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I won't reveal the identity of this person or even what forum it happened at, but someone wanted me to ship the goods to them before they paid, as they wanted to inspect the item first.
I initially red flagged this as a possible scam, because there would be no way of making sure they'd pay if I did this and while I have done things like this before, it's only been with people I 100% know and trust, not strangers. However, even if they were legit I still declined for a few reasons-
1) the overall cost of the merchandise, with postage, was already fairly low
2) The initial shipping cost to get it to them
3) If they decline, who pays return postage? If I do, then I've paid what amounts to the item's total cost for postage both ways, for nothing. If each of us pays our half then each of us is out a few bucks with nothing to show for it. Even if the buyer were to agree to pay shipping both ways, they've effectively paid the equivalent of the item's cost before postage just to decline the goods in which case they may as well have just bought it instead.
I can understand something like this for very expensive goods, but for cheap stuff it's either fishy, or not economically plausible to waste most of the item's cost on postage.
I initially red flagged this as a possible scam, because there would be no way of making sure they'd pay if I did this and while I have done things like this before, it's only been with people I 100% know and trust, not strangers. However, even if they were legit I still declined for a few reasons-
1) the overall cost of the merchandise, with postage, was already fairly low
2) The initial shipping cost to get it to them
3) If they decline, who pays return postage? If I do, then I've paid what amounts to the item's total cost for postage both ways, for nothing. If each of us pays our half then each of us is out a few bucks with nothing to show for it. Even if the buyer were to agree to pay shipping both ways, they've effectively paid the equivalent of the item's cost before postage just to decline the goods in which case they may as well have just bought it instead.
I can understand something like this for very expensive goods, but for cheap stuff it's either fishy, or not economically plausible to waste most of the item's cost on postage.
