Yes you are fully within your rights to decline. I’ve done this before.
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How did the buyer pay you? If it’s through PayPal then the buyer will get refunded, especially if they return the merchandise.
In my case, I didn’t get even an empty box back, but PayPal decided in the buyer’s favour and refunded them in full, which left me robbed of my synth. My PayPal account has been put into red and they demanding the money to be transferred back. Not sure if PayPal can do a bank charge back without my consent? I am trying to get Seller’s Protection cover from PayPal.
If the buyer will claim that goods did not arrive as described - that’s it, that’s enough to get refunded.
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Okay all, I need advice. I’m selling an item on reverb. Someone messaged me offering to complete the transaction/ pay for it on the site, and to send me an insured/ tracked shipping label to overnight it to his office because their gear got destroyed this week, and they have a show in 2 days.
That’s weird, right? There are several red flags here (urgency, shipping to a place that isn’t his home, offering to send me a label). My guess is, reverb would list the shipping address as his house because it’s on his account, he could claim I never shipped it to him but to an office instead, and that he never got it. He makes a claim, I’m forced to refund. He gets his money back, keeps the device, I’m out the unit and $$$.
boo, what’s his artist name and where is his show?
Obviously the safest option is to not do this.
I think though, that if the buyer updated their address on their Reverb account to reflect the shipping address they want you to send it to, sent you a shipping label and you entered that tracking information to complete the sale on Reverb, your bases would be covered.
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Is all the communication through Reverb? That would be your record of his request.
As a seller you can purchase shipping labels outside of Reverb. I’ve purchased directly through Fed-Ex because it was cheaper using my account than their options. You just have to add the tracking there.
He as the buyer would need to enter the shipping destination. I don’t believe it’s locked to someone’s home. I’ve never heard of an online market restrict buyers to a location. I can have items shipped to a hotel I’m staying at and I don’t think Reverb is different here.
I’m guessing he’s asking to have it shipped overnight to his office because he’s using the office account for shipping. Hopefully that’s the only shady thing, but you can never be too safe.
If anything contact Reverb and ask them first.
Lastly, nothing wrong with passing on a sale if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Another buyer will come.
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Thanks for the advice, all. I think I’m just a little too uncomfortable with it. Somebody else will buy eventually, I’m not in a rush to sell.
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You are 1000% correct. You need to send it to the address on the account, not the abandoned lot he’s going to receive the goods at.
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Can someone help me understand sales tax on Reverb? I feel dumb.
I’m about to pull the trigger on a synth, but when I go to check out, I get hit with an additional $100 dollars in “sales tax”.
The same item brand new, with my 10% discount code on Perfect Circuit, would come out to around the same price (a little more, but whatever). But Perfect Circuit doesn’t list any sales tax when I go to check out. Why would the item on Reverb have $100 dollars in tax, but the item on Perfect Circuit have $0 in tax?
perfectcircuit operates in a state where sales tax isn’t required for online purchases. unfortunately, reverb operates in one that does.
what makes it worse is when the purchase is for something outside of the US and you’re still hit with the sales tax. it’s frustrating but is what it is.
That’s because it’s a state sales tax and is charged to the purchaser. When a seller adds sales tax, they’re paying it to the state on the receiving end. In most cases, you are legally required to report and pay sales tax to your state if the seller doesn’t charge it. It’s a real pain in the backside.
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yep, but international sales… 
all because the conduit lives in a state that requires sales tax.
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Perfect circuit is in California which is a state which requires sales tax on online sales over a certain threshold, in this case over $500,000 in yearly sales. Most states (basically all except for New Hampshire, Oregon and Delaware) are required to charge ecommerce tax over a certain threshold, if you want to check your state it looks like there is a listing here:
https://www.paychex.com/articles/payroll-taxes/the-need-to-know-about-online-sales-taxes
What this means in practice is that most medium-large businesses have an obligation, but not all enforce it. Businesses like reverb and ebay which do business in all 50 states and internationally default to a state sales tax, generated based on your states local rates. So, unless you live in a state which does not charge sales tax (for example Oregon) their system will generate tax based on that.
Perfect circuit does online business, but apparently, they do not charge sales tax to buyers outside of California, where by law they are required to tax all sales, and most states are the same in that sales occurring online or offline within their tax zones are required to pay state sales tax.
Unless you happen to be registered tax exempt with that site, all reverb and ebay or other large platform marketplace (ie etsy which is the same parent company as reverb, mercari, etc) will autogenerate tax based on billing and shipping information.
Doing business with smaller merchants out of state is a craps shoot, like pro audio star does charge sales tax, chicago music exchange charges tax, music go round does not charge sales tax. You just have to accept that on a case by case basis there will be some inconsistency but mostly there will an obligation if a business is of a certain size to charge you sales tax.
Solida is correct though, in that even of purchases made independent of official outlets you’re “supposed” to report and pay tax on your purchases, this is called a use tax.
Pretty lame, but if you want to understand why one place charges tax and another doesn’t, this is the long and the short of it.
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Painfully so. I’m still getting bills for the use tax on my Moog IIIP purchase from over a year ago. 
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wack.
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I’m not complaining too loudly. There are far worse reasons to pay a tax.
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oof. i assumed perfectcircuit was in OR… naughty, naughty.