I have sold stuff on Craigslist before. However in most cases I have ended up giving stuff away because when I tried to sell for a price I got no responses. I know people that sell stuff on Craigslist for a living and also know people that have almost gotten scammed. It's important to read the suggestions from Craigslist regarding avoiding scams and also use good common sense.
I have purchased items posted on craigslist without any problems. I have not sold anything yet, I am thinking about selling my car soon with the help of friend who has had great success selling cars on the forum.
I've bought and sold on craigslist and other sites like it. The is trick to a good experience seems to be getting straight to the point. Informative listings that give detailed, no fluff descriptions of your items is the best way to go. I also make sure I arrange everything by email and sell to people who are in the same city as I am. I usually get whatever I need sold in a few days after the listing goes up.
About 5 years ago I sold over $5,000 worth of furniture and other items because I was moving from a large home to a smaller one. I needed to get rid of some things pretty fast. A friend suggested a garage sale and I was not into that at all. So I chose to sell on Craigslist. It was free, I took pictures of each item I sold and usually got a buyer within 24-48 hours. You get an email from interested buyers, if they are serious they will give you their number. Usually if someone is trying to get you to lower your price, more often than not, they are not serious. Decide on a neutral place to meet and complete the sale. Craigslist suggest that you only do business with people locally. When you start dealing with people outside of your state that's when you can set yourself up to possibly be scammed.
I haven't done either on craiglist, which I think is not very popular in the UK. There is another classifieds website called gumtree, though, which is more popular with UK sellers.
I've only bought something once from Craigslist and the process went very smooth. The guy put an ad on the website giving his name and number. I called him and he set up with me a time to come to his home and see a computer he was selling - a macbook. We did have a little communication issues, because I would call him and he wouldn't answer and then he'd seem to call back right when I wasn't near my phone. But we met up, however, I check out the computer and it was exactly like his ad described it and the way he described it over the phone. He plugged everything up and was pretty straight-forward and honest about what I was purchasing (in my ignorance I eventually realized that the macbook was waaaay too old, and even for the lost price I paid, it wasn't worth it). Still the process went smoothly.
I have only advertised for a garage sale on craigslists. And a couple people even emailed me prior asking if they could drop by a day early and purchase certain items, and I agreed. They all implied they would be coming and not a single person actually showed up. Luckily, the garage sale went very well the next day and those items all sold. But it just goes to show you have to expect a certain degree of sketchiness with some people when using this type of website.
Yeah I have bought stuff from them and never faced any problem. They key to getting best deals is to stay away from offers that sound too good to be true. Another tip, if possible meet the seller and check out the product before shelling out your hard earned cash.
I sell on craigslist all the time. I have even sold things that needed to be shipped through craigslist. Selling on there is perfectly safe if you follow a few basic rules. 1) Do not accept anything other than cash for in person transactions. I always write "cash only" in my ad. It keeps scammers away. 2) Use the anonymous email option and don't reply to one word emails or responses written in broken English. These are usually spammers or scammers. 3) If your price is firm state that in the ad and reiterate it before arranging to meet up. That way if they are planning to negotiate they will probably say no thanks before you waste your time, or if they do still try you can easily say "As my ad said and I told you before, my price is firm." If you're willing to negotiate, set a dollar amount in your mind that you won't go lower than and stick to it. 4) If meeting in person, meet in a public place, like a starbucks. Like a previous poster, I am female and when I was single I wanted to be extra safe, so I would get there early, make like I was reading a book or something (maybe even get a coffee), and let them leave first. Now I just make my 6'4 husband go. 5) If mailing an item have them pay through paypal. Paypal will tell you if its "ok to ship". You can have them send the payment as goods, which means they can dispute the item if they have a problem with it, but they will have to ship it back to you at their own expense with delivery confirmation and paypal will not reverse payment until you verify that it's in your hands and in the same quality as you sold it. If you have them pay as personal they cannot dispute at all. Also, post pics because people generally pass up items without pics.
I have sold many many items of mine on craigslist and i have made money you do have to be careful sometimes there is scams but you will know right away if it's a scam people who claim to be in another country and will western union you the money things like that are scams you could also post your stuff and put a subject for the buyers to put with their email so that you know they are real. I haven't had any problems selling on craigslist it's a really good site to sell
I tried to sell a vehicle on it once, and all I got replies from were fraud artists. I check every name that sent me a reply (and you could tell by the e-mail address) on Google and sure enough they came up as a scam. I have found in Canada anyways that Kijiji is a much better alternative.
There's a bunch of scammers on Craigslist it would be difficult to sell a vehicle. I'm sure people will just find out where you live, and say that they don't want it. Then they will show up when you're not expecting it and try to steal the car. I'm sure there are some sick people out there who would try to steal the car.
With any place online you have to be careful when buying and selling. I've heard good things and bad things about craigslist. I know for a fact there is scams running all the time on craigslist. People putting items on there for sale, items that will get a large amount of responses from people but all the advertiser is after is their email addresses. That's when the usual spam starts streaming through to your email.
Well I haven't bought or sold anything on Craigslist yet, since I can find what I need from Ebay and other online stores already. But like what they say, there's always a first time right? So who knows, I might just buy there in the future.
I use Craigslist all the time, both for buying and selling, as well as the free stuff I can't sell, but need to get rid of sometimes. I have never had any problems, and if I am not sure about the person, I usually set up a meeting somewhere , instead of my house. I think you have to be careful about scams, no matter where you are listing or buying something, and it is pretty easy to spot the scammer ads usually. Other than that, I think it is a great way to buy or sell something.
I've bought some outdated electronics from there for a very cheap price. I think Craigslist is very useful for those who have items that are not too fitting to be sold on eBay so I mostly check it out for when I am looking for those types of things. I haven't really tried selling anything on there except for my services as a web designer and so far I haven't been scammed thankfully. I guess it is all a matter of doing your due diligence and do some background checks on who you are dealing with. You can probably even ask some references from them if it is not readily available online, if they are serious about doing business then they should have no problems with this.
I've done a few deals through Craigslist. My dad bought a calculator I needed for a math class for less than half the usual cost. I sold an English textbook through there. I bought two bar stools almost a year ago and sold them a couple of months ago for double what I bought them for. I did that deal in a Kmart parking lot. I've never had a problem with a purchase or a sale through Craigslist.
About 6 years ago I sold several pieces of furniture on Craigs List, about 5,000 worth of furniture and some exercise equipment. I sold it in a short period of time and it didn't cost me one dime to sell. That was at least 5-6 years ago, a little before Craigs List started having a problem with scammers and the like. In the past couple of years, when I've attempted to sell from Craigs List, I end up getting bombarded with emails from people trying to sell me something, and not really interested in what I am selling.
Ever since I bought an iPod touch where the volume control was not working, I have stayed away from Craigslist. Perhaps because I was a novice buyer that I did not know how to check for defects but I certainly learnt it's not worth it looking for deals on Craigslist. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. These days, I just post on Craigslist if I am giving out my old books or furniture. There's always somebody who will need it and that way I have saved on disposal fees too.
