He really is an amazing person!
Nothing but pure admiration for Mr. P...
He, his wife, and Mr. "Size 14", will be welcomed with open arms and a place to stay anytime they want to come and visit.
A similar shout out goes to T_G and Pinballer22, for also going the extra "EXTRA" mile last year.

As for the "woes"...
Not much action here, fortunately!

I've found myself in some stranger's basement hunting for pinball only once- luckily, he was not naked with his junk tucked between his legs playing "Goodbye Horses", so I felt no immediate danger.
The only thing more frightening than that scenario, was the condition of his F-14.
I politely said, "Thanks, but no thanks!" and swiftly made my way towards the sunlight never to return again...

Wow, after reading some of these I feel really lucky. I've been screwed over by people, but never felt as though I would end up with physical harm from a deal.
Most of my buying/selling has been done at shows, so I get the typical "Oh damn, I forgot to grab the legs!" kinda stuff.
Never sold anything on CL myself, but I've always had good luck with any pins I bought from it. I always pick up games in the daylight, so I can't imagine having a pocket full of money in the dark at a strangers house.
As far as getting screwed over, it's always been by ops . . no offense to any that are on here, it's just a fact in my dealings.

Most of my pin deals have been perfect. 6 of my machines are from Pinsiders, and every one of them has been accurately described and awesome transactions.

My first CL deal was for a really nice No Fear. I checked out the game, agreed to buy it, and dropped off a deposit with the owner on a Monday morning and agreed to return Thursday afternoon with the rest of the money to pick it up. When I got there on on Thursday, he had it nicely wrapped up and sitting in his garage, already moved up from the basement. Awesome seller, great experience.

I saw an ad for 3 pins listed on CL in the town where I work, within moments of them being listed. I sent an email right away telling him I'd like to look at the machines. The seller replied telling me the machines were in a storage facility, and I could see them, but we'd have to go there with some lights and extension cords to set them up. He also said he already had an offer (that was quick!), and I told him the offer he had sounded fair to me, and if anything happened with that deal to give me a call and I'd match it. A week later he calls me, and we talk for a half hour or so. Seems to be a really nice guy, and we agree to meet at the storage locker to set the pins up to try them out. Cut to the chase, we spend a couple hours setting the machines up, and all but one of the pins is in pretty good working order. One of them won't start, and he tells me "it's probably just a fuse". I agree to buy the pins for my original offer if a single fuse fixes the machine. I get a copy of the manual, put together fuse list and buy a collection of fuses. I call the guy back up, and we head to the locker a few days later, set the last machine up, and bingo. It was just a fuse. We were both really happy with the transaction. Out of the blue last week I get an email from him, telling me he's found the manual for one of the games I bought, and he's sending it out to me.

Not so Good story:
Saw a listing for a 'Doozie' machine on CL. Description something like "Great condition Doozie. Everything works 100%, $300." There was one photo taken with a crap camera from about 20 feet away.
I call the guy and we talk for about 5 minutes. He's not a pinball guy, just a guy who buys things at estates and tries to make a few bucks reselling them - but he assures me that the machine looks really good for its age. I was renting a cargo van to pick up some machines that week anyway, so I figured I could swing by on my travels, but it's about an hour and a half out of my way.
When I pull up, I can see it in his garage. When I get out of the van, I can already tell this isn't going to be good. First thing I say is "Oh man.. that thing is BEAT!" I don't believe I've ever seen a machine this bad. It looked as if it had spent several months under water. He turned it on, and some of the lights did work, and you could load a ball into the launch lane and launch a ball, but I don't think any of the bumpers worked, some of the switches might have, but the rollover buttons in the center of the playfield were so wrecked, that they were pushing up out of the wood so much that the ball deflected off them, rather than rolling over them. There was about 20% of the playfield art left (the rest was bare wood), and when I opened the coin door, it was pure rust. I was pissed for having driven so far out of my way, but I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt as he had told me he wasn't a pinball guy. I told him that this item wasn't working 100%, in fact, it wasn't working at all, and other than maybe a few parts, there was nothing worth anything in the machine whatsoever. I urged him to heavily change his CL post, or remove it all together. He said "Well, I can work with that price a bit, if you're interested in it at all". I said "If you put a 50 dollar bill inside the door of this machine right now, I wouldn't take it for free". He didn't smile.
It stayed up on CL for several weeks after that.

Now that's funny

I have to use my brothers' truck to move pins. So, he is usually always with me during transactions, and even though he doesn't look it, he can bench 275 lbs. So, that's my bodyguard when CL pin buying lol

I always like having a small person with. Someone you can pick up and use for a bullet proof vest.

