Following the IWH scam and others before, I thought it would be useful to document some ideas to help keep ourselves safe when buying on the classifieds.

About the item
Ask for the exact specification, model, year and colour
Ask how long the current owner has owned it and how much they have used it
Ask to confirm condition and ask if there is any damage
Ask for photographs – specifically of any damage reported.

Postage
Agree how long the seller will take to post the item
Agree the postage method to be used
If the item is valued at more than £10 the item should be sent using a signed for service – NOTE Royal Mail standard parcels is not a signed for service.
Consider using one of the DHL and Parcelforce resellers such as payperparcel and parcel2go if the item is large or heavy.

Payment
Ask for the full name, address and phone number of the seller
If paying by PayPal, ask the seller to use the Request Money option. This will confirm the sellers name and address. You don't need to respond to this request, but you do then have the contact details.
If you pay by regular paypal, then you will have buyer protection, but the seller will incur fees. If you pay by gift then you will not have buyer protection.
Bank transfer – ask for name of account, account number & sort code. Ask for these to be emailed to help prevent transcription errors. If the amount is large, consider sending a small undisclosed amount to the recipient e.g. 37p and asking the seller to confirm the amount sent. Once you are sure the bank details are correct, proceed with full amount.

Communications – Buyer
Confirm that you have sent payment
Confirm that you have received the item and that you are happy with the sale

Communications – Seller
Confirm receipt of payment
Confirm postage date with tracking number

Obviously some/most of this may be overkill for some purchases. Whaddya think?

Communications – Buyer
Confirm that you have received the item and that you are happy with the sale

Communications – Seller
Confirm receipt of payment

This could be done on the original sale thread so anybody searching someones history can see if they are legit, a bit like ebay feedback

Common sense and caution.

There edited your post.

What was the IWH scam?

some of that's just manners rather than necessity IMO

I like the suggestion of feedback "ratings that people periodically make. DOesn't eseem to be likely as an official thing so I'm DIYing now – have so far added a final comment to 2 threads where I bought something (have wondered whether negative comments is a step too far so for now I'm sticking with positive comments where they're due (and when I remember))

If the item is valued at more than £10 the item should be sent using a signed for service

Mostly wise words, but this bit is overkill. A certificate of posting covers up to £39.

And, to both buyers and sellers… FFS do a Google Products search before buying/listing!

Or you could replace all of it with two words – caveat emptor

use your noggin . There done 🙂

NB – cost of sale to geoffj greated than value of items due to high administration costs

buy off ton……….done

Don't deal with sssimon.

Unless he comes good with my Soul decal… 😐

Most of it seems common sense and manners, I'm not quite sure why you felt the need to document it, but your times your own 😉 If the item was of enough value I would most likely undertake most of what you are saying. But for 95% of the stuff I buy and sell, it's just done with pic's and emails, first class post and some manners. To be fair, in a world that is getting forever more bogged down in bureaucratic process and paranoid to someone trying to rip us off, I quite enjoy the informal and somewhat trusting manner of classifieds. In several years of buying and selling everything has been sweet, I'm really not sure I want the odd bad 'un to change the way I treat everyone.

buy off ton……….done

shrink a bit, mate, and you'll be everybody's friend

A certificate of posting covers up to £39.

But only confirms that you have posted something to an address. It doesn't confirm to the seller that the parcel has been delivered or not.

Doesn't really matter – the key thing is that the seller can claim back if the buyer says it didn't arrive (though with a delay – 30 days IIRC). If the PO decide that that's not true (eg it did actually arrive and the buyer's just pulling a fast one) then it'd be their responsibility to chase the buyer, not the seller's.

if your that untrusting of folk then buy from the shops with all the things you propose it would make buying / selling a right pain so would kill it off on here. ive bought and sold loads on here no problems at all (i had a close call with iwh as it happens but after a few call or attempted calls to sort various bits of the deal as it was a frame / fork/ components deal so took some sorting lol i sacked it as i smelt a rat). good job too . if you use your head you can tell if someone has a good history on here or not its not that hard. and as the old saying goes if it looks too good to be true then it is

Obviously some/most of this may be overkill for some purchases.

It's good to see that folk think this isn't really necessary. I've never used all of this, but I think it's useful to have thought about a full belt and braces approach.

geoffj, do you sleep with the light on? 😉

A bit OTT I think, some valid points but a bit of common sense needed as others have said.

deluded – Member
What was the IWH scam?

IWH/Lee Anderson/BigDutch was a regular poster on here and Bikemagic who "sold" a number of high-value items to people – mostly bike parts but i-Phones were also a favourite – which then never turned up. Disgruntled buyers were given loads of excuses involving emails being lost, no internet connection, out of the country, etc, and although a couple of people got their money back (mostly by actually going round to the guy's address) some people ended up out of pocket.

He appeared to be trying to break into the bike industry (he runs a website at http://ride559.com/ ) and it seems that people's money went to subsidise a trip to a trade show in the US. There have been a couple of other examples of people who have sold stuff and then dropped off the map without dispatching the goods, but IWH stands out, as a thread started by a buyer he'd ripped off went ballistic (1000+ posts) as his excuses kept getting more and more ridiculous.

this really should be a sticky, shouldn't it. 😕