Contact on eBay looking to trade
 

I have some T206 on eBay that I'm selling as I'm now only collecting T206 HOFers. I received the message through eBay yesterday:

Sir: Hi, my name is XXXXXX. I am a collector from Ohio, emailing with a question about your Brooklyn T206s on ebay ( McElveen, Rucker Throwing, and McIntyre). I am a Brooklyn collector, trying to put together a T206 Brooklyn subset for my personal collection. I need all 3 of your cards.
My question is this: would you be receptive to either discussing a trade for your 3 cards, or perhaps a private sale? I have collected many years and belong to premium auction sites like REA, Legendary, Goodwin, and Memory Lane. I have NICE graded cards from the T206 era forward, I can offer in trade. I would also be willing to combine cards with cash if needed. I am fair and objective when discussing my own cards and trades. If you would care to discuss this, I would enjoy providing a list of what I can offer. I checked your store and would be stunned if you don't like what I have. I hope to hear from you! XXXXXXX

We then had a couple of emails back and forth and I told him I'm looking for HOFers and he claims he has some for trade. Has anyone ever done this before? He doesn't want to communicate further on eBay and has provided an email address that he wants me to use to contact him. I'm always very conservative in my dealings and something like this makes me very wary. Thoughts?

Thanks
Greg

What is his feedback like? Personally I don't like the sound of it but I am always skeptical. Also, since he wants to take it to email you might do that and ask for a phone number and chat with him. It is rare in my experience, but can happen, that a scammer will get on the phone and still try to scam..

He's got good feedback on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/usr/kings4ccd

I'm like you Leon, always skeptical when it comes to things like this.

Quick look, probably is ok to me......

Proceed with caution. I agree with Leon. Try chatting with him.

Here is what you do if someone contacts you to trade:

You tell them to ship first, once you have received inspected and approved their end of the trade you will ship your end.

Remember, they reached out to you not vice-versa. They need to issue payment before you ship the card. If that is payment via US Mail and trade, then so be it.

Anyone who trusts a random e-bay member to ship at the same time is ASKING to be ripped off. I see posts about it constantly and ask where did their logic go? You have a buyer asking you to ship items before payment. Treat it as such.

+1

I must have missed where the potential buyer asked to be shipped to first or even at the same time?

You missed nothing, I was simply setting some guidelines how Greg should approach the trade from someone who conducts thousands of transactions a week. He was approached, the other guy goes first.

I do not think there is any reason Greg should not give the trade consideration, simply make sure he has the items in hand to spec before shipping his end.

Certainly reason to be skeptical, but at the same time, I have had several successful "EBay trades/deals" off of EBay. Maybe I'm too trusting, but if a guy has 100% feedback with high volume of transactions, then I guess I haven't had an issue going for it. I'd like to think that our hobby doesn't have TOO many crooks in it! LOL :D

I just completed a successful off ebay trade for an item I first saw on on ebay. The major difference was that I knew I was dealing with someone on Net 54, so I felt comfortable offering to send my end first. It might be worth while asking if the person is a member here, you never know. I almost always prefer to trade.

I have had many successful transactions that began on eBay but culminated privately. The most recent being last night. Obviously you need to be cautious but it is worth pursuing to see where it goes. Good luck.

Just my 2¢.

Jeff

Agreed. A couple years ago, I reached out to Tony Etrade (Tony Arnold?) via eBay offering him a T213 Ty Cobb in trade for a few of his E92 Dockmans he had. He didn't know me from Adam, and I didn't even know if he would respond or not. Well, he did and was very pleasant to work with. He asked me to ship first and I had no problem with it (like Sean mentioned I reached out to him, not vice-versa). The deal went very smooth.

Probably Same Person I Traded With
 

This looks really familiar. I believe I made a trade with this very same person. He was a very pleasant and fair individual. He was located in Ohio, and was looking for Brooklyn T206's. He sent me his trade list and I picked one. After that, he volunteered to send his card first, and stated that I could return the card if I was not happy after seeing it in-hand. It was a very nice card, so I promptly sent him my card in return. All parties were happy, and I would gladly trade with this person again.

