experiences of trying to sell stuff on Gumtree in the past has repeatedly been to marvel in disbelief at how many time wasting morons you have to suffer. Continuing the same trend I recently listed a bass, first message was a PayPal scammer with a made up sob story about poor health, the second was someone who asked if it was still available - yes it was, could he come and try it out? Yes- how about an evening that week? Then nothing, never heard from him again. Well done buddy, really great to chat! 

Don't get me started on people messaging you with laughably low offers, not turning up for an agreed meet up, or asking you questions that are all answered in the text on the listing. But hey... it's character building.🤦‍♂️

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I sold my 6 string collection on gumtree when I needed the cash, it's fine for getting in touch with buyers but stick to cash on collection imho.
Lots of the paypal/western union scammers tried to do their thing. Also a lot of genuine buyers too though, it's just a thing you need to deal with if you're doing any selling online. I've had more problems via. Ebay with people trying to claim the item never arrived despite signing for it and getting paypal to freeze funds.

My personal method now is listing on Gumtree, Freeads and Preloved as collection only, I've heard Facebook is okay as well by using the market place thing they have.
I haven't tried it personally but I've got family members who list stuff all the time and have people drop by to pick up and pay cash.

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It's wise, if you are offering something to be collected, to insist on cash and not accept PayPal payments, whichever site or medium you sell on. A common scam consists of paying on PP, collecting the item and then clawing back the payment on the grounds that it has not been received. As the seller has no proof it was collected (getting someone to sign a receipt won't necessarily protect you because the buyer can easily claim it's a forgery) and PayPal is well known for siding with buyers, you can end up empty-handed.

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If you can sell the bass, and get that cash in hand, navigating through all the time consuming knuckle draggers and scammers will all be worthwhile. You can also be safe in the knowledge that you haven't given a penny to eBay or PayPal - two corporations who are totally okay with allowing unscrupulous buyers to screw over sellers and don't even bother to properly investigate the cases.

Edited by EdLib-3
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4 minutes ago, EdLib-3 said:

You can also be safe in the knowledge that you haven't given a penny to eBay or PayPal - two corporartions who are totally okay with allowing unscrupulous buyers to screw over sellers and don't even bother to properly investigate the cases.

You know that Gumtree is owned by eBay right?

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