How to safely ship Craigslist sale?

[RecipeForDisaster]

I have a roof rack setup on Craigslist, and got a thoughtful, well written offer for just the easily shipped part of the setup. He will pay with PayPal, Zelle, or Venmo… even provided a phone number. He knows the product and understood when I asked a technical question about the rack.

I feel like this one might be legitimate since he is so knowledgeable about the rack and is asking for something reasonable - I did ask if he was going to overpay and request a refund. How do I do this safely? I know I have to use PayPal sales mode and not friends or family.

[RecipeForDisaster]

He assured me he won’t pull that refund/overpayment crap. He said my car warranty has expired, ha. I really think he’s legit.

[Carm]

Run it through eBay/mercari/offerup and take the fee to help cover you. Good luck if you are serious

[RecipeForDisaster]

Carm wrote:
Run it through eBay/mercari/offerup and take the fee to help cover you. Good luck if you are serious

Won’t I be covered if I use PayPal as a sale? I don’t use any of those services and am not sure it’s worth it for this one sale. It’s $75, so not the end of the world if it does go badly… I’d use tracking/insurance and take my balance from PayPal ASAP.

[C(-)ris]

I would think Venmo would work. If they actually follow their policy once you have the money it isn't able to be pulled back: https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles...el-Payment

[Acer]

PayPal Goods and Services adds a small fee, like 5% or something, for a measure of protection, but I've never had to use the benefit.

[Gareth]

Acer wrote:
PayPal Goods and Services adds a small fee, like 5% or something, for a measure of protection, but I've never had to use the benefit.

PayPal is about 3%. Keep in mind though that there's also a benefit to the buyer, which is a rather ridiculous 6 month "dispute" period.

eBay and Mercari will take about 13% from the sale (and the buyer will also need to pay sales tax on their end). One advantage to Mercari is that it only has a 3 day dispute window and then the transaction is done and closed.

Also keep in mind that all these payment services are required to send you a 1099 at the end of the year if you have over $600 in transactions.

In the end, I'd probably keep it simple and just do PayPal Goods and Services if it was me.

[RecipeForDisaster]

Thanks. I definitely won’t make $600. Now I just have to figure out how to get this rack off the truck…