How is Photo.net classified (in practice)?

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>I want to sell some of my equipments. Knowing the potential troubles and hassel associated with cra*gslist and eb*y, I'm considering doing this on photo.net classified. If you have had experience with it, please share it. Just let me know how effective it is.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>I've had much better resu;ts selling on eBay and on CraigList than on the photo.net classifieds. I posted a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens here last year and got no responses at all. I ended up selling it on eBay for $200 more than the price I'd posted here. Yes, I had to pay fees, but at least I got some interest on eBay.</p>

<p>I know as far as craigslist goes, there are a lot of scams/scammers. Not sure about ebay...</p>

<p>I've sold plenty of stuff here and on ebay. PN members are less likely to pay a "sucker" price on anything though, as they are are more likely to be knowledgeable about what things are worth. However, the classifieds are free, and if you have a good reputation in the community it can make selling much easier. Ebay might get a higher price, but you're paying fees and dealing with sketchy bidders. I wouldn't sell on craigslist, you are limiting your self to people close to you geographically.</p>

<p>I have had good results with Ebay. By which I mean that I sold my stuff quickly and for more than I expected. But, I've also had several attempts to scam me. I nearly fell for one that involved a false paypal site that had me fooled right up until shipping. I actually only realised the fraud <em>after</em> dropping the package off. I got lucky and when I called and they still had it and could hold it from shipping out.</p>

<p>I have also had good luck with Craigslist. But, I do live in a 5 million person CMA (Toronto, ON, Canada). If the deal is in person, in public, and you are paid in cash, you can't get scammed! Craigslist generated the most interest of anything I have used. I got lots of offers for my stuff and quite quickly too. Plus no hassle with the post office for shipping.</p>

<p>I have also had success with the classifieds on Luminous Landscape and sold a Nikon F80 and some Really Right Stuff Plates and Pano Equipment on there. In both cases, it happened to be local people whom I met in person.</p>

<p>I have NOT had success on PN. On each of the above occcasions (or most of them anyways), I have posted an ad on PN. I have NEVER had a single email of interest -- let alone an offer -- result from my PN ads. I have come to assume that the classifieds here are largely dead/unused.</p>

<p>I've tried to sell items on Craigslist 5 times. I got scammed one time, losing a $200 lens to a Nigerian scam artist. Sold items away for cash payments twice; and I've only gotten interest from obvious scammers the other two times. I think things tend to get bad if you're not dealing with the buyer in person or actually know the buyer (such as via photo.net). Ebay seems pretty scary as most transactions are done over long distances. I was hoping the photo.net classified would work well as an alternative to the "other methods" plagued by scammers. </p>

<p>I've used the classifieds here a number of times and I've had no problems.</p>

<p>However you should be just as careful as you would be on eBay and Carigslist. The classifieds are open to anyone to read and anyone can join photo.net anonymously and at no cost. In the past there have been a few attempts at scams via the classifieds. However if the seller/buyer has a long history of posting here, the chances of them pulling a scam are probably a lot lower than if you get contacted by someone in Nigeria offering to pay you $100 more than your asking price...</p>

<p>I've been very happy with selling using the classifieds here. Since I'm not an equipment trader, eBay is a problem, I have very little history there. For people who are equipment traders, I guess it works better than the photo.net classifieds.<br>

<br /> I like the photo.net classifieds because I can look for people with a history here and know who they are. </p>

<p>Bought two things on teh classifieds and have no complaints. The last person was awsome! I buy and sell on ebay - buying is OK if you know what you want and what it is worth, selling is a pain and I did not realize that there is now a 8.75% fee! Excuse me? That will make things more expensive. If I was selling anything more, I'd probably try it here first........</p>

<p>No problems here using photo.net as buyer or seller. Everything has gone pretty well. A few items I've posted got lots of nibbles and requests to hold something, then the people never got back to me. But no big deal, it didn't cost anything more than a few minutes of time.</p>

<p>No real problems on ebay either, but I don't use it enough to make it worth the fees between ebay and PayPal fees. It's not cost effective for low priced items.</p>

<p>I'll probably use craigslist for one of my enlargers that I don't have room for, mostly because it now costs more to ship an enlarger than it's worth. Tried photo.net classifieds and ebay last year and it didn't sell after folks realized how much shipping would cost. I couldn't even give away a large carton of expired printing paper free because of the shipping cost! For local exchanges local ads make better sense now.</p>

<p>Oh oh. Jeff nailed me. I'm definately an "equipment trader". Each sale & buy is supposed to improve my photography, right? Well, I wish. The old "silver bullet" habit is hard to break. But I'm getting there, hopefully.</p>

<p>I've bought & sold stuff on the Big Auction site as well as this forum's classifieds w/ essentially no problems. Occasionally, maybe once every year or two I get a strange bird, but when dealing w/ people you don't know that's to be expected. I'd rather not sell to doctors. The Auction site used to present loads of wierdos, but now you can put in so many buyer restrictions a lot of them don't come around anymore. Their selling fees are crazy though. As far as Craigslist, I can't run any ads on there anymore. The last simple ad to sell a couple of computer monitors resulted in so many scams from so many places, even though I listed it locally, that I killed the ad. And my one experience w/ trying to rent out a condo on there had people that were either just getting out of prison, or still in there! trying to scam their way into it w/ no money that I also had to pull the ad. So photo.net classifieds work fine but remember, it's a numbers game and the Auction site is where that's at.</p>

<p>>> " there had people that were either just getting out of prison, or still in there! trying to scam their way into it w/ no money"</p>

<p>That's worse than the worst I have heard of.</p>

<p>I did a couple deals here, but got ripped off once, so I stopped. ($50, but it's the thought that counts.)<br>

I used to buy from E-Bay, but don't any more. Last summer I sold off a ton of film gear through Craigslist, which was very easy.</p>