bluesman Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 View full article happybob 1 Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted June 23, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 23, 2022 3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: I'm continually surprised at the scammers who create accounts here and attempt to sell stuff. And I'm continually surprised by the otherwise reasonable and intelligent people who succumb to scams because they just can't resist the idea that they're getting something better or for less money than anyone else could have done. I've passed on a few things that turned out to be real and wonderful opportunities. But if I offset those potential gains against the losses and troubles I've avoided by passing on the other 99% of deals too good to be true, I'm a lifetime winner!! The Computer Audiophile and Uncoy 2 Link to comment
bluesman Posted June 23, 2022 Author Share Posted June 23, 2022 10 minutes ago, davide256 said: I'm not sure that used audio is as good a deal as it used to be. I see a lot of folks trying to sell used for 90% of new, whereas 80% or less used to be the rule. For a 10 % savings used isn't worth the uncertainties to me. I used to buy used just to experience different things. I resold at little or no loss with little or no effort. These days, the effort and associated risks deter me from the practice. So much new stuff is now so cheap that shipping costs can double its price when resold, while new items are often shipped free. So a DAC that delivers to your door new for $200 is not such a good buy used when you add shipping, unless the asking price is half or less of its original cost. The low marginal cost of a new one over the same item used is a major reason for the decline in great value in the resale market. Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted June 26, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 26, 2022 10 hours ago, oneguy said: As someone who moves around a lot and does a lot of online buying I’ve only had one bad experience buying/selling used and that was from a friend that stiffed me for $150. A friend once pushed me really hard to sell him a small guitar amplifier that I loved but hadn’t used in a few years. I didn’t want to sell it, and he played on our friendship really hard by telling me he couldn’t afford to buy anything nearly as good and he hoped I’d “be a good guy” and let him have it at a bargain price. I was torn because we’d been friends for years. But he was not a working musician and only wanted it to use at home. Worse, the amp was not readily available any more and I almost certainly couldn’t get another one. I lamented my troubles to one of my closest buddies, and his response was apocryphal: “You can always buy another friend.” Friends don’t stiff friends. Rexp, Exocer and oneguy 3 Link to comment
bluesman Posted June 26, 2022 Author Share Posted June 26, 2022 14 minutes ago, tubes59 said: The sellers don't seem to be scammers and are often frequent and well-known contributors on the sites, but it still gives me great pause. ….as it does me! Josh Mound 1 Link to comment
bluesman Posted June 29, 2022 Author Share Posted June 29, 2022 On 6/27/2022 at 1:00 PM, bbosler said: I don't get it. These same people will add $20 to a $100 restaurant tab for a tip and think nothing of it, but ask them to spend $30 for the convenience and protection that PayPal gives them on a $1000 sale and they freak out, or worse they use F&F to cheat PayPal out the fee they agreed to pay when they opened an account I think there are two factors driving that. First, if you do 100+transactions a year, the 20% adds up to thousands. They're making the decision to risk a few bad transactions for the additional money. And the IRS now monitors PayPal etc to tax anyone who receives more than $600 /year through such transactions. The F&F tier is not (yet) monitored. Save your receipts to show the IRS that you paid more for an item that you received when you sold it. If you're selling for profit, gains are taxable. I think the IRS eliminated the hobby provisions this year, so you can no longer deduct hobby expenses up to the amount of money you made from your hobby. Uncoy 1 Link to comment
bluesman Posted September 9, 2022 Author Share Posted September 9, 2022 42 minutes ago, Frank Guerrero said: A simple principle I use, and look for: I always keep the original packaging. Besides adding (more) legitimacy to the purchase, it also shows a potential buyer that I've cared (valued) the equipment enough to keep it. It goes without saying: it increases the risk of shipment damage. No question about it - having the original packaging is both really nice and a sign of a caring owner. The problem with getting old is that most of us eventually downsize and lose the storage spaces we had / found / created / appropriated. This makes it very hard to keep large, bulky boxes. So, for example, I kept the packaging from my Focal towers for years in the basement of our house, but I had to disgard it when we retired, downsized, and moved to our condo apartment. I had so many boxes from things I still love and use that it was just not practical to take it with us and not worth the cost of paid storage space. I still have the original boxes from small stuff like my 1969 SME 3009. I even kept the boxes from my Prima Luna power amp, and I don't honestly know why. But nothing larger than the box from my espresso machine made the cut when we retired. The biggest packaging error I ever made was when the original box from the Rogers LS3/5a monitors that I bought new in early 1976 was severely water damaged by a leaky hot water heater. I don't know how the LS3/5as are packaged now, but when they first came out, a matched pair came in a single box. The cardboard was soaked through, as was the internal padding. It was totally useless as a box, so I studpidly threw it all out. Now that I'm thinning the herd, I wish I had that box to go with the Rogers (currently posted in the AS classifieds). Link to comment
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