Several years ago I bought a piece of equipment for about $13,000. I used the shit out of it and kept it in good condition but I dont see myself getting back into it. I’m expecting to get about $6000 for it but since it was delivered on a pallet, shipping it is out of the question.
Feels like a bad idea to accept a check/QuickPay/venmo/anything that can be canceled afterward so am I stuck with cash?
And are there better sites for this than Craigslist? I don’t have Facebook.
I’m just wondering how people sell cars and whatnot, it can’t always be cash, can it? How are people safely selling things for 5 figures?
Cashiers check is perfectly safe
Private party sales of cars in the USA use cash, yes. A fairly safe way to do this for a car is to do the sale in the lobby of the seller’s bank or credit union. In specific detail, the buyer arrives and inspects the car to their satisfaction, they fill in most of the vehicle title transfer form but withhold the signature, then they go to the teller where the buyer produces the cash, the teller counts the funds and deposits it to the seller’s account, and finally the buyer and seller sign the title transfer.
In this way, the buyer’s risk is minimized (they’re meeting in a quasi public place with cameras, so gunpoint robbery would be unlikely) and the seller’s risk is minimized (they don’t even have to handle or count the cash, so a bad buyer can’t even rob them after the sale).
Not sure if this would be applicable to OP’s situation, but it might be adaptable if the seller’s bank is nearby and each party makes their own way to the bank to complete the sale, after inspecting the object.
Note: if instead of cash, the buyer pays with an official or cashier’s check, then this whole procedure is still valid because the seller doesn’t have to deal with the risk of a bad check: their bank has procedures to verify on-the-spot the funds on an official or cashier’s check issued by another institution. For a personal check though, such checks have a TOCTTOU problem, so sellers should not accept such checks for the sale.
Cash is the only safe answer. Everything else can be reversed or manipulated. $6000 cash can fit in a letter envelope. I sold a car for $8000 and received cash.
If you can get the item back on a pallet, strapped down, it can likely be shipped for $400 or so by companies like Estes. They would need to be able to get a big truck with a liftgate near the item and roll a pallet jack on a smooth surfaxe like concrete. I would make the buyer arrange their own shipping though, let the liability be on them.
I don’t want to deal with the headache of shipping it so I was going to leave that as an option only if they specifically asked. It’s multiple pieces and I don’t have the original packaging
Cash was how I bought my 5 figure car. 10k fits pretty well in an envelope. 6 will fit just fine.