I should be more skeptical than I am but I went as far as calling a guy on the phone once and we worked out a deal for a sale that is not a trade.

And when I was new to this forum I was a bit skeptical just sending people money who's to say I'd get the card ever haha.

If he has something you want proceed. Only if you have a good feeling about it. If I were in your shoes I would do it but hey that's just me.

I've done a couple of trades successfully before, but you just have to be comfortable with the person and how much you trust him. If he is a member of net54, perhaps you can add an audit trail of the trade on the BST. There have been cases of trades gone very bad before, so you have to be cautious: Link. I would say that since he initiated the trade request, perhaps you should say that you need to receive his cards first (which need to have tracking) before you send your cards out.

+1 Great advice.

I have made several long time trading friends that started out with a eBay message asking about a trade.

I should add, too, that a couple years ago I purchased a HOF RC on Ebay and then immediately went and checked out the rest of his store. Turns out his entire store had HOF RCs in it as he was getting out of collecting them. I ended up making an off EBay deal for his entire collection when I was hot 'n' heavy in pursuit of RCs.....oh wait.....I still am. :)

Jimi

All great advice guys, thanks so much. I think the keys are be careful (DUH!) and more importantly as Sean first stated, since he reached out to me, if we do go ahead with a deal he should ship first. Once I am happy with the cards, then I will ship (with tracking).

Just so everyone knows, I have been in contact with a board member who has traded with this individual and states he is legit. I will still proceed with caution but it's good to hear others have worked successfully with him.

Little late to this party, but in any deal I ask for photos with something random in them, like a quarter or today's newspaper or the guy's right thumb. If nothing else, this proves they actually have the item in hand. I've had at least two deals end abruptly when I've asked this, which surely saved me two headaches.

Ken

You're a great judge of character!

I have done this a few times but as the buyer. I have asked 2 or 3 sellers on ebay if they belogned to net54 who said yes, then we proceeded from there .

Greg - Is the guy a member of Net54 ?

Surprisingly enough, I checked and he is not a member.

Sounds like good advice here, Greg. I'd follow what Sean stated and you should be good to go.

You know, funny enough, I've gotten to the point where I just assume everyone has heard of Net54. Shockingly....not everyone has! LOL :D

He's heard of it and says he searches it periodically if he needs to find some information. He didn't really discuss why he's not a member. For someone that seems to have a lot of knowledge and a nice collection, you'd think the BST here would be right up his alley.

I agree and have done several "off ebay" transactions. T206 collector? Surprising that he isn't already on Net54.....

I know a number of people involved in the hobby, who are very knowledgeable and/or have extensive collections, who will never post anything on "one of those chat boards." In some cases, they simply aren't tech savvy, but the reason for most seems to be an extreme aversion to the type of drama that message boards seem to breed. One in particular recently was shaking his head about some anonymous bashing on another board, and when I told him about Net54's policy of putting real names with such posts, he was like, "Oh, I didn't realize they did that. That's not so bad then."

I'm pretty sure he's still not a member, but just sayin', different strokes for different folks.

One thing I am quickly learning, negotiating a trade is much more stressful than I anticipated! :confused:

i agree that payment and/or cards need to be sent for inspection..I had a deal that once i agreed to meet with the guy (he was local) to exchange cards, he no longer emailed me...scammer down!

Wanted to provide an update. Thanks for all the advice here, it really helped. We completed a successful trade and both parties are happy. He shipped first, allowed me to examine the cards and when I was satisfied, I shipped my cards. He received them today and he is also happy. So I can say that if anyone gets an offer to trade from Trent (you can contact me to verify his last name) he is a stand up guy and a pleasure to do business with.

Greg

As posted earlier, I also had a positive experience, so trade with confidence!