LTG : )

I talked to this guy too. I was interested since I sold my Doozie and wanted to see if it was the same one. It wasn't.

Since I had him on the phone, I asked him to check the zipper flippers and he said the flippers were in the closed position. To his credit, he took the glass off and pressed to see if they would open with the power on.

They didn't.

I quickly said, "not interested" and he then dropped the price to $150 AS-IS. I replied that if everything was in GREAT condition it might be worth it so send some close-up pics. No replies, and now I know why.

Good CL story: Guy had 3 broken vids (2 Asteroids and 1 Jr Pac-Man) for $300. I called on my lunch break and said I'LL TAKE EM but I couldn't get there until Saturday. He had a chance to sell it to others for days but he honored our deal.

After some board repair and a monitor swap, I had my first 2 games and one for trade. These 3 machines got me started in my hobby. Without them, I wouldn't have the arcade I have today. Although the machines are long gone, I can go visit the Asteroids at my good friend's house.

Bad CL story: Not too unusual for CL. Make an offer for a JP in Detroit. He accepts. I go to the bank and get the cash, call to confirm the pickup and then he went with someone who offered him more cash. That's the trouble about living on the other side of the state.

I couldn't agree more with this! I have some pretty expensive games in the house and generally the games I sell aren't more than a few thousand dollars (nobody needs to be seeing the Tron LE / MB / MM).

The only exception to this is if they're a good guy from Pinside or I have done previous dealings with them. In fact, I have several people from Pinside that I have done deals with that just stop by when they're in the neighborhood to bang a few games

I have to admit I just killed an hour catching up on all the stories. Has me thinking harder about letting people in my gameroom basement (which shocks most people when they see it). My past two homes, I'd corral people in the garage where the object for sale was usually located, and it was still a pain in the ass to say "No that's not for sale" a dozen times. At my new home here I'm just not set up to sell and need to get there. ANYWAY, I've sold somewhere near 600 machines in the past 10 years, about half & half pinball & video, and I've got a ton of stories, both good and bad. In the big scheme of things it's the good ones that outweigh the bad ones.
The good:
1. My first game I flipped ever was a $50 Power Play. It was at a garage sale, random; I wasn’t looking, and it was marked “SOLD”. I happened to drive by that same house a few months later and the garage door was open and it was still there. Two years later I sold it for $800 and the disease begin…
2. I answered a CL ad for “two pinball games” for $1300. Games were a Dr. Dude and Junk Yard. After I responded the ad was deleted. But I got a call, guy said I was first to respond, he got so many emails he just deleted them, and we picked the games up a bit later in the next subdivision.
3. ALSO in the next subdivision, right before I moved here, I drove alone to the store on July 4th to pick up some grill fixins. On my way there I spotted an open garage with a Pac Man. Dude was out there so I backed up and asked if it was for sale. He said it was, he was going to put it on CL. I got out to chat and found out he had two pins inside, a Dr. Who and Last Action Hero. LAH needed some work but it was all switch issues and I popped it open and got it running for him. Then he tells me the Dr. Who he just doesn’t like and wanked to sell. I bought it and the Pac for a really decent price.
4. (Over beers meeting the new neighbors) You like pinball machines? I've got one in my basement you can HAVE, just come get it! (Was a nice Zip A Doo I still own). Related to that, at least 3 times I’ve had people off of my CL ad call me and say they had machines for free, just come get them. Nothing great, but the price was right.
5. A guy I knew that just bought games to flip called me and said he’d picked up a nice not working Black Hole, if I wanted it for $600 he’d drop it by. If I wanted it later it was more expensive. He pulled in to my driveway with obviously a Haunted House. Still got it 
6. (Picture me at a garage sale looking at a crap video game) lady says “You like video games? I have a pinball at home I’d sell”. Went and looked and she says with a question mark, “$100?”. Turned out to be a REALLY nice Surfer.
7. Same guy with the Haunted House picked up a Judge Dredd that he described as being ruined in an outdoor but covered sauna area. It did smell chemically, but for $650 I still have it.
8. Some friends of my wife’s had a pinball they said they couldn’t get rid of on Craigslist for free. I never saw the ad, but I snagged it and ended up with a very decent Kick Off. Even found 61 cents in it.
9. Another Freebie was a Surf Champ. The owner’s kid broke the backglass, they were remodeling and it was in the way. They said they called 2-3 other “pinball people” and no one came to get it. I still have it, it’s nice.
10. I’ve got a ton of stories but I’ll stop the good ones with this one. There was a son of an operator that passed away who was getting rid of all his old man’s stuff. His dad would not have been proud, all the money was going up his nose. He initially called me on 3 pinballs which I did buy, but then ended up buying 7 video games, 2 coin changes and 4 trailer loads of parts. He was the most unhelpful douche I’ve met in awhile, left me to load by myself (“I’ll be right back”) and when he wouldn’t answer my calls 3-4 hours later, I locked up his dad’s house and left. I didn’t really want the video games, but I wanted the parts and manuals and he said all or none. I was pretty happy with the amount of quarters I found, I’ll leave it at that 

