Selling and sending a guitar on eBay, is it safe?

[singlecoil]

Has anyone here done that and got away with it? I personally would be extremely wary of sending a guitar to somebody knowing that they might decide they don't like it, and could send it back, maybe after gigging it a few times, and get their money back. Or claim they hadn't received it in the first place.

And yet I see plenty of listings where people seem quite happy to send a guitar, so am I worrying unnecessarily?

[singlecoil]

Jazzy Jefferson said:

What guitar is it out of curiosity? Never know.. someone on here might take you up on it.

It's a Gibson SG (will check which exact model when I get home), but I'm really more of a Fender-preferring sort of person, so the plan is to go for a Telecaster instead. Selling rather than swapping would seem to offer the best choice in the Tele, hence my query re eBay.

At the moment I'm thinking of putting it on eBay as cash on collection only.

[singlecoil]

davidd said:

I know two people who are looking for SG's if you give me the details I'll pass them on..

It's the SGS-HCCH1 with Gibson case, 2010.

Here's a link
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SGSHCCH/

I'll pm you about it.

[singlecoil]

gpo746 said:

Genuinely OP be very very careful.
E Bay have made it way too easy for the scammers to take the rip now.
Its become an almost free trial site now. Great if your a scamming lying buyer NOT great if your an honest seller.
As regards listing it as on collection only - you can still get a buyer clicking then paying on e bay then kicking up a fuss - personal experience not "a story" and only last week. A large bulky item listed as for parts non working etc - horror story for me.

If you do list it and get a local buyer then best way if you want to avoid fees is to just kill the auction.
Please don't risk losing your dosh and your item by sending it out.

I take your point about a buyer paying with PayPal and then collecting, I would never let anyone do that and recently I cancelled a PP payment because the buyer was collecting, and made him bring cash instead.

I've decided that whatever I do with the guitar I certainly won't be sending it, I was already pretty much decided on that before starting this thread but I asked the question anyway because I couldn't understand why other sellers are prepared to do it, but I guess they are just bigger risk takers than I am.

[singlecoil]

badmastard said:

If you know anyone that maybe interested then let me know

I think the thing with guitars is that people can be interested if the price is below a certain level, and not so interested, or even completely uninterested, if it's above that. So it's all about the price, really.