A few tips on buying.

Hey
After seeing that "Don't sell anything ti VincePRR" reading alot in it, and hearing about other things, mixups, scams, whatever you want to call them, i've decided to make a thread about buying and selling online. There are a few general things you should look for and a few ways to help prevent scams and stuff.

First try and find out a bit about the person. Most buy/sell forums have this but as far as i'm aware NS does not, their threads that rate people on how good and reliable they are to buy and sell with. (like on e bay) For people on here they could make an account on Heatware and have people add comments after buying or selling an item(s). The site is http://www.heatware.com/

Second, trying to find out where the person is, what kind of condition the item you are looking at is in, shipping prices, and the currency the the seller is using (american or canadian dollars) This part is pretty easy, just ask some qusetions.

Thirdly exchange information with the person, phone number, address, cell number, etc etc. Call the number and talk to them to make sure it is a legit number.

Fourth thing is working out ways to send money and transfer the item(s). This can be done many ways. First you can do a straight up exchange in person, this is the best way possible. Another way is by you sending the seller money and when they recieve it they send you the item. This is where trust comes in. Usually the person that is buying the item sends money first, because thats just how it goes. If you have to send the item first then it might be a scam, so don't... If you use heat ware (the site i mentioned earlier) the person with the higher raiting ships first. If your the one sending the money it isn't a good idea to ship cash in a letter, that can be stolen pretty quick, but it can happen if your lucky. The best way is to use a money order which can be picked up at your bank or post office. This way when you send t he money you have a way of tracking it via the code on the money order. If you ship and item first you can't do jack shit if your get scammed. Then there is the third person way of shipping. You both agree on sending it to a person or even a shop to which you both send your stuff to. When both items are recieved the person or shop ships the items to the correct people and the transaction is done. But if none on this is good for your there is a last service which is pretty secure, but not 100%. It's called Escrow, the site is www.escrow.com. I've never used this myself because there is an additional $25 or so fee to use it, but if you want security this is a good way to go. Check out the details on their site to see.

Anyway thats about it. If you take alot of percaution and you still get screwed, use the address that was given to you, go find that bastard and beat him into the ground, and walk casually over his bloody mangeled body and get your stuff out of his house. Hope this helps, don't flame because i'm helping people here. Add anything if i missed it. Thanks, Later
-aaron