The Bad:

1. My first and one of only a few eBay purchases was a Black Knight from a scum in Springfield MO. He delivered, he was “going through the area”, and came by for cash when it was below freezing with the game on the back of a pickup truck. Too cold to power it on, but when I did the next day, after a few minutes smoke started coming out of it. Never let the smoke out. He never did return my calls.
2. I sold a game to a lawyer who bought the game based on pictures, he was about 2 hours away. He would not come to look at it, “too busy”, but we agreed to a deal. I paid someone to deliver and pick up cash. A week later he calls, barely nice at first, and says he’s upset. It’s an import, a fact I don’t care about and he never asked, and that some of the black on the cabinet had been touched up. It quickly went from that to if he didn’t get ALL of his money back including delivery, he would sue me and my company with frivolous lawsuits and take my business down. Nice guy.
3. This is more funny and about a dumb buyer not a bad buyer. I sold an old countertop video game, and when the buyer got it, I got an angry email saying it was dead, didn’t work and he wanted his money back. I asked him exactly what it did when he turned it on and he replied it was dead. Fearing a bad monitor, I told him it made sounds when you first turned it on, did the fan come on and did it make noise? His reply said “Exactly how do you turn it on?” HA! Never heard from him again.
4. And lastly and most recently I took two games to Ray at Thunderball Amusement, a Sorcerer and Sopranos, for him to sell on consignment. He sold them, that’s a fact. I received a few hundred cash, a bad check, and a crap Royal Flush. Oh, and more than a year’s worth of promises.

I posted a puck bowler for sale with pictures and full description. Four guys email immediately wanting it. I call three back and leave a message with number 4 to be here at 9 am on Thursday. I figure they can all look at the same time and bid for it.
The three guys agree.

About 2 hours later, number 4 calls me back and says he will "take it no matter what - tell the others it's sold - you have my word blah blah"... so I call the other three and tell them it's sold.

Wednesday morning number 4 shows up and he looks at the bowler and says " it's too big - I don't want it" I say "that's too bad cause you already own it" he tells me to F*& off and leaves. I end up emailing the other three and one of them buys it.

A month later, I'm at an auction and who walks in... number 4. We eye each other, but say nothing. I watch to see what pins he's checking in the preview and I wait. When the bidding starts, I stand behind him and bid him up up up over and over and then I jump out at the last minute.

I've been to 4 auctions standing behind him.

- man it feels good to be a gangsta -

The really funny part is he probably thinks he's winning every time.......lol.

I am only coming back if you promise no one is going to yell at me...again.

When you say you "posted" I'm assuming you mean craigslist. Throwing something up at a low price, then inviting them all over so you can run an auction is pretty douchey, no?

Number 4 as you put it probably just wanted to look at your game and avoid your horrible selling tactic.

Am I missing something here?

I would have given them my address. F#$%^rs.

"hold on a sec guys" (calls the thug squad) 5 mins later "meet Melvin, Kidd, and LOS"

Just fyi, that is not how I read it either. Sounded like "Gah why don't y'all just play it first". And I wush I could play them all first. Hell, no I don't

Horrible selling tactic??

I posted it FS on a forum. The price was fair (not low). Each guy knew about the others and they wanted to see the machine at the same time. I thought the fair thing to do was let everyone interested come look at it and have the opportunity to discuss amongst themselves which one would finally take it. BTW - this is the same buying method many people use on high dollar items that you find at garage sales -

Number 4 wanted to torpedo the other three. He had 25 detailed, pictures, dimensions, weight and all the info the others had. He is the one that called me and insisted that he was buying it and gave his word. His word. I have no problem if the game wasn't in the stated condition or it wasn't working correctly, but I do have a problem with him waking in and saying in the first 15 seconds "it's too big, I don't want it". I didn't even get a chance to turn it on.

WTF - he knew the size before he left his keyboard and drove over here.

It has taken you more time to read this response than it took number 4 to bail on his word.

This is one of the best threads i have ever read on pinside. Resurrecting since i would like to hear some more buying and selling woes.