There’s a guy who wants me to meet him at a rest stop bathroom to make a trade. What do you guys think?
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Oh…so that was you?
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I sold a broken MC202 on eBay. I said it was broken. I posted a soundcloud link so that buyers could hear that it was broken. A guy bought it. I sent it. He freaked out when he realised it was broken. Weeks of abusive nonsense messages about how he was a disabled man living in a rural area on a remote island with no means of getting to the post office to return it, how the post office had run out of printer ink and wouldn’t get any for weeks because the ferry was delayed by a storm… I ended up paying for the return shipping out of the goodness of my heart, but yeah, fuck that guy.
Do it!
Just remember. Use protection 
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I used to have a side hustle (lived in the Bay Area where everyone has to to pay rent) buying broken instruments, fixing them, and reselling them mostly on Craigslist. While the vast majority of interactions were minor hassles that went well enough, doing regular business that way eventually attracts time wasters. Usually people just agree on a time and place and never show up. Occasionally there’s a memorable one.
One guy came over to my place to buy a nice vintage American Series Kramer I had repaired and hot rodded. Total shredder guitar for an advanced player. This guy had apparently just learned the main riff from smoke on the water and decided he should buy this to learn on. Okay. One of the mods I had done was a phase tap. He didn’t understand phasing so I gave him a quick explanation. He had no idea what I was talking about and refused to buy it without understanding it. I proceeded to spend an hour literally drawing diagrams on a dry erase board explaining phase relationships. By the end he looked like his brain had melted out of his ears but he bought it, albeit with a very confused look on his face. Nice enough guy.
The biggest time waster from an online sale for me was actually the usps. I sold something to a guy on the other side of the country (about three thousand miles away). The day after I shipped it I realized that, while my description was spot on, the title had automatically “corrected” the model number very slightly. I contacted the buyer and explained and offered a refund if he would return it, which he very much wanted to do. I told him to just refuse the package and I issued a refund as soon as that had been logged in the tracking info. Guy was super nice. Anyway, the package slowly made its way back to the west coast to within 50 miles of my town and then did a 180 and went back to the buyer’s town. This package ended up going back and forth across the country for a month and a half before it finally made it back to me.
I’ve had sellers waste my time too. I’ve gone to meet up and buy some gear only to have sellers not be able to part with it.
Also, not exactly time wasters per say but I’ve had people try to rob me during these sorts of transactions. Fortunately they’ve never succeeded. After the second time I made it a rule to meet people on my turf and to always be armed. It may sound a little extreme but it’s saved me more than once.
All in all I had good experiences (well, good enough) and enjoyed doing business in person. I love haggling with people, it’s good sport.
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Absolutely wow. I still find it amazing whenever Americans talk about needing to be armed for everyday things like selling music gear. And that (along with the shocking health care ‘system’ among other things) is why I would never choose to live there.
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I’d rather be robbed than point a gun at someone.
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We need an antidote to this thread quick!
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@craig
I agree with you 100%! Living in America is an absolute fucking nightmare most of the time. There are uniquely beautiful things about it but they don’t outweigh the constant horror. I really hope to someday leave this sinking ship. For now I’ve moved back to my tiny and super remote home town which makes it more bearable (or at least makes me less on edge) but I basically have to sacrifice playing electronic music live.
@Analogic
Agreed. It was never a gun. I own shotguns for sport shooting (clays) but I got rid of my hand guns long before this story took place. I saw what they were promoting in this country and just didn’t want to be another one of those assholes. I was armed with less lethal tools. Still not great but the last thing I want to do is kill someone. I didn’t mean to glorify that sort of thing and I apologize if it came off that way. More of an unfortunate story of doing sketchy things to get by in my past. Being poor in America sucks.
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I’d rather point a gun at someone. But I did have to think about it.
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Fair enough. I don’t blame you at all. It’s a different world than what I have to deal with in my part of the world. It’s super scary to need to confront your mortality for what is just another mundane social interaction in my own life. I wish things were different in the US.
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I suppose my answer would change depending on the scale of the threat for sure!
Thanks for saying that. Living in a culture that actively promotes that kind of behavior while personally feeling opposed to it yet having to endure it due to our class system has made me a bit sensitive about being lumped in. It’s actually really nice to hear you and Craig being shocked by what I thought would be a very relatable anecdote. It can be easy to forget that the world isn’t all that way. Thanks so much for the refreshing perspective. 
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