Screenshoot or print the correspondence and keep until the deal is complete. If buying over the phone use your credit card.

Most of it is just common sense....if you smell a rat, then dont get involved in the first place.

I know that many of the rarer drums in great condition are getting harder to find, and when you see something which you've been looking for shows up for sale, it's very easy to jump in with both feet, but make sure that you dont get stung by always using a credit card. If the seller insists on any other forms of payment which gives you no backup then stay away. The drum your looking for WILL show up at some point.

Thats just my view.

selling stuff in person or online (other than ebay):

never had problems other than various forum members thru the years on all forums who did not follow thru.

on ebay:

i remember one guy complaining about the actual shipping quote i gave him (which i always do to this day) it was still early in my ebay selling so i told him he could walk away.

another was a guy gave me bad feedback BEFORE he got the items. i contacted him and he said he could change it which turns out he couldn't. so i got bad feedback from someone who jumped the gun.

overall i'm pretty lucky to sell alot of stuff since the 90's and not have any bad deals or serious low ballers (knock on wood) i also don't sell on ebay anymore, which honestly after cutting out the middle man works better for me.

About 15 years ago I bought some green Clubdates from a seller with a good track record. The Ebay photos showed nice dark green sparkle,"BUT YOU HAVE TO STRIP THE FAKE LEATHER "SOMEBODY" RECOVERED THE DRUMS WITH"The seller pulled back the pl-leather back on about 5 spots to show good wrap.I bought the kit for 300.All hardware was there as well.BUT when I got the drums and started pulling the pl-leather off the drums, they had sat in the sun-unmoved for probably 5 years. They were now Ginger-Ale looking except for the spots not in the sun.My question was how did she know where to pull back the skin to show the good green sparkle. She went to a lot of trouble to recover the drums to re-sell them. I got robbed and yelled at her but ended up recovering them with green glittler and they are really good looking drums and sound great.She didn't have to be so sneaky to make a few bucks.And she stopped selling on Ebay soon after.So it wasn't a total loss getting her off ebay. V

I have never had a bad buying experience. I only deal with people I know personally, or by reputation electronically, and never put myself into a position where I can be had, for big loot. Small trinkets, if they don't show up, or are hammered, yawn. Anyone sending big paper to a random stranger, expecting the best, should take full credit for the worst happening. :2Cents: