Good Place to sell a laptop

[wingman]

I am trying to sell my Dell 5100 to give me enough money to buy the T series of my dreams (I am a poor student). I have had it on ebay twice. People have tried to burn me twice on it. I don't mind selling or buying cheap stuff ($100 or less) on ebay, cause I am pretty careful about getting burned. But I am VERY wary about selling this laptop. Is there any other good places to offer this for sale? Thanks in adavance for your help in getting my dream machine.

wingman

[dementedlemur]

Try anandtech.com or notebookforums.com and locally you can try craigslist.org and select the city near you.

[whizkid]

I still kind of like eBay. I'm sorry you had some bad experiences.

The thing that's great about eBay for sellers is that everybody who buys goes there and searches for exactly what they want. So by the time your page comes up, people are pretty serious. I think it's a seller's market.

That being said, I just bought another 600X from eBay that I'm about to pick up at the post office. I hope it's everything that was promised.

[K. Eng]

arstechnica openforums is a good place to sell stuff. They come down pretty hard on trolls, so there's not too much to worry about there.

[wingman]

Thanks everyone, I am going to try posting some other forums.

Wingman

[brainpicker]

Anywhere but eBay in my opinion. Let me give you a rundown of what has happened to just one member I know in just the past month.

First, he was sold a stolen laptop. When ebay was informed they sent back an e-mail stating they can't get involved. They even to this day refuse to cancel the account of the seller of the stolen laptop. This seller was thus able to leave negative feedback for the buyer of his stolen merchandise 4 weeks after eBay was informed! Yes, they were told of the police report and investigation, and yes they were told of the voiding of the warranty by the manufacturer after their investigation. But eBay does not care. Even eBays fuly owned PayPal division has yet to pay the buyer his money back!

Next, on the selling side this person has had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get around all the scammers that are killing the sale of any item of value on eBay. Some of these scams involve buying your item and then imediately leaving negative feedback before you even have a chance to see your item was sold. Others steal eBay, PayPal, and credit card accounts then buy your item using this information. Since the sale is to a buyer with perfect feedback and the credit card accepts the sale through PayPal you ship the item... but then two days later you are informed by eBay & PayPal that the money is being taken from you because the accounts were reported stolen. No matter what you are told PayPal does NOT protect you on the selling side for items that cost more than $1000 (and even if it's less they will fight to not pay you back). The worst part of all of this is that while you are fighting to get back your money and your reputation from sales that eBay has told you are not valid, they do not remove the bad feedback or give you your selling fees back without a fight! And even IF the coments are finally removed the effect on your score is permanent (eBay will not add the points back to your score no matter what). So eBay KNOWS the sales are not valid yet they keep your money and take your reputation hostage for weeks before making things only partially right, if at all. And you NEVER get your listing fees back, even on invalid sales.

There's more (MUCH more!) but I'll stop here as that should be enough to scare the hell out of you when it comes to selling ANY computer item on eBay. How do I know all this? Well, this person I know who went through all this (and more) is ME... a long-time eBay member who won't sell any item of value there again. I've called and had hour-long conversations with eBay and still can't get things right, so I'm done forever. Like I said, there's MUCH more going on too.

If this don't get you to sell at one of the other spots recommended here by the others then I wish you well.

Yak

[wingman]

Oh you don't have to tell me about ebay problems. I know people who have been scammed and cheated. I remember back in the good old days of the internerd when ebay was supported by private sellers; now it has kind of morphed into a professional marketplace (not that there is anything wrong with that). But the scammers are out there and they are good a what they do. My first auction for my laptop "entitled" me to no less than 6 emails to end my auction early and send my laptop to Nigeria, next day Fedex. Now if I didn't know better, I would think that every person has a child that is in school in Nigeria who was taking exams soon and needed MY laptop RIGHT NOW! ahahha, which is not to say that they target just ebay, as I have found them on various automotive forums as well.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions all!

wingman

[farmer kev]

The Nigerians even try that on guys selling old farm tractors.

It does seem I have had more proablems with computer transactions than most other catagories, machine shop tools and supplys are a lot more straight forward.

If I were to sell on ebay, (and I have bought a bunch of stuff there), US and Canadian buyers only, genuine United States Postal Service money orders only or Canada's equivelent.


BTW, did you know that either party listed on a USPS mo can cash it?

[brainpicker]

Try selling on Craigslist ( www.craigslist.org ). You can list it local there or sell anywhere. It's a great community.

Yak