Was almost scammed trying to sell my MBP. Not worth ever selling anything of value eBay ever again.
If they just gave the cash it would be different but now you actually have to buy that.
Great! Why don't you come here and do all that work for me!
(Sorry just a snarky lead in for my commentary).
I try to avoid selling at ebay if at all possible. I did just sell an iphone 6 and honestly if you don't sell regularly it's a bit of work plus you have fees and have to worry about the buyer complaining. In my case they wrote to me saying that they thought it was a 6 plus and would I take it back if they paid shipping? (No was no returns) So the withheld feeback and filed a complaint with ebay. It went in my favor (obviously it was listed correctly) however the entire experience I would have rather avoided and it took time and effort and writing to clear it up.
The advantage of a trade in program like this is if you are not trying to squeak out the last dollar in value you don't have to worry as much when you ship the item that everything is 100% perfect.
Edit: Of course the money does matter so I am talking in general about selling on ebay of course I'd see exactly what the delta was taking into account all fees and time involved.
One winning bidder emailed me and said "I don't want this anymore." Ok, you just wasted my 7-day auction, thanks. Another bidder simply did not pay.
Sellers get more on ebay because selling there is such a pain that a considerable premium is necessary to justify it. Maybe it's worth it for strange collectibles. For a commodity like an Apple computer? Never worth it. I would sell to Gazelle or MS and be happy with the huge discount.
EBay has so disproportionately put the bias in favor of buyers that it is a true market for scams.
I do choose which countries I sell to carefully, however.
My biggest "I didn't receive it" claim was from an American buyer, 3-4 days after the purchase.
- Sellers cannot leave negative feedback on buyers
- A common fraud technique is for a scammer to take over the account of someone with a good history (i.e., hack into it)
And you can restrict your shipping options on a (mostly) country-by-country basis. Though that hasn't stopped me from getting queries about shipping to high-fraud countries.
Items typically sell for more on a fixed-price basis, don't bother with auctions unless you need the money fast.
I required immediate Paypal. There is nothing to enforce this. Got two nonpaying winners.
Ebay auctions are completely worthless. Ebay could fix these problems: actually screen bids by country. Take a bid deposit. They obviously do not care about fixing it.
If I were to sell on ebay again, I would never use an auction. But even without auctions, people can still run scams. Forget it. For a small seller ebay is not worth it. Maybe businesses find it worth it to deal with all the crap on ebay.
If you do a "Fixed price" listing and choose the "Require immediate Paypal payment" setting, the listing doesn't end until payment is received. This has been possible for years. `
I'll be parting out my 2011 Macbook Air, and I'll only be out ~US$200 after purchasing a new 2015 Macbook Air.
Details: 3 months ago, I bought a new Macbook Air to replace my mid-2011 for CAD$1300 incl taxes (Approx US$1000).
They had an academic discount-promo for a free-pair of Dre Beats BT headphones, which I promptly Ebay'd for CAD$230.
I'm parting out my mid-2011 Air now on Ebay for CAD$950 total, and that's excluding a $40 part I broke, a worn-out battery, and a destroyed power adapter.
So, after 4 years, I practically traded in my old Macbook for a new one for $100 (excl Ebay and shipping costs, but still).
They hold their value, and people bother to repair broken 5 year old models.
Easiest laptop I ever took apart. Very intuitive. I could put the whole thing back together if I wanted to, which is nearly impossible with non-Macs once taken apart. It took 3 hours to take it apart and list everything, and I was doing other tasks at the time. Since all the parts are specially designed for Apple, they design for easy assembly, and therefore easy disassembly. They're not trying to hodge-podge a commodity SSD into their system by putting it in a housing held by 4 more screws. 1 screw for SSD. 10 for case. 1 for wifi. 6 for logic board. 6 for LCD. 3 for fan.
Since Macs are popular, there are lots of guides on ifixit, down to the "Take out this cable by lifting up this part, then pulling it out in this direction", along with high-res photos. A popular system also means a liquid market for spare parts. Apple has high standards and is notoriously incompatible with non-approved parts, so repairers prefer buying a used Apple component instead of 3rd-party parts when available.
Since Apple keeps a tight control on its suppliers, often the only spare parts are available from donors. For non-Apple systems, you can often find a manufacturer still selling new replacement parts, but not so for Macs. Lots of people out there will buy broken systems and then buy a replacement LCD or trackpad or logic board to bring it back to 100% and profitably re-sell it.
Rough Ebay value of each part: Logic board - US$200 SSD - US$80 LCD assembly - US$300 (even with a few dents/scratches, people break these things and replace. Even if you can buy the LCD panel itself, buying the whole assembly makes repair so much easier) Palmrest/KB/touchpad assembly - US$50 (same story: easier to buy the whole assembly rather than replace just the trackpad) Bottom case - US$20 Wifi card - US$15 Set of screws - US$9 1 flex cable - US$7 Total: US$681
Actual selling prices may end up being 10-20% less, but I like to start my prices high, then lower it every few weeks until sold. As I said, price would be higher if battery wasn't dead, I didn't break a part off the power board and if the power adapter wasn't fraying).
See my post above.
[1] https://microsoftsurfacetrade.cexchange.com/online/home/inde...