By Jess Santacroce
Writer/Editor, The 315
As costs rise and day jobs grow harder to secure, local musicians and other artists may have to turn to other ways to raise money for both our projects and daily living expenses, including reselling. Whether you are selling an instrument or piece of recording equipment that no longer serves your work well or flipping random items, reselling items you purchased can be one of the easiest ways to generate some cash. It can also be one of the easiest ways to get scammed.
The long and harrowing payment process scam
You posted your old guitar on an online marketplace, with the goal of putting the money towards that new guitar you’ve wanted for a while. Somebody is interested in it and perfectly willing to pay what you ask. You just need to wait because the password to their Paypal account is written on a piece of paper inside their wallet. The wallet was accidentally left in their rich uncle’s bathroom when they were visiting him last week. He lives in Malibu, and your prospective buyer has to wait until his uncle’s lunch hour at work so he can call and get the code and pay you. His uncle sometimes does gig work on his lunch hour,and then sometimes he goes to the mall, so it will be a while until the prospective buyer can call him and find him at home.
At best, this person is intentionally wasting your time. They have another guitar they’re interested in buying, and they’re trying to string you along in case the other seller won’t come down in price. At worst, they’re hoping you’ll knock off a chunk of money for “the trouble” they went through to pay you.
The sad story scam
The first Artist Cafe 315 “money from nothing” challenge was scheduled to start much earlier than it did, with a large purple purse ordered along with this challenge’s green makeup bag up for sale for $5.00.
That version of the challenge began very well. Someone immediately expressed interest in it. A woman we will call “Bea” wanted to buy the purse within days of it posting.
“Can you just wait until my payday?” Bea asked in a message. “I’ll have $5.00 then.”
Thinking it would be wrong to take $5.00 from someone who had so little financial resources they had to wait for payday to purchase a $5.00 item, I canceled the challenge and offered the purse for free.
When my husband and I pulled up to the public meeting place to give the purse to Bea, nobody who could possibly have been named Bea was in sight. There were no women who appeared to be looking around for a thick librarian type woman with long auburn red hair getting out of a black car.
Suddenly, a man appeared in the parking lot. “Are you the one with the purse?” he called out. I said that I was.
“I’m Bea’s roommate,” the man said. “She sent me.” I handed the roommate the purse.
“If you have anything else, let us know!” He called out as he quickly left.
Someone who genuinely needed a handbag that badly but did not even have $5.00 on hand to purchase it could have sent out a mass email to multiple charities and service organizations in town faster than they messaged me about my purple purse, and possibly obtained a genuinely free one. They could have joined a local helping hands or no buy/trades only group and found a purse in a giveaway.
I had not been corresponding with a woman who desperately needed a nice new purse, but had so little money she had to wait until payday to make a $5.00 purchase. I’d been talking online to a couple of dishonest resellers.
The excessive safety and quality measures scam
When the person you met online in a buy and sell group wanted to meet in the parking lot of a public building to buy your old set of dishes for $10.00, you understood completely. Of course you meet strangers during the day in a public place. It was fine that they brought their husband too. You brought your band mate. Meeting strangers alone isn’t a good idea these days.
However, when they said they also needed to bring their mother-in-law along to inspect each dish and make sure all the pieces were from the same brand, there were no scratches, and none of the little floral patterns had worn off anywhere, you were a little taken aback. This is well over $200 worth of dishes, you’re selling everything to them for less than a tenth of the price, and your dishes are in used but very good condition. Giving the buyer a minute to make sure the whole set is there and nothing is actually broken should suffice.
While basic safety precautions and quality checks are perfectly reasonable, going overboard is often an intimidation tactic. The buyer in this situation is waiting for you to knock another $5.00 off over the tiniest little scratch on the sugar bowl, or planning on the “expert” making the “discovery” of a serious flaw to demand a huge discount or even free items.
Anyone who attempts any of these underhanded tactics deserves to be simply ignored. Tell the person you’re sorry you couldn’t make a deal right now, and keep your listing or post online. Better to take a little longer to sell your item than to be scammed.
Photo credit: stock photo
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