Selling some GameGear stuff on craigslist, what to do?

[recorderdude]

Couldn't think of where to put this, so I guess this will have to do.

I'm a little worried about some gamegear items I listed on craigslist (to be exact, Two Faulty GGs for repair, 3 Copies of sonic 2, 2 copies of sonic chaos, one copy of sonic 1 and 4 sports games). I got an offer from a guy who claims his autistic nephew absolutely loves game gear stuff and he fixes broken ones in his spare time. Seems genuine, and, from the time I've spent here, his hobby doesn't seem odd at all. However, since he's around a 40-50 minute drive away from me, he wants me to ship it to him and pay me through money order. I told him I'd sell it all for $22 plus shipping, and he was alright with paying another ~$12 for shipping via a medium flat rate box. My question is: is this a safe method of transaction and, if not, what options do we have?

Now, I did let the fellow know about this forum since he seemed to be into console repair, but I don't know if he's joined or not. To restate, I've got nothing against the guy, I just want to know if this or any kind of transaction locally is secure (as craigslist specifically warns against money orders), to protect both of us, really.

Thanks for any help you can offer; I'm sure many of you are far more experienced dealing with craigslist than I.

EDIT: He just told me that he got 12 for-repair gamegears for free from a neighbor so he's only interested in the games now, which I offered to ship in a small flat rate box for $20 total. doesn't change the situation much, but thought I'd add that.

[joshnickerson]

I'd make sure he paid first, and make sure the money order goes through before shipping anything to him. And when you do ship it to him, you should have delivery confirmation added to it.

This guy could be total legit, but these days, you can't be too careful.

[Enmity]

I've done one sale on Craigslist where the kid mailed me a $20 for something I listed for $12 and the extra was for shipping. I would agree that if he wants to do it with money orders I would make sure it clears the bank before mailing anything.

[Gameguy]

If it's a postal money order then it should be safe, just cash it at the post office. They'll only cash it there if it's been verified as valid, there's no waiting for it to clear. Money orders were created by the postal service as a secure way to send money through the mail for people without chequing accounts, it's a safe way to send payments. If you get money orders from a bank or cash any at a bank, it would take a few days to clear as they send them elsewhere to be verified. In this case if they're counterfeit the money will be taken back from your account.

Craigslist warns against sending money orders or cash as it's easy to get ripped off as a buyer, once a seller has the money it's not like it's recoverable. If you don't get anything mailed in return you're on your own, craigslist doesn't want to get involved. That and people will know your full name and address, usually it's recommended to meet in a public place to buy or sell anything.

If it was me I would have been firm with the price, I wouldn't bother splitting anything up as the broken systems aren't desirable on their own. I would have said I was including the systems for free as they're broken.

[Cornelius]

Go with USPS MO for the reasons Gameguy stated.

Only other thing I'd like to add is that other MOs clear through your bank similar to a check. For some people I guess that might take 'a few days', but I think it is often more than that... like a week or two. When I've asked I've never gotten a straight answer, and tellers will often just look up your account and say you are good because the amount is posted right away even though the MO hasn't actually been processed.

[recorderdude]

So, USPS money order, then? He told me he was going to buy it from a local grocery store that I've been to as well, but I'm guessing you mean it's safer to do it through USPS.

As for the price, it really wouldn't be fair to charge him $22 plus shipping for just the games. Sonic 1 and the 2 copies of chaos are realistically worth about $3 each, The three sonic 2s are worth around $2 each, and NOBODY wants gamegear sports games and even if they did they wouldn't fetch over a buck. Some people *MIGHT* pay more for sonic 1, but seeing a billion copies of it stagnating with a $3 price tag in our local gamestore's game gear bin (they used to display them but now they're just behind the counter because nobody buys them) indicates otherwise. If I still included the GGs, they'd bump the shipping up by at least $5-6 so they wouldn't really be "free".

I was also selling a few genesis games that are a bit more desirable (the lion king, shinobi iii and ecco 1) with all that for $30 firm but he wasn't interested in the genesis games.